wednesday, july 5th. we have frank rooney, morning joe economic analyst, and birthday boy steve rattner. >> 39. >> happy birthday. >> no, no, i'm medicare age. i'm going to find out -- i don't look 65, though, right? >> of course not. not at all. >> i want your opinion. my wife thinks that i should get my eyes done. what do you think? >> just a little tweak. nobody will notice. trust me. >> nobody will talk about it. >> columnist for "the daily beast" and author of "nuclear showdown north korea takes on the world, gordon chang is with us. and washington bureau chief julie pace and former nato supreme allied commander now dine of the fletcher school of law, retired four star navy admiral. >> i actually feel guilty about bringing him in because there is

absolutely nothing to talk about. >> yeah, i know. >> so how was your fourth of july? >> it was wonderful, you know that. there was lots of fireworks. we went to nantucket and both worked all weekend. i'm working on a rerelease of "know your value eye." how would you be, did you have fun? >> yeah. had a great time. did a lot of work. >> worked on your music. >> yeah, but unfortunately, no tan. kept a hat on all weekend. >> did you borrow chris christie's hat? >> no, but we were at the same hat store. and you wrote about that yesterday. >> i did, yeah. it's an interesting sequence of events in new jersey. >> it really is. here you have a guy who a couple years ago everyone was talking about who is in line to be president of the united states. it shows you how quickly things

can change just like that. >> he kind of said i'm going to that beach, hell with you. >> ashed he was caught >> and he was caught in a bit of a lie. said he didn't getfully sun because he was watering joe's hat. >> he's still taking the proverbial airplane to his son's baseball game. >> we'll read from frank's piece coming up. but first -- >> that story almost as important as our top story this morning. >> north korea is apparently one step closer to arming a missile capable of striking the united states. on july 4th, the regime fired off the test launch ever what secretary of state rex tillerson confirms was an intercontinental ballistic missile. the u.s. is responding by launching its own warning missiles off the coast of south korea. it comes after that country's

newly elected president said pyongyang's actions responding more than just like statement alone. and in a series of twhooeteets, president trump says does this guy have anything better to do with this life. hard to believe that south korea and japan will put up with this much longer. perhaps china will put a heavy move on north korea and end this nonsense once and for all. it appears to be the first successful test of an icbm by the north and represents a significant step forward for the country's weapons program. the missile flew for about 39 minutes before crashing into the sea of japan within japan's exclusive economic zone. on state run media, north korea says that the nation is now a, quote, proud nuclear state. officials say they believe the test was of a two on stage missile with a range of at least 3500 miles and possibly more than 4100 meaning alaska is now within its range.

>> admiral -- >> chilling. >> -- we've been knowing for some time that north korea was going to cause a serious threat. barack obama in his meeting with donald trump after donald trump got elected told him in the oval office you're worried about obamacare, obamacare is not going to keep you up at night, north korea is. well, here we are six months later. and now north korea apparently has the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to alaska. what is our move? >> as we've talked about before, joe, these are -- it's kind of like two streams coming together. think the titanic and iceberg. they haven't quite crossed yet. this is a long range missile, it can probably go 5,000 miles. it does range alaska. but they have yet to demonstrate the ability to put a nuclear weapon, harden it, miniaturize

it and deliver it. so i would say the streams haven't quite crossed. they are probably a year away, maybe a year and a half. we don't know exactly. but the point is it is another brick in the wall of preparation for a preemptive strike if we can't solve this thing diplomatically, which we absolutely have to do. that is why the meetings this week are important. at the end of the day, all roads through pyongyang will lead through beijing. we need to get our missile defense systems in place, we can't just take those off the table. and prepare for the wheels coming offer in case they do. >> so let's talk about the diplomatic route. we've been trying that for years and years and every time we try that, north korea makes assurances and we catch them lying. you can go back to 1994 which bill clinton held as a major victory. all it did was give him cover to

continue developing nuclear weapons which the bush administration figured out and then couldn't do anything about it. so why do we have are any reason to believe diplomacy even if it is our best and only option, why do we have reason to believe this time it would work when it's never worked before? >> i think we have less and less chance ever it working. i do feel that that is why we need to be doing the preparations in cyber, special forces, conventional. we need to build that option set. maybe putting a heavy move on something is a musical term. i don't know. but we need to convince china and find trade space with china that will convince them to do this. >> why is china reluctant to step in, admiral? >> because at the end of the day what china is really concerned about is not a rogue north korean leader. they are concerned about the

unification of korea. they see that if this thing really pushes, we'll end up with a war in the peninsula, they will have refugees and the end game will be a unified korea. they look at the unification of germany and the creation of that jugger astrona ege egernaut juggernaut. they don't want that. that's why it's hard to convince them to make a heavy move. >> the problem with us muddling along though of course is that north korea is moving towards the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to alaska, seattle, portland, san francisco, eventually los angeles. if we sit back and do nothing, then we're going to have a mad man with the ability to obliterate all the cities on our west coast. >> clearly north koreans already have three missiles that can hit the lower 48 states. the kno 8, kno 14. they haven't been tested at full

you range, but wie know they hae an intermediate range missile. so i agree that they are about a year away. but we've tried a lot of things, but you the one thing we haven't are is really to impose costs on china so that china has an incentive to help us. the trump administration started doing that last week with those symbolic sanctions that the treasury imposed on thursday and the arms sale. but we need to ramp it up. and we need to ask china a question in public. that missile we saw yesterday, that was launched from a chinese transporter elector launcher. we need to ask beijing why all this chinese and chinese looking equipment is showing up in north korea's inventory. because it looks like china is weaponen n weaponizing north korea. >> trump administration started trying to be nice. they had a call, went to mar largo, and that quickly dissipated and now we're talking

about tariffs, human trafficking issues. it does not feel that the relationship with china is all that warm at the moment. on top of the point that was made earlier that the chinese do not want these two countries to be reunited in any form or fashion and that the chinese enabled a lot of this. >> absolutely. >> and let's talk about china for a second. tell me whether this assumption is wrong. admiral, feel free to jump in. i'm thinking the chinese, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, dealing with a client state which is one of the poorest countries in the world, within their sphere of influence, they probably bought off 75% of the people that are around this little dictator. and could get rid of him if they wanted to get rid of him. for china to suggest somehow they don't have complete control over what is moving forward seems to me laughable. there is no way that the chinese would allow a mad man on their

border without having agents surrounding him everywhere he goes. >> absolutely. china has an economic stra stranglehold and diplomatic stranglehold, but the most important thing china supplies is confidence that they are safe from the united states, south korea and the international community. beijing could convince those around kim jong-un that it was no longer in their interests to support the weapons programs or even kim jong-un himself. i don't think what i jink can actually convince kim jong-un. i don't think anyone can change his mind, about yobut they can regime elements around kim jong-un. china has been buying chinese generals for decades now. >> so why not? why aren't they? >> because they want north korea on to actually -- >> admiral, jump in. >> i would just say that this gets back to the calle could you husband that the chinese are making which is a better state for them is kim jong-un even if

he's slightly uncontrollable, but as long on as they have the peninsula divided, that is really their geopolitical objective. the minute they feel they can remove him, put somebody better -- different crack of people around, i think they ever -- that is when that calculus will shift. >> clearly they want a divided peninsula, but they don't have to weaponize north korea with nuclear weapons technology and missiles in order to accomplish that. they are using north korea to keep the u.s. off balance and to keep japan and south korea really at bay. so this is really a weaponization of north korea. and the united states needs to recognize that. >> recognize it, but first we tried being nice saying you are our best friends and let's work this together. now we're switching to on being more antagonistic. so we're gopg the other way about that so how do you get the chinese to get on on side so to

speak? >> you impose costs so high that beijing has no choice. we say you do business with the north koreans, you do business with america, but not both at the same time. you have to choose. we've never put them to that choice. >> so at what point do we impose a cost threshold that is so much that china determines it's to their benefit to balance with the united states with russia and not play ball? >> right this afternoon if china stalls at the emergency meeting of the security council. because we only have a year, two years to get this right. if we cannot deter kim jong-un, and that is a really big issue, then we have to use force. but that you means we also have to use everything in our tool kit short of the use of kinetic options and really start to impose those costs on beijing if they will not help this afternoon. >> and beijing and russia have already decided that they are going to stab nd in the way of e

united states. >> what do those costs to china look like. we've heard again and again that china is perfectly content with the status quo. that they there are reasons why they worry about becoming too confrontational here. what do those costs look like that motivate them do what they clear areally don't want to do. >> last week we unplugged the bank ever dundong. this week we unplug bank of china,areally don't want to do. >> last week we unplugged the bank ever dundong. this week we unplug bank of china, also because it's involved in money laundering. the world's largest bank may also be involved in laundering. we don't know. but once you start taking their largest financial institutions and put you them out of business, beijing starts to notice. it's a question of political will. we have yet to show the chinese that we're serious. we haven't been serious since at least 1994, so why should they take us seriously. we need to change that this

afternoon. >> so admiral -- >> i agree with gordon. and i'll add one other factor that is at play here which we have not mentioned with china, it's the south china sea. we have an enormous equity ensuring th ensure that that does not turn into a chinese lake. they claim it. how that plays up with the work that we do with north korea if we want to avoid it becomes very delicate. i agree we need to use strong economic tools and probably the nuclear option in the economic zone is trade itself between the united states and china. again, we're not there yet. but i think the point is we need to ratchet up these sanctions. keep everything at play and get china to make that heavy move before this thing is -- >> remember that trade between china and the u.s. diminishing trade between with china ands u.s. would not be a great day for the u.s. >> but we're i don't understand t beyond the point where we have

costless solutions. we have to bear some costs. >> i hate to be skeptical, but i think we'll be here two years from now talking about sanctions and being tough with china. lets just take the worst case scenario, which is that china doesn't move because china is not going to move and there aren't going to be sanctions that will get them to move because they will just move and start trading a lot more with europe and we'll end up isolating ourselves economically and then business interests in this country will pressure this white house and any white house to start trading again with china. and we'll be where we've been since 1994. so let's go ahead and just talk about it. talk about the extreme costs if the united states has on to get a world coalition to go in and remove this leader. talk about the extreme costs to the people of south korea be and

possibly the extreme costs to the entire region if that is a decision we have to make if the decision is between that and allowing seattle and san francisco and los angeles to be hit with a nuclear weapon. let's fast forward two years. what do you tell the president? >> this is the lance, the boil solution. and it's probably not two years away, it is probably a year to 18 months where it will be on president trump's watch to make this decision. and it becomes a preemptive strike that is legitimate under international law, you want to build an asian coalition, gentleman in an, australia, new zealand, as many as you can get on on board and you have to use a combination of cyber, special forces and you will have to use long range air from guam as well as three to four carrier battle

groups. we'll lose hundreds of thousands of people in that scenario. many will be americans. there are 200,000 american citizens there. it's a very dark scenario, but if you have to lance the boil militarily, can you do it, yes. do you have the legitimacy to do it when the nuke and intercontinental missile streams cross? yes. that is probably 18 months away. >> and then there is russia. ahead we'll look at president trump's first face-to-face meeting with vladimir putin. >> it will be very exciting. and i'll tell you why, because i can't wait to see how vladimir putin responds when president trump brings up the fact that he tried to influence our presidential election. >> one of the top priorities. >> right? i'm sure are he's going to do that. >> got to be on the list. >> you saw that picture where barack obama was grimacing and looking down at vladimir putin. almost patting him on the head. i can't wait to see that shot of

putin, the first second donald trump says do not try to on influence our elections. >> i'm sure it will be the first thing he says. >> about as exciting as that shirtless shot of him riding -- >> geelt the we'll get the admi 00 that next. ♪ you might not ever just stand there, looking at it. you may never even sit in the back seat. yeah, but maybe you should. ♪ (laughter) ♪

