>> he asked me questions, i answered. i clarified. and i think that he was satisfied with my answers. good morning and welcome to "am joy" i'm jonathan capeheart in for joy reid. the russia gate investigation appears to be closing in on team trump. donald jr., had an undisclosed meeting with russian lawyer with

ties to the kremlin. as "the times" points out this is the first confirmed private meeting between a russia national and members of mr. trump's inner circle during the campaign. the russian lawyer is known for fighting the u.s. which allows the u.s. to seize