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wrestling match he did with vince mcmahon, but this time it's personpersonal. >> last week u.s. national security adviser general hr mcmaster told reporters that there is no specific agenda and it's really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about. >> that is interesting how you set these things up. >> yeah. so let's see. the question is whether the president will discuss russia a interference in the 2016 american election and whether he is boxed in by the federal investigations into russian meddling to make progress in relations. president putin's foreign affairs adviser says the battle against terrorism and conflicts in syria and ukraine are likely subjects of discussion. another topic important to putin, return of the russia compounds in new york and maryland seized late last year in retaliation for the cyberattacks includings o the o against hillary clinton's campaign. putin chose not to respond to

when the moves were announced late december, but putin's foreign affairs adviser told reporters that patience is running out. >> oh, no, what are we going to do. >> julie pace. patience is running thin. >> we're worried. julie, a lot of things that they can talk about that would be very constructive, they can try to figure out a way forward in syria. obviously any support that putin could lend us regarding the conflict in north korea would be very helpful so china and russia doesn't form an alliance against us on that front. any indications outside of the white house other than what hr mcmass itt white house other than what hr mcmass iter said about what wile discussed? >> there are two pieces. one, a huge question about whether trump will go this to this meeting and tell putin, one, that he believes that russia was meddling in the election last year and, two, that he will be trying to take step ens to try to stop russia

from doing that going forward. because as we've heard from countless national security officials, what happened in the election last year is not a one-off. this is something russia will try to do. and if you look at what president trump has said about this matter in the campaign and since he's taken office, he really has never come out strongly and solidly said that he will try to prevent russia from doing this again. so on that is a big area that we will be watching. but then there is a whole other area about cooperation with russia on some of those topics that you mentioned. and that is where he is boxed in by the investigations. yes, it would be great if rush similar and the u.s. could work together in syria for example. there is no one that thinks that that kind of partnership if it were an open and honest partnership would not be a good one in that region. but forging bonds with russia, cooperating with russia against the backdrop of this investigation could be politically difficult for trump. he wants to work with moscow, he wants to have putin be a partner, but he knows the

political pressure he's in with the congressional investigations and the mueller investigation. >>ed admiral, if you are talking to donald trump's top military officials and top diplomatic officials, bs aashed you' and you're getting ready to send him over to russia, are you worried more about -- again, let's just -- you have a narrow focus on on what is happening across the globe. are you going to say go in there and raise hell about election meddling or will you say go in there and express your concern but then move on and start talking about north korea and syria because there are concerns right now, top three concerns are north korea, north korea and north korea. they are not thinking about much of anything else inside the white house right now. >> yeah, i think your advice is about right, joe, which is to

say for the self respect of the country, i would say tell the president he's got to come in and lead with at least a jab on the intrusion into our electoral system. but yes, we should find sooeczof cooperation where we can. internationally putin wants to look like a player. and with trump, he wants to develop a personal relationship. don't forget he's an int intelligence operative. so on at the end of the day, i think president trump can play on that to work with a putin to try to find a place to cooperate. i don't think that russia can help other than being a spoiler with china. and ukraine i think will

continue to stagger along without much progress because there is no incentive from either side to really solve that one. >> what should the president tell vladimir putin? >> he has yet to in a big way acknowledge russia's meddling. he has yet to say that it's unaccept only. the admiral says he needs to at least lead with a jab about that. i think it needs to be more than a jab. i think that the americans are extraordinarily frustrated that the president is not willing to fully acknowledge it. it's a threat going forward. i think more than the jab is necessary here are and without that jab, americans will remain very skeptical about this president. >> well, joe, what confidence would we have that he would go there with a jab at it, has he even addressed the american people about this? >> i don't think he has. but if he were to strike out with a jab or fairly hard on this russia issue, it would actually give him more political

space to move. the fact that he has not been able to distinguish between russia meddling and validity of his election is what has kept him away from doing things that would actually be in his best political interests. he could very easily go out, hammer -- he could very easily hammer vladimir putin and say stay out of our elections. you shouldn't have tried it in '16 candida ' '16, he sure shouldn't get in '18 or '20. hit him hard, provide the space and then he will find he has more leeway to work with russia in the area of syria and stopping russia from being a spoiler in north korea. than if he keeps the same line of attack which is meddling, what medaldlinmeddling? >> you mentioned syria and that is probably my chief concern when it comes to moscow. we engaged and shot down a syrian fighter and moscow responded by saying we will engage your assets if they are

west of the your freigeuphrates. we need this yesterday. and moscow and the united states are really the chief great powers at play in that region. >> and the senate is in the process of taking away from the president a significant amount of flexibility the president usually gets with imposing or removing sanctions because they think that he is too pro-russia. >> which is again more of an argument for the white house to make that move to condemn vladimir putin publicly and that provides more space. >> he is so haunted, the president, by questions of his own legitimacy that seems unable to stray out on to this turf. it's why we hear him talk about the illegal votes that didn't happen. if he acknowledges it too much, in his mind he is feeding the belief that that swayed the course of the election. >> he conflates the two.

i never believed for one minute that russian meddling impacted the election. at the same time, i'm extraordinarily concerned about russia meddling in the election, that they were trying to meddle in the election. for some reason donald trump can't separate the two. >> but you're right -- >> he always conflates the two. >> the key things if you talk about the meddling, you are shedding doubt about whether he won the laefrelection. if he had more sophistication, if he was a bit more secure, you could talk about the two things separately and you need to. >> if you talked about it, being you would be confident about it and you would actually know that you won the election but we have issues with russia that we need to confront. simple math. but instead, there is what, is it ego, is it a fear of people thinking his crowd size isn't big enough? i don't know. >> far be it from me to speculate on the president's

state of mind. but i do think that he is from the -- >> but he has the math wrong. >> are from the very beginning, he's thought if you discuss russia and discuss what happened during the election, that somehow is casting a shadow on the validity of his election. it's not. and i'm sure you agree with me that we don't think the russians had anything to do with donald trump winning the election. i mean, i think hillary clinton not going to wisconsin and not lnt referencing to bill clinton and not listening to joe biden and not listening to a lot of other people who were telling her back this august, and robby mook decided that he's not going to poll, he says he will look at analytics to try to figure out. there are a thousand reasons why hillary clinton lost starting with hillary clinton being a terrible candidate. but you can say that and believe that and still say what russia did was offensive to our country

and we have to punch them back hard. >> and mika is right, being it would be liberating to allow him to address as we sgued international issues with russia and also create space between him and the nationalist elements in you're room that are benefiting from russia intervention in elections. >> admiral. >> yeah, we are also -- also remember we have some advantage which is sanctions. we are holding significant sanctions on putin. that is something that we should consider as we craft the strategy for working with him at some point. but we do need to punch them hard at the beginning of the conversation. >> gordon, final thoughts. >> the important thing right now is we have to separate china and russia. remember, just a couple days o ago, you had them this the baltics. we're not threat to lithuania. this is something that could start to flare up on us.

>> all right. admiral, gordon, thank you both. julie pace, stay with us. >> i always love the orange behind the admiral. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> are i didn i didn't get any . >> talk about setting they will up. >> the state of new jersey is back open for business after a three day shutdown. and chris christie defends his time on a stretch of state run beach saying he doesn't care about optics. >> also ahead, senator blumenthal joints the table.

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joining us now, members of armed services and judiciary committees, senator richard blumenthal. >> senator, i understand that you went to the world famous boom box -- >> yes, in wind ham. how was that is this.

>> boom box parade is incomparable. there is nothing like it. no longer boom boxes, but such a great spirit and outpouring. the weather was beautiful. >> yor like your iphone, do the hold that up? >> you can use the iphone and wioi is getting that message out continually. >> i bet you have that in your house. alexa, play the rolling stones. >> i'm waiting for version three. >> i didn't even know there was a version one until last week. there will be a version three? >> well, yeah, they will constantly improve it. and i think it will get better and better. >> so right now you just call your butler and say can you can please put on your rolling stones. >> i actually don't have to call, i just turn to him and say i'd like to play the beatles taand it happens. >> how the other half lives. >> let's start with russia. we were talking about whether or not the president should go

heavy on meddling with the election when he meets with vladimir putin. you want to make sure that the russia sanctions bill gets moving again. what is going on? >> that bill now having been passed overwhelmingly by the united states senate 98-2 stalled in the house because largely the trump administration has re60singed it. this bill would provide for much stronger sanctions against the energy and financial sectors. >> why would a conservative institution try to stand in the way ever a sanctions bill that would keep putin from rigging an election? >> the excuse is that it is a revenue raising measure.

>> so it's a procedural concern? >> that is the excuse. >> that is not really the reason. the miss there is mystery is why hasn't the trump administration taken a forceful stand in -- >> so noah, why -- i mean, commentary certain would assume t support the senate bill, right? why would conservatives oppose sanctions against putin? >> i suppose the charitable explanation is that this takes the power away from the white house to implement sanctions that they have traditionally had and the executive branch will fight for its authority versus the legislative branch. that is how the system is envisioned. in the event --

>> that is an excuse as well. pardon me for interrupting. because it actually company cody guys and strengthens the president taking additional sanctions against the mining and rail interests ever russia. >> so that could be an argument. at the same time, do you support what the senate is doing? >> i think it's necessary because i would like to see congress reassert itself. we don't know what the house will come up with. what is the threshold at which you and senate democrats will decline to support a weaker version of this bill? >> there is no question that

this bill has support in the house. and it would be passed in the house if the trump administration gives the green light and the mystery is why haven't they. and i think it has to do possibly with financialing and busine and business dealings as well as the possibility that he is simply resisting the meddling investigation conducted now by the special counsel. >> i think those are all possibilities but we're dancing around a little more high minded issue which is how much power should the executive have, how much power should congress have. a position that the administration is taking is that this puts too much power in the hands of congress to decide whether these sanctions come off, approve things and so on, so forth, taking power that was traditionally in the hands of the executive away. i think trump has nobody to blame but himself because nobody trusts him do, quote, the right thing on russia so congress wants to have more of a say. but in a perfect world, this

would represent a diminishment of power. >> it's hard not to connect the dots here between this president and an unseem ling leaniance toward what would be the biggest threat to make this country in the next ten years especially if our elections are impacted by russia. >> and connecting a few more t dots, putin has to be compelled to be aware that russia will pay a price. it has to be more than a jab or a punch in this conversation on friday. it has to be a compelling statement that this country will not tolerate -- >> what would be the reasons not to do that? >> well, i think that we are talking about trump and russia and we keep coming back to this theme of why won't he just say that the russians medalled in

t in the election, why won't you tighten sanctions. and there are no good answers. and that is the problem for the white house that there is no clean answer that doesn't lead to you believe that trump for whatever reason wants to take a friendly posture toward moscow. but i wanted to pick up about where the congress national sec making. we were talking earlier about possible military options. it's unclear whether this is something that the trump administration is looking at right now, but going forward, what is the role evof congress the president says he wants to take action unilaterally, does congress have a role or is this something that the president could do on his own? >> i think congress has a clear role and a necessary role. i have long favored the authorization for the use of military force to be revised with respect to what is

happening in iraq and afghanistan, middle east. and we have asked as a matter of fact senators cardin and mccain with led this effort to demand that the president come forward with a strategy that would on justify any military action. so there has to ob a comprehebe comprehensive look be and congress certainly has a role to play if there will be the use of military force. but i think that there are no good answers in north korea. there are some very good answers with respect to russia which is make them pay a price in the traditional sanctions. there should be national unity that demands president really support this sanctions bille and get it through right away. >> and certainly there wasunity senate. the question was asked why, why would he oppose russian sanctions. why would he get in the way. why would he -- well, there is

always a why surrounding russia. and we can go back to december of 2015. we had donald trump on the show he in december of 2015 saying what do you think about vladimir putin. he likes him, he's a strong leader, he didn't like our own president. but he kills journalists. well, we kill -- >> yeah, we do a lot of things ourselves. >> and he just refused to condemn the political assassinations, he refused to condemn the assassinations against journalists. and it wasn't until we asked him a leading question, an aggressive leading question he goes yeah, sure, sure i do. there is always a why around it. >> it's a truly perverse thing and we could fill in some of the other things like the moment during that presidential forum when he said putin was a much stronger leader than bochobama. >> the interview with bill

o'reilly where he said you're soldiers in iraq killed a lot of people. >> and at this point it's hard to know how much is pure -- people have been asking him to do this for so long, and he's digging his heels in. but i agree with the senator. sanctions are necessary. he needs to do more than punch or jab at the beginning ever this meeting with putin. he needs to say -- >> and the more he doesn't do it,beginning ever this meeting with putin. he needs to say -- >> and the more he doesn't do it, these questions will haunt his entire presidency unless he does can those things in terms of sanctions and russian meddling. >> people talk about how his tweets are not in his best interests. i would say his continuing to be ob seek would he us to vladimir putin actually undercuts his authority as a president to do so many things. >> i think both of those things undercut his presidency especially on the world stage.

>> because there is no way, senator, that the senate or the house or anybody who actually gives a damn about a relationship with russia and our standing in the world can look at how he's been toward vladimir putin over the past 24 months and not say there has to be something there so if he is not going to uphold international norms, then we in the senate and we in the house will have to. >> and the question is, and i think you put it very well, on the issue of trust, is he putting our national interests first or his ego or his financial and business dealings. that is one reason why 200 of us have sued the president of the united states because the question is whether he's putting the national interests ahead of his financial dealings. which he has failed to disclose, whether it's the chinese trademarks or the payments by the saudis of a quarter million dollars for his properties and

-- >> his first trip of course. >> there has to be disclosure 37 we can't consent to what we don't know and there is a requirement in the constitution that koncongress consent. thank you. >> and speaking of congress, the house of representatives needs to put a discharge position. >> to step up. >> on the floor. they have got to pass the senate sanctions bill, and hopefully pressure will rise on them to do the right thing. >> senator, thank you so much. still ahead, frank bruni writes about chris christie's tutorial and hubris. we'll read from his piece coming up on "morning joe." she's nationally recognized

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julie pace, what are we looking at the remaining three days this week at the white house? >> this is a consequential

stretch for the president, he heads back overseas. his first trip was a mixed bag but this is when he has to get into the details with the foreign leaders. the putin meeting will be huge, he'll be meeting with european leaders and some of the asian allies he's had a friendly relationship with but now needs to start getting into details about what they can do together on north korea. >> and a call with angela merkel, how did that go? >> his relationship with merkel is just fascinating. she is willing to continue dialogue with him, but you know, she just does not see him as the type of american leader that she envisions, the type of strong leader who can rally the world and that phone call didn't really change that. >> julie pace thank you for coming on this morning. coming up, live to germany. keir simmons is standing by. plus kristen welker at the white house with her latest reporting. also ahead "the washington post," bob costa and yamish

alcinder join the conversation. "morning joe" is coming right back. i love you, couch.

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this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ the welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, july 5th. it's summer. >> should we be working today? >> no. we had an argument about this. >> come on. >> is anyone here? >> should anybody be working today? >> i don't think anyone is. >> anywhere? we had an argument here and

we'll let you guess, steve rattnor which said you should take the day off and which one said you have to go into work. >> not a hard one. >> noah rothman. >> noah has to come in because he's got two young kids. >> yes. >> you're going to be working for some time. >> i have no choice but to leave my poor wife at home. it was a total burden to abandon ship but i'm here. forthright. >> the birthday by steve rattnor is here. >> 39, can you believe it? >> forever 39. i don't look a day over 39. >> no, you don't, just a tweak or two. joining in the conversation president and founder of eurasia group and foreign affairs columnist for "time" magazine i ian remmer. >> ian, we've been talking about russia. you have a slightly different

take. >> people are saying they don't understand why trump won't bring it up. i think it's very obvious. this is a guy who always talks about his big win, the millions of votes that were really fake and all the rest. anything he says about russia and the elections undermines the legitimacy of his election. there's a reason why obama didn't push trump hard, putin hard on the hacks when obama was president, he didn't want to look spapartisan. trump wants no part of it whatsoever. >> so we know how bad it is for this country that donald trump will not push the issue with vladimir putin. how damaging was it to the country that barack obama wouldn't get involved in a more aggressive way, even when you had senators like tom cotton pushing him very hard starting in april of 2016 to start being more assertive? >> the way i'd put it, joe, ever

since putin has become president, his interest has been in trying to weaken a u.s.-led global order and the best way to do that is to divide. he has to work so hard to divide the europeans from the united states and he's had a fair amount of success. now he's managed to help divide the united states internally, and by undermining the legitimateiest of the u.s. elections, he managed both to have obama take a weaker position, not act like the leader of the united states, the commander in chief instead first and foremost acting like a person who wanted to ensure that hillary came in and now he's doing that in a bigger way with donald trump, not defending american national security, instead supporting his own personal and political mandate. if putin can help to divide america against itself, then putin has done the biggest thing he could possibly accomplish. >> and then we move on to north korea, which is apparently one step closer to arming a missile

capable of striking the united states. on july 4th the regime fired off the test launch of what secretary of state rex tillerson confirms was an intercontinental ballistic missile. the u.s. launching its own warning inis sils off the coast of south korea after the country's newly elected president said pyongyang's actions require "responding more than just by statement alone." in a series of tweets president trump says "north korea has just launched another missile. does this guy have anything better to do with his life? hard to believe that south korea and japan will put up with this much longer. perhaps china will put a heavy move on north korea and end this nonsense once and for all." it appears be the first successful test of an icbm by the north, and represents a significant step forward for the country's weapons program. the missile threw for about 39

minutes before crashing into the sea of japan within japan's exclusive economic zone. on state-run media north korea says the nation is now a "proud nuclear state." officials say they believe the test was of a two-stage missile with a range of at least 2,500 miles and possibly more than 4,100, meaning alaska is now within its range. >> right now to pentagon correspondent hans anichols. what do we know this morning and what do we expect to learn later today? >> the key thing is to find out whether the missile survived re-ent re-entry. the last time we had a major step forward from the north koreans that may 14th missile there was almost two stages here at the pentagon. there's the first stage like boy, look at how high that missile flew, and then their concern amplified when they saw it successfully reentered the atmosphere. let's see if something similar plays out today. they're still doing analysis on

this. they don't know whether or not a re-entry vehicle survived and that's the re-entry vehicle that could potentially carry a warhead. >> what can you tell us about the military joint exercises between the united states and south korea? >> look, the military spoke with actions. you're seeing most of the response from the administration come from the state department, and that's by design. you know, that big statement came out from secretary tillerson yesterday calling for global action. it's a strong indication that the diplomatic channel is still the preferred channel. yes, they responded militarily. they have these joint exercises. they're really the key thing there is that they brought the south koreans along and they were joint exercises because there had been some distance between the south koreans and the trump administration on thaad and how firmly we should respond, a host of shall us. seems they're on the same page but for all the trump tweets, the diplomacy is over and that the china strategy doesn't seem to be bearing fruit, the fact that it was tillerson, it was the state department talking

yesterday, taking the lead on that, gives you a strong indication that diplomatic channel is still the preferred channel. there's a little bit of confirmation that the china strategy isn't working, from tillerson, namely look at how broadly tillerson is calling for actions. they want to, the strategy is to get other countries involved in this because they can't have a china only basket. >> hans nichols, thank you so much. ian, i guess it's a good sign that rex tillerson and state is actually speaking out forcefully against this and a good sign that it was rex tillerson at state that made the announcement yesterday, because i'm sure noah would probably agree with me, one of the reasons why republicans and democrats and independents across the country voted for donald trump, that may have voted for barack obama eight years ago but voted for donald trump this year is last year is because the question, why always us? it's not as if this madman and

his nuclear weapons doesn't threaten europe as much as it threatens america. why should we be the only ones there, so with that question raised by the american people, and it has been, do we get europe involved? how concerned is europe with what's happening in north korea? and you know, is it possible that we have a coalition of the willing diplomatically to stand shoulder to shoulder against this threat? >> well, i against the way that i would put it is that the chinese are already facing the kind of instability and threat that we're saying is unacceptable for us. our allies in south korea and japan are already facing that kind of threat so this is truly trump's most obvious america first policy. it sure as hell isn't a japan or south korea first policy, right, saying no, we're going to stop them if they can actually hit us, and i would say this is virtually not on the european agenda. it doesn't help the fact that the europeans are questioning the american willingness to

support the nato alliance right now, or the importance of a strong europe, but go beyond that. the two things you need to watch over the coming week. first is that the u.s./china relationship which had been relatively well managed post the mar-a-lago meeting is now in much more difficult straits. >> is that because china is not responding the way the administration wants it to respond on north korea? >> absolutely that's a part of it. you saw a significant taiwanese arms sale approved last week bit white house. you see sanctions against chinese companies and banks doing business in north korea. that's where you'll see escalation, trump saying he wants china to put a heavy move. the chinese aren't going to do much more than they've already done. that is really poised for confrontation. u.s./china well before the north korea war but the south koreans are in enormous trouble right now because they have a new president that does not want to implement this thaad system, the missile defense system, if now we see the icbm if they go with

the u.s. and say we'll support you the chinese will put a huge economic squeeze on the south koreans of all the developed countries south korea by far in the worst geopolitical position. y y >> in south korea the possibility hundreds of thousands could die in a war quickly. >> ian, i look at the front page of "the times" today and it says north korea crosses a line but u.s. has few options. i kind of combed through the statements of members of the house, senators saying we need to do more, we need to do different, but they don't say what that is. what can we do here in this heavy move by china? is there some pressure we could put on china that doesn't have too big a cost that can prompt this heavy move? >> i think there's a reasonsucc administrations basically giving this to our children as something to deal with and it's because with north korea we have very few options. at the end of the day, we could

take a preemptive strike against north korea. that puts 500,000 americans in south korea directly in harm's way. we have to evacuate them before and the south korean market will collapse, no. the only real option is squeeze the chinese and the chinese, you know, are receptive to being truly squeezed. they probably would, if we put real sanctions on them, they'll hit us back but they might reconsider how much of that 90% of north korea's korea they want to be responsible for. >> they might but putting sanctions on the chinese is no easy matter. we buy more than them than they buy from us. they have more of our money than we have of their money. we're not necessarily ending well putting sanctions on the chinese. >> i think it's interesting to see there are people in the u.s. administration that think that the americans could win a trade war against china precisely because we don't need chinese labor the way we used to, their economy is smaller. if we squeeze them they'll both get hurt. >> peoplesay that are in kind of fantasy land in my opinion.

>> he's saying that you're in fantasy land. you have a house in nantucket. >> oh, boy. >> don't go island versus island. >> don't even question that. >> the question is, given the chinese are in weaker position than america, how would they react? >> how will the business community respond, steve, when there's a trade war against china? how quickly will donald trump hear complaints from his contributors? >> it's already happening. the trump administration is talking about steel tariffs, talking about selling arms to taiwan, talking about getting into human trafficking. none of these are things the business community wants from its own pure commercial interest. the business community is already destabilized. >> noah, we talk about pressuring china and sanctions against north korea t never works. at what point does the united states look at the worst options, which is figuring out

how to remove the leader of north korea? is it when they do have the ability as admiral says when they have the ability, maybe 18 months from now to strike seattle with a nuclear weapon? >> as ian noted the costs associated with that sort of operation are prohibitive and probably something we wouldn't engage in the event that we had no option with the exception of some imminent threat. i believe there's probably some thinking in washington as we were also thinking there's a rationale dictator theory at work that they can execute some sort of limited strike and not incur some sort of a blinding response from the north koreans. i hope that's not the predominant thinking but i believe that's making the rounds. one of the things i'm encouraged by there's a paradigm shift. we're talking about active action and even though there's the talk of going back to the table and diplomacy as an end, and not a means to an end, seems like the natural gravity, and we move in that direction but people are now talking seriously

in washington and here about actions against china, even if they incur some cost on our side. that's encouraging. that means we're actually taking a serious look at this threat and treating it like a threat which hasn't been the case in the last 20 years. >> back to president trump's overseas trip. this morning he heads to meet with world leaders at the g20 summit stopping in poland today before arriving in hamburg, germany, tomorrow, that's where he plans to come face to face with vladimir putin friday. last week u.s. national security adviser general h.r. mcmaster told reporters there is no specific agenda and it's really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about. while in poland leaders will be looking for reassurances from mr. trump over his support of nato after he did not explicitly endorse the alliances common defense treaty during his first trip to the continent in may and he may not get a warm welcome from european allies who signaled they will likely

confront mr. trump over his america first policies. joining us now nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. what will the white house consider to be a win for this trip? >> reporter: well, mika, good morning. there will be a couple of key tests for president trump on this trip. first you mentioned it, he's going to poland. this is a country that is going to largely give him a warm welcome. populous government, this he like his policies but to your point they are looking for him to strongly reaffirm his commitment to nato. he didn't do that in strong robust terms during his first european trip, so there is an expectation among leaders there that he do that. so that's going to be the first key question. then he heads on to germany, where he's going to have some thorny discussions with other european allies and he'll have a chance to talk to the leaders of china, japan, south korea, face to face, where he's going to try to turn up the heat on them to put the pressure on north korea

to scale back its nuclear program. this administration has really looked to china to help in that regard. so far, the president has been frustrated. he may have overestimated what china was capable and willing to do, and next of course all eyes will be on that all-important meeting friday with russia's president vladimir putin. couple of key things to know about that, mika. one, this is an official meeting. this is not an unofficial meeting on the sidelines, this is what is called a bilateral meeting, effectively sending the signal that this administration might be open to warming relations with russia, despite russia's meddling in the u.s. election. you have democrats and republicans alike who want president trump to raise that issue with president putin, to press him on the fact that russia meddled in the u.s. election and as you point out right now, administration officials are saying there's no clear agenda here. what we do expect the president to raise is the issue of syria

and ukraine, but mika, if he doesn't raise that issue of russia's meddling, that is going to be a very controversial decision when we rifz back at home. >> yes t absolutely will. thank you very much. on that stop in poland my brother, ian, is going to be there at some of the events, one of them remembering my father. >> that will be nice. >> should be nice. >> maybe they can -- >> no. >> -- talk about ian's sister. >> no. let's turn to nbc news foreign correspondent keir simmons live in hamburg, germany. keir, what is the message the eu leaders will try to send to president trump and what step forward possibly could the interesting always interesting relationship between donald trump and angela merkel take over the next 24 hours or so? >> well look, bluntly, the german chancellor angela merkel and president trump do not see eye to eye.

angela merkel is hosting the g20 and on the agenda are for example climate change, free trade, and migration. so those are all issues where they -- >> three, you are out, okay. >> reporter: the issues they aren't going to agree on. there's that and then there's the meeting as you were discussing with president putin. the europeans, including the polls and of course president trump would touch down in poland late tonight, will want him to be tough on russia. they see russia as a threat. all eyes will be on that meeting, and the kind of power play that takes place between those two men who while they've only spoken on the phone, talk about each other all the time. sometimes in glowing terms, other times in tough terms. so how will they go about it? i've spoken to a kremlin official who tells me the

details of that meeting are still up in the air. they don't even know how long the meeting will take. he said to me the two presidents will speak as much as they need to, which may be a while. >> all right. >> could be. >> thank you so much, keir simmons. >> or not. >> we greatly appreciate it. >> could be very short. >> those are not three topics that are going to bond donald trump and angela merkel together any more than they have in the past. >> merkel is his toughest relationship. people like macron in france who -- zsh. >> interesting. >> much more willing to be transactional and do business. >> noah, why do you think merkel the most powerful woman in the world would be donald trump's -- >> toughest relationship? >> -- toughest relationship? what is that all about? >> i got to guess. >> gender clearly plays into it. >> gender. >> plays into it? it defines it, ian. >> the biggest issue for merkel

is the fact that she truly cares about common values, about institutions, about the things that she believes that trump is a direct threat to, and so in a way that other leader also stand and say look, it's the united states and he'll be gone at some point. we'll work with him. for merkel this puts a lot of responsibility on her shoulders personally. i think that's really -- add to that the fact that trump clearly doesn't really respect women, and then you know, you have a whole bunch of leaders that don't like him. i know that leaders are supposed to be supporting their national interests but they're not robots, so ultimately, the relationships will be lousy. this is by far the most dynamic and concerning g20 since the financial crisis, since it was founded, because all of these leaders are coming. they don't see the u.s. as the leader that it used to be, and their leaders mostly do not like our president. >> with mrkle the situation we were talking off camera, you have somebody that grew up in

east germany and like so many people that grew up behind the iron curtain look to america just as reagan said, is a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see, one of the first things that happened after the wall came down, she and her husband got on a plane, flew to california, and understood america really was all she believed it was, and -- >> when that fell apart she said we'll take as many refugees from syria. >> i thought you were going to say when george bush tried to massage her shoulders. >> and she thought obama was going to provide support and obama said no. he didn't handle the snowden stuff well but she truly believed the americans were there and brought the wall down and when walls were coming back up in europe, where were the americans? answer is nowhere. it was already getting worse and now trump -- >> we've really mishandled,

steve, that relationship. you look at barack obama, we'd forgotten, germany was incensed, barack obama, they tap angela merkel's phone our ally. >> that was a bad moment although his relationship with angela merkel was better than some others. >> that was a bad moment. >> she's a really tough person and she looks at somebody like trump and says this is kind of silly. this is the best the americans can put up? i'm dealing with this guy who is send willing out tweets and all this stuff a no nonsense get business done move the world forward kind of person. oil and water. >> yikes. ian bremmer thank you very much. >> to paraphrase chris christie, he doesn't care what people think. frank bruni says it's a similar approach to the president's and that could lead his approval ratings in a dismal place. straight ahead on "morning joe."

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i ant can he speak to what the governor would do. if i was the governor i wouldn't be at a beach where the park was closed. it's beyond words. it's insensitive to the people who can't use the park. >> whenever i get done tonight, i'll go back to the beach. that's where my family is and where i'll go back to. you know, to be really clear, that's our residence and we have a right to be there whenever we want to be there. i don't count going out on the beach after i've been working all morning to sit and talk with my wife and our guests for 40 minutes before i had to leave to come back to work as getting sun. that wasn't what i was out there to get. the way i took the question was hey, were you like laying out getting a tan today. that wasn't what i was doing and

not what those pictures show. i'm sitting there with a baseball hat, shorts and a t-shirt talking to my wife and talking to our guests. i don't apologize for it. i don't back away from it. and i think my poll numbers show i don't care about political optics. i care about what's doing right and wrong and it was right for my family to be together and for me to be with them and do what we were doing. >> no, that's a big no. everything about that is no. seriously, a lot of people worked all morning and wanted to go to the beach, and they couldn't go to the beach and spend time with their family, and their friends from out of town because the beaches were closed. you were on a closed beach, but it was open to you because you're the governor. but other houses along that beach people were told to stay inside because the government shut down, and the beaches were closed. that's just -- no. right? >> it's a little more

complicated. >> oh, please. explain. >> most beaches in new jersey were open. this stretch of beach was closed because of the lifeguards weren't on duty. >> and other state beaches. >> and other state beaches. >> but yes other beaches were open but what's so damning about the pictures that came out -- >> why doesn't get to the public beach where it was open? >> the whole exercise was totally an f.u., right, to the people of new jersey. i'm the governor. this is my beach. i get to go here. you don't like it -- >> he's got nothing left to lose. before he went out on that beach his approval ratings were 15%. now we'll find out if the public officials approval ratings can go into negative territory. >> a brash governor of maine and we see no optics of paul lepage giving the cold shoulder to his own public.

>> they had a wonderful private beach to themselves. no wonder, because it was closed. >> sorry, that's all no but i'll read from your piece. you write in the "new york times" about chris christie's tutorial and hubris. "as chris christie took in the sun, he doled out a lesson, the same one that donald trump is delivering on a daily basis and in a grander fashion. beware the politician who doesn't give a damn for decorum. make no mistake, for all their flamboyant pugnaciousness, the christies and the trumps of the political world are chasing adulation every bit as much as their peers are, maybe more so. they're just taking a deliberately muddier route, and if they don't get there, they're more likely to wear their failure as a badge of onnor and to dig in with a destructive arrogance. they show that if you embrace a politician who talks too frequently and proudly about not caring what anyone thinks,

you'll wind up in the clutch of a politician whose last refuge is not caring what anyone thinks, and that is a dangerous place to be." i just think it's kind of rude. that beach was closed. why do you think you're better than everybody else? why do you think you work harder than everybody else? why do you think your family gets more than the other families along that beach? i don't get it. what's that? >> there is abigger thing here. when we find so romantic politicians who buck convention and are irreverent that's good to a point. you want people to challenge the status quo but some of the politicians, christie and trump a great example, go too far. they take not caring what you think or punitively not caring what you think as a badge of honor and behave in ways that undercut their leadership. and undercut people serving them. >> he went to orlando during a huge hurricane, i need to be with my family.

so did everybody in your state who was snowed in and getting into accidents on your highways. i don't get it. that's just someone who doesn't care about his job. let's bring in political reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst robert costa. bob, what do you think? >> having covered the governor since 2009 when he was first running for governor i always noticed in my reporting this defiance is at the core of his political persona and it really was at the heart of why he became a republican star. get the heck off the beach, tangling with protesters and representatives for the education union. he became this republican brawler, and people loved it, but i think that same quality you saw it in 2016 during his failed presidential bid during his time with president trump on the campaign trail, that same defiance has hobbled him and this is the latest example. >> you got to be defiant about the right things. being defiant about taking your family on an elite journey to

the beach that nobody else can go to in your government mansion, that's not defiance. that's arrogance. two different things. >> mika, he has this deafness and blindness to the way things are going to play. i go back and i'm still stunned by it to this day to the 2012 republican convention, when he went out to give the big keynote speech. he was there in support of the nominee mitt romney and it became a joke how often he used the first person singular. it was such a diva turn that romney was just a cameo. he does not seem able to understand the way people are going to perceive his actions and that was true in 2012 and it was true when he went out on that beach. >> it was no obstacle to him winning re-election in new jersey 2013 by a substantial margin and across demographic groups. >> bob go ahead and then steve rattnor. >> steve, to your point, i think that 2013 moment i remember it so well, in the summer of 2013,

governor christie was leading the polls in many places for the republican nomination in '16. donors were gathering around him ahead of his re-election. he did win over 60% of the vote in new jersey in 2013, but it all started to fall apart just weeks later with the bridge closing scandal. so he peaked in 2013 in many respects nationally. he was this figure who was on the rise, but it's been hard for him talking to his associates and friends in new jersey over the last few days for him to never come back to that place on the national stage. >> i think putting it another way, when you're riding high, you can do some stuff and people think that's kind of cute or that's kind of different or whatever. when you've had a problem like bridgegate, you got to rebuild your credibility and things he's done since then, the beachgate if you want to call it, are taking had imin the other direction. >> for these guys who love to

buck the norm and be defiant, middle fingered the establishment. you can't actually be the establishment going to the beach in your huge mansion. >> he and donald trump would. >> when no one else can and say you didn't get any sun. that's called lying and arrogance. it's not defiance. it's not attractive defiance. it's not the kind that you're drawn to. i don't think americans who can't go to the beach or can't afford to go to a beach like that think that's cool. no. >> nope. >> sorry. this would be awkward silence. all right, robert costa stay with us. coming up, lawmakers may be on recess but health care is the big issue that followed them home. we'll talk about that plus steve rattnor has some charts for us. we'll be right back. ♪

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>> congress is pushing to quietly halt irs enforcement of at fordable care act's mandate, the tax penalty for not having health insurance. the house appropriations committee has drafted a provision to stop the internal revenue service from implementing the penalty and

collect other information toward enforcement. the draft is something of a backup plan if repeal fails, which supporters say is designed to weaken the 2010 -- >> there's quite a "washington post" story about susan collins and others going home to campaign, and susan collins' case she was stopped time and time again with people that were thanking her for opposing the house and the senate bills. >> she's amazing. we'll talk about this a lot next block. >> it's interesting. when people come back from the break, they sit in the cloak room. so what did you hear and what did you hear? i think you'll see a lot of positions in the senate solidified by what they heard at home. >> so we'll talk about that after the break, plus the birthday boy has some support. we'll be right back.

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fourth of july holiday in their districts attending parades and events and hearing directly from their constituents. senator susan collins of maine told "the washington post" there was only one issue along her parade route. that's unusual. it's usually a wide range of issues. i heard over and over again encouragement for my stand against the current version of the senate and house health care bills." >> frank, i mean, it's remarkable how history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes but this is almost a perfect rhyming of 2009. >> what way? >> health care, it was the democrats on the wrong in 2009 getting pounded. you could go back to 1993, hillary clinton getting pounded when she tried to address health care. you know, you always hear that social security is the third realm of american politics. health care is. >> this is very, very personal for people and we talk about how disengaged voters are from

washington. on this health care debate they seem very engaged, they have strong opinions whether the legislation will hurt or harm them and most voters we see in polls think the legislation is going to harm them. susan collins was on the parade route, rob portman wasn't doing public events, we have a list of people in "the times" basically july 4th when you usually go out stayed behind closed doors because they didn't want to face constituents. >> starting in 2009, republicans have gained a historic number of state and federal legislative seats, mainly on the power of health care, being against the affordable care act, obamacare. >> unlike 2009 where health care reform seemed like a dier have jens from the democratic agenda, financial regulatory reform, the republican agenda is locked up behind health care. if health care doesn't get done everything else they wanted to do doesn't get done. we're behind a very ambitious

schedule set by paul ryan. >> showing projections of the health care senate bill and steve has charts on that. take it away. >> i'll take it away. it's important to look beyond the first ten years. we've all focused on this ten-year window but when you see what goes on in the longer term -- >> ten-year window on the cbo chart? >> in general all the scoring and the discussions about the next ten years. >> summarize quickly the first ten years just for our viewers that aren't as familiar. what does the first ten years show? >> basically shows a bunch of repeal of obamacare taxes in order to fund the reduction of benefits for medicare and for people buying insurance on the subsidies and it's essentially budget neutral. it might create a little bit of a budget surplus but it's taking away from the affluent, their tax breaks, giving it more to the poor for their health care. >> okay. >> so what happens after that is actually quite interesting, because what's really become

clear is that the republican plan favors the old over the poor, so if you look down here in the red lines you can see medicaid and what happens to medicaid. medicaid was projected to grow from about 2% of gdp at the present to 2.7%, but the republican plan would take it down to 1.4%. meanwhile, medicare, which is more expensive program and is currently in the 3% range, would actually grow all the way up here to the 5% range, 6% range over the same period of time. and as you know, donald trump has promised to do nothing to medicare, so therefore, you have a chase where medicare is going to rise sharply. medicaid is going to -- >> also he conflated maybe because he didn't know the difference at the time and also said he wasn't going to do anything to medicaid. that's important. he wasn't going to touch medicaid. >> now look what he's doing to medicaid. he has said that, but the republicans sort of took the ball and said we're going to go

after whmedicaid. >> if you look at the lines, frank, conservatives who actually have courage have been talking about how medicaid, medicare and social security together were going to bankrupt this country over the past 20 years. also a lot of democratic ceos, a lot of democratic think tanks agree, and so here you have the republican plan that takes care of one out of those three, but coincidentally, the one that they attack takes care of the poor. >> but they're also working with the president who during his campaign and this is one of his many points of tension with the republican party was saying he wasn't going to touch any of that. i don't think they know how to go forward with him in many respects because this is also a president who is so inconsistent, praised the house bill and turned around and said it was mean, said that repeal and replace had to be done at the same time and then tweeted no, maybe we'll separate them. i don't know how you move forward coherently and effectively when the person at

the very top keeps giving you such mixed messages. >> bob costa, you can't get anybody to talk about the issues that really matter on long-term debt in america, and that is figuring out how to save medicare and social security. they've got the medicaid part down but you know, maybe you've got a handful of true believers in the house and maybe one or two in the senate but nobody else is talking about the program that's exploding the most and that's medicare. >> no one's talking about it. it remains a political third rail. house republicans including house speaker paul ryan do want to tackle entitlement reform, but for now they're just really going after this medicaid expansion under the affordable care act. for the gop we're going to hear about mitch mcconnell, whether he has the votes in the senate but the reality is that this law has taken root in many of these states, many republican governors, republican leaders in the states across the country are counting on the medicaid expansion.

regardless of anything mcconnell could do to twist arms, that reality makes it very difficult to pass this bill. >> it will devastate the budget. you get rid of a medicaid expan means a lot of governors and republican states are going to be scrambling to make massive cuts. >> i mean, that's why you see republican senators and republican governors really pushing back on that. they understand that medicaid is not just funding people's trips to the doctors, but you put up that chart talking about old versus poor, the people that are benefiting from medicaid are also old poor people, so you think about the nursing homes that are going to be kept open in ohio or michigan, my trips i've gone to mississippi where people are saying that is a central part of how older poor people get there to get their health insurance, so this is a thing that republicans know is a big problem and as frank said, "the new york times" has put out a pretty comprehensive look who

is hiding from this, hiding from their constituents because they understand people understand this so well. >> all right, let's put some flesh around what is the point, and look at what's going to happen to medicaid under the republican proposal and how much the cuts would be. this is all relative to what otherwise would be spent, we can have that debate. new analysis that just came out, and if you go to 2036, excuse me, you can see what happens to each of these different groups. it's important to remember medicaid is not just women, poor women, it covers a whole range of things. 64% of nursing home bills are paid by medicaid, 50% of all child births are paid by medicaid. 24% of americans are on medicaid, so what you can see what happened under this bill is the expansion adults, those getting medicaid from the affordable care act, these are not the poorest americans, between 100% of the poverty line and 400% of the poverty line,

they are going to lose 53% of their benefits and if you go up further into other adults, children, aged, nursing home phenomenon, and disabled, you can see the numbers are not quite as large, but still very large. and these people as eluded to get reimbursed for a lot of services that medicare does not cover and that they need in order to have a reasonable standard of living. >> let me ask bob costa, we hear from a lot of republicans that there aren't any medicaid cuts. it's a talking point. people that i'm a huge political fan of will go out and say, no, there are no medicaid cuts. what am i missing? >> i'd like to get steve's answer to this question, because this is what republicans are talking about. they want to roll back the medicaid expansion under the affordable care act and in place of that expansion put in a guarantee, this is the way the bill may pass, a guarantee that

if medicaid costs rise, the funding will rise, along with the cost of medical inflation. is that -- what's that do to the medicaid population, steve, from your analysis if they do that? >> you still would not be able to meet the needs of the medicaid recipients, because the number of recipients is also growing, so simply raising it by the amount of money from the existing pool and that may not be enough, isn't going to do it. it's simply another way, and, in fact, some of those numbers are in what i showed you, it's another way to cut medicaid. look, i will be the first to admit that medicaid is a very, very fast burning program and probably one that would benefit from a tougher look at some of the ways it's delivered. it may well be cost savings, but simply taking a battle ax and saying we're going to cut 53%. >> you have been part of the group that said, i think responsibly, we've got to look at medicaid, medicare, social security, and, you know, a lot of people, responsible people on

both sides of the political divide, understand entitlements need to be taken care of. this is just a disproportionate whack at one of those three and it happens to be the one for the poor. >> exactly. i talk to a lot of think tanks and experts on both sides of the aisle here in d.c. and they all agree something needs to be done. the problem is that president trump is really kind of boxed himself in in promising over and over again that he wasn't going to touch srs and medicare and now medicaid. now we have the administration saying medicaid, the way we're touching it is different than the campaign trail and then when they are cutting social security disability, which is part of social security given by its name, the budget directors say that's not actually social security, that's something different, too. so they are trying to keep promises to the base that made donald trump popular and really, frankly, made him popular among people who were either democrats because he was running on issues to the left of hillary clinton saying hillary clinton was going to be the one to take away

health care, telling people hillary clinton was going to take away entitlement programs and now that he's in office, he understands he has a pressure to keep that promise, but it's fiscally irresponsible, people agree, to not do anything about the other two programs that only touch medicaid. >> steve, that graphic is really perfect as how difficult it is to reduce outlays from the three major entitlement programs. as you say, it's a necessary evil, but we have to deal with it eventually. but we don't want to use the battle ax. the battle ax is not far off. one of the ideas circulating over the weekend, maybe we have to pass a repeal of obamacare and let it sit there for a year, because nobody will ever let that happen, right? it's too insanely stupid, yet i'm reminded of the budget control act and sequester, which was designed to be really stupid. nobody would let that happen, yet it happened. we're inching towards the battle ax, whether we like it or not. >> that whole idea is stupid as you imply.

>> but possible. >> but possible. remember, we are facing another overarching budget problem, the cbo last week raised the estimate of the deficit by $135 million, something like that, raised the out year deficits and we're basically in a position where because of entitlements, our deficit is going to grow and grow and grow. we haven't really wrapped that into this conversation, but dealing with that is a big part of it. >> sum it all up in 15 seconds. >> kind of hard to do. >> interestingly, the republicans have lost the messaging war here and conversation. there's an important conversation to be had about what the government can and can't afford and because of the clumsy way in which health care has been pressed forward, the kr conversation is entirely about cruelty. >> all right. robert costa, thank you very much. still ahead, the pentagon responded to north korea's missile launch with test missiles of its own.

we'll talk to a expert on the region about what, if anything, can keep tensions there from rising even further. plus, the last time the president was overseas, he literally shoved aside the leader of montenegro. >> really good moment. >> chances are he won't pull the same move with vladimir putin. i don't know. i just can't. >> preview of the high stakes meeting this friday straight ahead on "morning joe". ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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good morning. it is wednesday, july 5th. welcome to "morning joe." with us we have "new york times" columnist, associate editor nate brockman, "morning joe" economic analyst, and birthday boy, steve riechner. >> 39. >> no, no, medicare age. i don't look 65, right? >> of course not. no, no. >> i want your opinion, my wife thinks i should get my eyes done. what do you think? >> just a little. little tweak. nobody will notice, trust me. >> nobody will talk about it. no doubt about it. >> columnist for "daily beast" is with us, and washington bureau chief for the associated press julie pace and former nato

supreme commander of the fletcher school of law and diplomacy from tufts university. north korea is apparently one step closer of arming a missile capable of striking the united states. on july 4th the regime fired off the test launch of what secretary state rex tillerson confirms was an intercontinental ballistic missile. now the u.s. responding by launching its own warning missiles off the coast of south korea. it comes after that country's newly elected president said pyongyang's actions responding more than by statement alone. and in a series of tweets, president trump says, "north korea has just launched another missile. does this guy have anything better to do with his life?" hard to believe south korea and japan will put up with this much longer, perhaps china will put a heavy move on north korea and end this nonsense once and for all." it appears to be the first successful test of an icbm by the north and represents a

significant step forward for the country's weapon program. the missile flew for about 39 minutes before crashing into the sea of japan within japan's exclusive economic zone. on state-run media, north korea says the nation is now a proud nuclear state. officials say they believe the test was a two-stage missile with a range of 3,500 miles and possibly 4,100, meaning alaska is now within its range. >> yeah. admir admiral -- >> chilling. >> -- we've been knowing for some time that north korea was going to cause a serious threat. barack obama in his meeting with donald trump after donald trump got elected told him in the oval office you're worried about obamacare, obamacare's not going to keep you up at night. north korea is. well, here we are six months

later, and now north korea apparently has the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to alaska. what's our move? >> as we've talked about before, joe, it's kind of like two streams coming together. think the titanic and the iceberg. they haven't quite crossed yet. this is a long-range missile. it can probably go 5,000 miles. it does range alaska, but they have yet to demonstrate the ability to put a nuclear weapon, harden it, miniaturize it, and deliver it, so i would say the strings haven't quite crossed. they are probably a year away, maybe a year and a half. we don't know exactly, but the point is, it's another brick in the wall of preparation for a preemptive strike. if we can't solve this thing diplomatically, which we absolutely have to do. that's why the meetings coming up this week are important. g-20, trump, at the end of the day, all roads to pyongyang are

going to lead through beijing. what we should do is a hedge, get our missile defense systems in place. we can't just take those off the table, and prepare for the wheels really coming off in case they do. it's not a good scenario. >> let's talk about the diplomatic route. we've been trying that for years and years and every time we try that, north korea makes assurances and we catch north korea lying. you can go back to 1994, which bill clinton hailed as a major victory. all it did was give them cover to keep continuing to develop nuclear weapons, which the bush administration figured out, and then couldn't do anything about it. so, why do we have any reason to believe diplomacy, even if it is our best and only option, why do we have any reason to believe this time it's going to work, when it's never worked before? >> i think we've got less and less chance of it working. i do feel that that's why we need to be doing the

preparations in cyber, special forces, conventional. we need to build that option set. you know, joe, maybe putting a heavy move on something is a musical term, i don't know, but we need to convince china and find trade space with china that will convince them to do this. that's our best bet diplomatically. >> why is china reluctant to step in, admiral? >> because at the end of the day what china's really concerned about is not a rogue north korean leader. they are concerned about the unification of korea. they see that if this thing really pushes, we'll end up with a war in the peninsula, they'll have refugees, and the end game will be a unified korea. they look at the unification of germany and the creation of that juggernaut in europe. they don't want that on their border. they'd rather muddle along through the status quo. that's why it's hard to convince them to make a heavy move. >> problem is us muddling along, though, of course, is north

korea is moving towards the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to alaska, to seattle, portland, san francisco, eventually los angeles. if we sit back and do nothing, then we're going to have a madman with the ability to obliterate all the cities on our west coast. >> well, clearly, the north koreans already have three missiles that can hit the lower 48 states. now, they haven't bipartiseen tt full range, but they've been able to put a nuke on an intermediate range missile. i agree with the admiral, they are about a year away. we've tried a lot of things, but the one thing we haven't tried is really to impose costs on china, so china has an incentive to help us. the trump administration started doing that last week with the symbolic sanctions the treasury imposed on thursday and the arms sale, but we need to ramp that up. and by the way, joe, we need to ask china a question in public.

that missile we saw yesterday, that was launched from a chinese transporter erector launcher. we need to ask beijing why all this chinese equipment is showing up in north korea's inventory, because it looks like china's weapon newsing north korea. >> we started with china trying to be nice, right? they had a call, went to mar-a-lago, they were best buddies and that quickly dissipated. now they are talking about selling arms to taiwan, addressing human trafficking issues. it does not feel the relationship with china is all that warm at the moment. on top of the point made earlier, the chinese don't want the two countries to be united in any form or fashion and the chinese, indeed, enable missile development. >> absolutely. >> let's talk about china for a second. and tell me whether this assumption is wrong, and admiral, feel free to jump in. i'm thinking the chinese, one of the wealthiest countries in the

world, dealing with one of the poorest countries in the world within their sphere of influence have probably bought off 75% of the people that are around this little dictator, and could get rid of him if they wanted to get rid of him. for china to suggest somehow they don't have complete control over what's moving forward seems to me laughable. there is no way the chinese would allow a madman on their border without having agents surrounding him everywhere he goes. >> absolutely. you know, china has an economic stranglehold and diplomatic stranglehold on north korea, but the most important thing china supplies is confidence to regime members, confidence they are safe from the united states, south korea, and the international community. beijing, those around kim jong-un it was no longer in their interest to support the weapons programs or kim jong-un himself. i don't think beijing can

convince kim jong-un, i don't think anyone can change his mind, but they can, as you point out, change regime elements around kim jong-un and get rid of him, because china has been buying chinese generals for decades now. >> so why not? why aren't they? >> because they want north korea to actually -- >> admiral, jump in, then back to gordon. >> yeah, i would just say this gets back to the calculus the chinese are making, which is a better state for them is kim jong-un, even if he's slightly uncontrollable, but as long as they have that peninsula divided. that's really their geopolitical objective. the minute they feel they can remove him, put somebody better, different zbrup of people around, i think that's when that calculus will shift. hasn't shifted yet. >> gordon? >> clearly they want a divided peninsula, but they don't have to weaponize north korea with weapons technology and missiles in order to accomplish that.

they are using north korea to keep the u.s. off balance and keep japan and south korea really at bay, so this is a weaponization of north korea. and the united states needs to recognize that, because if we don't do that, we're never going to solve that. >> i think we recognize it, but first we tried being nice to them and saying you're our best friends and we'll work this together, now we're switching to be antagonistic, steal tariffs, selling missiles to taiwan, so we're going the other way. how do you get the chinese to get on side, so to speak? >> impose costs so high beijing has no choice. we say to the chinese you do business with the north koreans and america, but not both at the same time. you've got to choose. we've never put them to that choice. >> my question is, what point do we impose a cost threshold that's so much that china determines it's to their benefit to balance against the united states with russia and not play ball? >> right this afternoon if china stalls at the emergency meeting

of the security council, because we only have a year, two years to get this right. if we cannot deter kim jong-un, and that's a really big issue, then we've got to use force, but that means we also have to use everything in our tool kit, you know, short of the use of kinetic options. that means we need to start right now to impose costs on beijing if they are not going to help this afternoon. >> beijing and russia have already decided they are going to stand to the way of the united states. >> yeah, what are those costs to china look like? we heard china is perfectly content with the status quo, there are reasons they worry about being too provocative, too confrontational here, what do the costs look like? >> last week we unplugged bank of dung dong, a small chinese bank because of money laundering. this week we unplug bank of china, one of the big four

banks, also because it's been involved in money laundering as we saw from the report in 2015. icbc, world's largest bank, may also be involved in money laundering, we don't know. once you put them out of business, beijing starts to notice. it's a question of political will. we have yet to show the chinese that we're serious. we haven't been serious since at least 1994, so why should they take us seriously? we've been placed as a low priority, we need to change that like this afternoon. >> so, admiral -- >> i agree with gordon, and i'm going to add one other factor that's at play here, which we have not mentioned with china, it's the south china sea. we have an enormous amount of equity and ensuring that does not turn into a chinese lake. they claim it in its entirety, how that plays up against the work we're going to have to do together with north korea if we want to avoid it becomes very delicate. i agree with gordon, we need to

use strong economic tools and probably the nuclear option in the economic zone is trade itself between the united states and china. again, we're not there yet, but i think the point is we need to ratchet up these sanctions, keep everything at play, and get china to make that heavy move. >> just remember trade between china and the u.s. diminishing trade between china and the u.s. will not be a great day for the u.s. >> but we're beyond the point where we have costless solutions. we've got to take risks and bear some costs. >> yeah, admiral, i hate to sound so skeptical, but i think we're going to be here two years from now talking about sanctions, talking about being tough with china and why don't we just take the worst-case scenario, because china's not going to move and there aren't going to be sanctions, because

they'll just move and start trading a lot more with europe and we'll end up isolating ourselves economically and business interests in this country will pressure this white house and any white house to start trading again with china, and we're going to be where we've been since 1994, so let's go ahead and just talk about it. talk about the extreme costs that the united states has to get, asian coalition, world coalition, to go in and remove this leader, talk about the extreme costs to the people of south korea and possibly the extreme costs to the entire region if that's a decision we have to make. if the decisions between that and allowing seattle and san francisco and los angeles to be hit with a nuclear weapon. why don't we fast forward two years, what do you tell the president? >> yeah, this is the lance the boil solution and probably not two years away, it's probably a year and 18 months where it will

be on president trump's watch to make this decision, and it becomes a preemptive strike that is legitimate under international law, going to build an asian coalition, you want japan, australia, new zealand, singapore, as many as you can get onboard, and you're going to have to use a combination of cyber special forces and long-range air from guam, as well as bring three to four carrier battle groups around the peninsula. we're going to lose hundreds of thousands of people in that scenario, many of them will be americans, there are 200,000 american citizens there. it's a very dark scenario, but if you've got to lance the boil militarily, can you do it, yes. do you have the legitimacy to do it when the nuke and the intercontinental missile streams cross? yes. that's probably 18 months away. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump plans to pretty much wing it when he meets with president putin on

friday. what could go wrong? we'll preview their face-to-face meeting straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes. and dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax. designed for dependable relief.

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get fast internet and add phone and tv now for only $34.90 more per month. call today. comcast business. built for business. amid the escalating tensions with north korea, president trump is set to depart this morning on his second overseas trip to meet with world leaders at the g-20 summit. the president will stop in poland today before heading to hamburg, germany, tomorrow. that's where he plans to come face-to-face with vladimir putin on friday. >> this is going to be a show, my friends. this is going to be like that wrestling match he had with vince mcmahon, expect this time it's personal. >> i don't think it will be wrestling. last week u.s. national security adviser general h.r. mcmaster told reporters that there is no specific agenda, and it's really

going to be whatever the president wants to talk about. >> that's usually how you set these things up. >> so let's see. a question is whether the president will discuss russian interference in the 2016 american election and whether he is boxed in by the federal investigations into russian meddling to make progress in relations. president putin's foreign affairs adviser said the conflicts in syria and ukraine are likely subjects of discussion. another topic important to putin, return of the russian compounds in new york and maryland seized late last year in retaliation for the cyberattacks, including the ones against hillary clinton's campaign. putin chose not to respond to when the moves were announced late december, but putin's foreign affairs adviser told reporters patience is running out. julie pace? patience is running thin. >> patience is running thin.

julie pace, is lot of things that they could talk about that would be very constructive. they could try to figure out a way forward in syria. obviously, any support that putin could lend us regarding the conflict in north korea would be very helpful, so china and russia doesn't form an alliance against us on that front. any indications outside of the white house other than what h.r. mcmaster said about what's going to be discussed here? >> well, there are two pieces of this. one, there's this huge question about whether trump will go into this meeting and tell putin, one, that he believes russia was meddling in the election last year, and, two, that he's going to be trying to take steps to stop russia from doing that going forward. as we heard from countless national security officials, what happened in the election last year is not a one off, this is something russia is going to try to do, and if you look what president trump has said about the matter in the campaign last

year and since he's taken office, he really has never come out strongly and solidly said that he will try to prevent russia from doing this again, so that's a big area we're going to be watching. but then there's another area about cooperation with russia on some of the topics you mention and that's where he is boxed in by these investigations. yes, it would be great if russia and the u.s. could work together in syria, for example. there's no one that thinks that kind of partnership if it were an open and honest partnership would not be a good one in that region, but forging bonds with russia, cooperating with russia against the backdrop of this investigation could be politically difficult for trump. he wants to work with moscow, he wants to have putin be a partner, but he knows the political pressure he's in with the congressional investigations and the mueller investigation. >> so, admiral, if you're inside the situation room, if you're talking, if you're talking to

donald trump's top military officials and top diplomatic officials and getting ready to send him over to russia, are you worried more about -- again, let's just you have -- you're focused on what's happening across the globe. are you going to say go in there and raise hell about election meddling, or are you going to say go in there, express your concern, but then move on and start talking about north korea and syria, because there are concerns right now, top three concerns are north korea, north korea, and north korea. they are not not thinking about much of anything else inside the white house right now. >> yeah, i think your advice is about right, joe, which is to say for the self respect of the country, i would say tell the president he's got to come in and lead with at least a jab on the intrusion into our electoral system, but, yes, we ought to

try and find zones of cooperation where we can with the russian federation, and i think at the end of the day you always need to look at what the other leader is trying to get out of this. putin wants to appear strong internally, internationally he wants to look like a player, and with trump he wants to develop a personal relationship. don't forget he's an intelligence operative, so at the end of the day i think trump, president trump, can play on that to work with putin to try and find some trade space in syria. i think that's the one we can get the help on. i don't think russia can help us that much in north korea other than prevent them from being a spoiler with china, and ukraine, i think, is going to continue to stagger along without much progress because there's no incentive from either side to really solve that one. coming up on "morning joe" -- 16 years later and the u.s. is no closer to winning in afghanistan. it's an issue that is uniting

senators john mccain and elizabeth warren. we'll talk about their joint trip to the war zone with former state department official rick stengel straight ahead on "morning joe". whoooo.

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joining us now, a member of the armed services and judicial committees, richard blumenthal of connecticut. good to have you with us. >> i understand you went to the world famous boom box birthday today. >> in wyndham, how was it? >> the boom box parade is incomparable, there's nothing like it in the whole united states. no longer boom boxes, but such a great spirit and outpouring. the weather was beautiful, great spirit. >> loved covering those. >> you go around, alexa play -- >> or your iphone, do you hold up iphones? >> you can use iphones, wioi is getting that message out. >> all right. >> do you have that? i bet you have that in your house. i just discovered this. alexa, play the rolling stones, boom. >> i'm waiting for version 3. i think it needs a little more. >> i didn't know there was a version one until last week.

there's going to be a version three? >> yeah, they are going to constantly improve it. >> right now you can call your butler and say could you please put on my -- >> i actually don't have to call my butler, he's sitting right there. i have to turn to him, i'd like to play the beatles and that happens. >> wouldn't that be nice? all right, senator, let's start with russia. we were talking about whether or not the president should go heavy on meddling with the election when he meets with vladimir putin. you want to make sure that the russia sanctions bill gets moving again. what's going on? >> that bill now having been passed overwhelmingly by the united states senate 98-2 is stalled in the house because largely the trump administration has persisted and this bill would provide for much stronger sanctions against the energy and financial sector. >> wait, why would the house of

representatives, a conservative institution, try to stand in the way of a sanctions bill that would keep vladimir putin from trying to rig the next election. >> this one began in the senate, was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. >> it's a procedural concern? >> and that's the excuse. >> why don't they just pass their own version? >> that's not really what's going on. >> that is not really the reason. the mystery is, why have the trump administration taken a forceful stance in supporting this measure? >> opposing it -- >> why hasn't it supported it, passage of the sanctions bill. >> so -- i mean, commentary certainly would support the

senate bill, right? why would conservatives oppose sanctions against putin right now? >> well, i can't speak for my magazine, but i can say i suppose the charitable explanation is this takes the power away from the white house to implement sanctions they traditionally had and the executive branch is going to fight for its authority versus the legislative branch. that's how the system is envisioned. in the event -- >> that is an excuse, as well, pardon me for interrupting, because it actually codifies and strengthens those sanctions and authorizes the president to take additional sanctions against the mining, metal shipping, and rail interests of russia. so it actually strengthens. for example, enables him to take action against interference in democratic institutions, which obviously the russians did in the united states and elsewhere. coming up on "morning joe," nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell on the increased tensions in north

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all right, moments ago president trump departed from joint base centers for poland, the first leg of his second foreign trip. before he left he made time to tweet. uh-oh. here we go. "the united states made some of the worst trade deals in world history. why should we continue these deals with countries that do not help us?" and "trade between china and north korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. so much for china working with us, but we have to give it a try." that last tweet is a call back of sorts of this one from two weeks ago where he lamented, "at least i know china tried." >> right now let's bring in the former under secretary of state

for public diplomacy rick stengel in washington. nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports," former chief of staff of the cia and now nbc national security analyst jeremy bash. andrea mitchell, let's begin with you. these tweets are in real time, just coming off the top, without -- it appears to be an understanding that sometimes diplomacy takes many turns before, over decades, so this is, you know, people thought that trump was playing three-dimensional chess at times. i saw somebody say he's either playing one-dmepimensional checs or four-dimensional hungry, hungry, hippos. either way, it's not the way washington played before and it seems that his view of how the united states should interact

with the rising power of the world changes every few days. >> it does, and it's very clear as admiral said earlier on your show, that all paths to pyongyang go through beijing, but the president has suggested that his personal diplomacy, the state visit to mar-a-lago, was somehow going to pave the way for chinese action. now he's acknowledged for the chinese leader was somehow going to soften up president xi. president xi has his own agenda, and the fact is that president xi's agenda is to keep kim jong-un in north korea, not necessarily nuclear weaponized aimed towards beijing, but clearly to keep a divided north korean peninsula and to keep the united states at bay. and that is not at all what the

u.s. agenda is. the other thing is, he's also taking shots when he talks about trade in europe and angela merkel steel imports are not only from china and japan, they are from germany. and his entire cabinet, all of his economic advisers, are against him taking these steps that he's threatened to do on steel. the only two people or three people, i should say in the white house in favor of it are steve bannon, steve miller, and donald j. trump, and that's why it's likely going to happen with these tweets. >> unfortunately, the three people -- >> to be tweeting like this going into the summit is absolutely the worst approach. >> it seems childlike, the tweets themselves. they can't be thought out. >> it's unfortunate that three people that you're talking about happen to be the three people that, of course, the president's going to lead the way, but it does appear steve bannon and steven miller time and time again have been able to trump donald trump's foreign policy advisers, even taking a line out of the speech to nato.

rick stengel, you look at what's been going on and you look at the president again tweeting this morning before he departs on a plane. we appear to be in, again, such dangerous times with north korea, and you have an indispensable player in china in the north korean struggle, and yet he's leaving with an insult and a tweet. >> you know, what i laugh about is the chinese, famous chinese expressions, they look at the calendar when they want to know what time it is and we look at our watches and having negotiated with the chinese, the great revelation is the translators already have the text of the chinese diplomats they are reading in english, so they have everything written down to a tee, so when they see a president tweeting in real time and using terms like "heavy move," i'm sure they don't know what to make of it. they have a long-term interest

in all of this in a way we don't. it's an existential issue for them. as people mentioned this morning, they are concerned about the south china sea. they would look for some kind of grand bargain on the south china sea in exchange for help on north korea. >> jeremy bash, in normal circumstances before a tweet like this goes out, isn't it thought out in terms of all the potential consequences, ramifications, impacts it may have? i mean, do you think that happened this time? >> no, i don't. a presidential statement is a statement of american foreign policy, and as we've talked about on this broadcast many times, you would normally have an interagency meeting, various departments and agencies weigh in, vetted by the intelligence community. one of the phrases from the tweet really stuck out at me, which is he wants china to, quote, end this nonsense once and for all. i think that could be read in pyongyang as we're coming after you in terms of regime change.

i think kim jong-un probably has calculated donald trump wants him removed from power and so he's going to accelerate his missile capability. they've learned so much, not just from their launches, but from their failures, and they are going to continue to accelerate it and mature that nuclear weapon. they've shown they can put a misis on america's doorsteps, so this is a dangerous cycle. >> you talked before how donald trump thought he could personally charm the chinese leaders, and we've seen this happen before throughout history. famously fdr thought he could charm stalin at yalta. george w. bush thought he could charm putin, talking about, you know, seeing into his soul, but donald trump, this is happened time and again, and he appears to be more susceptible to this mistake than most other presidents. >> well, it's partly because they don't have a process in place. they don't have deputies and

principles committee meetings to work through this, as jeremy just said. partly he doesn't read, doesn't absorb facts, is not reality based. so his vaunted deal making in real estate, which is transacting in a different way, does not translate to what he needs to do as a foreign leader, and look at the riyadh summit and the unintended consequences of empowering the saudis to the extent he did through the riyadh summit, going there first, questionable decision, then we see rapidly the succession, which may have been accelerated by what he did in various signals, putting his finger on the scale, if you will, between the two rivals, the crowned prince and deputy crowned prince. now the former crowned prince is reportedly under house arrest with his personal security guards changed overnight to be royal to the new crowned prince, his much younger nephew. king salman is not going to the

g-20, neither is the now crowned prince, so they are sending a deputy finance minister. clearly, the new crowned prince wants to stay at home and not risk leaving the country, not yet secure in his own hold on power. this is -- plus what we see with the threats and continuing disaster in yemen that this young man has helped foster. there are a lot of unintended consequences that this president hasn't considered. but i keep focusing on angela merkel. the key to so much in terms of our own economy, huge market in europe, and she is very careful with her words. she's a scientist. she does not make grand pronouncements, but she has now twice in the last few weeks dismissed donald trump in very clean language. they no longer rely on the u.s. >> yeah. >> so true. >> jeremy bash, a lot of eyes are going to be on the meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. what does the united states seem to get out of that?

>> yeah, what you would think is that the president would walk into the room and say effectively, i know what you did last summer. i don't think he's going to do that. i don't think he's going to point the finger at putin and call him out on election meddling. and without him doing that, i think that really erodes america's credibility and our ability to get other things we need out of that russia relationship, including things in ukraine, europe, and, of course, in syria. >> what do you want out of that meeting? >> if he doesn't mention the election meddling, putin would be regarded as a victory and he'll be able to dangle that over him the rest of his time in office. >> no doubt, seen as a sign of huge weakness. >> andrea mitchell, jeremy bash, thank you both. >> what do you have today? rick was explaining the chinese having every answer written down and planned out. i know you have every second of your show booked and prepared. >> right? >> we wait until 5:59 a.m. on

ours. >> we do, too, at times, but we have all of the best experts on north korea, on europe, and also we'll be hearing from tom costello with the fascinating report on amelia earhart, did the japanese take her. >> thank you, andrea, so much. look forward to that. still ahead on "morning joe," a bipartisan delegation of senators spent the fourth of july holiday in afghanistan. their urgent warning to the trump administration is ahead. plus, a cautionary tale to states across the country. illinois's budget is in dire straits and its financial woes may be about to go from bad to worse. we explain. wise man, i'm nervous about things i can't control... affecting my good credit score. i see you've planted an uncertainty tree. chop that thing down. the clarity you seek... lies within the creditwise app from capital one. creditwise helps you protect your credit. and it's completely free for everyone.

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do not take stelara® if you are allergic to stelara® or any of its ingredients. most people using stelara® saw 75% clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. be the you who talks to your dermatologist about stelara®. a bipartisan delegation of senators led by chairman of the armed services committee, john mccain, met with several top government and military officials in kabul over the holiday weekend. according to "the new york times," the senators were critical of the trump administration for not yet filling a number of diplomatic vacancies in afghanistan. the senators are calling on the administration to put forth a new strategy to win a war that has lasted 16 years. >> we need to have a strategy to win. the strongest nation on earth should be able to win this conflict. >> the time for a strategy has come. we need a strategy in the united

states that defines our role in afghanistan, defines our objective and explains how we're going to get from here to there. >> senator lindsay graham urged secretary of state rex tillerson to come to afghanistan quickly, saying in part all of us realize that it's more than just dropping bombs that will win in afghanistan. the pentagon is currently weighing plans to send several thousand more troops to afghanistan. right now there are fewer than 9,000 american forces on the ground there. >> let's bring in best-selling author and ceo of robin hood foundation, and also brian sullivan. wes, let's start with you. you've been in afghanistan, fought there. i understand the senators' talk about the need to a new strategy, but we've been there for 16 years. we've been trying to prop up a government, trying to build a functioning army, and the afghans are just resisting us at every turn, aren't they? >> it's not even just a

resistance. i think we also have to understand the neighborhood that afghanistan exists in. if you look at its neighbors, you look at the challenges around it. i was talking with a buddy of mine who just came back from another deployment over there. this is a very personal thing for us. for the past 16 years, either myself or my friends or colleagues every single day have had friends in harm's way. he's talking about the lack of progress we've seen in the time that i served over there. at the same time, the lack of progress is one thing. the fact that we have not had any real conversation about the strategy, the mission, not even just in washington at the executive level -- >> but what does that strategy look like? we could get 200,000 troops over in afghanistan for the next decade and then 11 years in, they go back to chaos and the taliban, whatever they call themselves 11 years from now will slowly but surely take the country back over. what's the strategy? how do we get past it's the same -- it's the same problem

we've had for 16 years? >> and it's the fact that kinetic operations is never going to get us to where we need to get in afghanistan. the problem has not been a lack of military intervention. the problem have been other structural issues that exist in the country. >> is there a country, wes? is there an afghanistan? i know they have a name, ostensibly a flag. but from what i understand it's just a series basically of almost tribes and war lords. is there a centralized nation? >> no. well, part of the challenge -- >> so who are you fighting? >> i remember when we were deployed over there, you had people who we would literally hand out things like flags which were carve-outs of the country. and when we would hand them out to the different people within the different villages, one of the common questions we would get is what is this? because they weren't even sure what that was. the understanding is it's your country. >> dexter philkins was here back in 2008, 2009 and he was telling

us you can't bomb them back to the 16th century because in parts of the country they're in the second century. you go to villages and people have never even heard a radio transmission. don't even know what radio is. and we're thinking we're going to be able to build a nation here. >> and let's remember why we were there in the first place. it was post-9/11. that was the headquarters of this great terrorist threat. i agree with elizabeth warren, we need a new strategy, what are we trying to do there. one of the things i always saw with secretary kerry and president obama, afghanistan was always on the precipice of falling apart. the leaders don't get together, it isn't a cohesive country. so i think to take a step back and think what are we doing here, what's the return on our investment, what do we do to get out, that is really the thing that has to happen. >> wes, turning to another war, you're focusing on the war on poverty, which has become a war on the poor. you write this in "time" magazine. tell us -- explain what you mean a war on the poor. >> that the fact that when we talk about this idea of war, it

means that we have to not just have a coherent strategy but we must be willing to put together a consistent level of honesty and resources and intention to being able to solve it. and whether we're talking about as we were talking about earlier the proposed -- the proposed cuts to medicaid, which again these aren't just line item budgets, right? this is -- this is a single mother in florida or this is the disabled person in ohio, this is their lifeline. this is real to people. and the fact that this is also not about a single administration. whether we're talking about the housing policies of 1973, which basically cut all hud housing, whether we're talking about as we watch home lessness rise -- >> first off, you do a great thing. biggest single fund-raising event in the world from what i understand. how do you fight poverty? is it through a job? >> part of the way you have to fight poverty is to understand we didn't get here from a

singular place so there's no way that a singular place will get us out of there. you know, robin hood has 360,000 people as part of robin hood nation that have donated to robin hood. but the truth is philanthropy alone cannot fix -- >> like afghanistan, we have to think about it differently, don't we? we have to fight it differently everywhere? >> we have to fight it differently, we have to change the narrative around it and have people understand why this is so important. and at the same time, philanthropists and foundations can't simply say we do philanthropy but the policy in important. the policy is important. if you're serving a food pantry serving 250 during a day and because of policies they're now serving 800, how does philanthropy then solve that? >> rick stengel, what are you looking for today with president trump? >> well, something we didn't touch on is him going to poland first where there's a right-wing conservative government, he's thumbing his nose at the eu and we need, again, to hear him talk about article five in poland.

>> he's also isn't he thumbing his nose at putin, whether he knows it or not? >> because poland and russia, exactly, are always at loggerheads. >> that should be fascinating. >> we really want to talk about illinois. can you come back tomorrow? >> yes. >> that does it for us this morning. thank you, brian, so much. >> i'll see you tomorrow, america. >> connecticut as well because that's illinois in the making. >> that does it for us for now. the great chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. i love her. >> thank you. the fabulous joe and mika. and, you know, maybe your guests can come on the show as well, why not. let's just book everybody today for tomorrow. hello there, i'm chris jansing in for stephanie ruhle, and this morning we have that dangerous escalation, north korea launching its first missile that could potentially reach our shores. the u.s. and south korea respond with their own missile test, and now an emergency u.n. security council mein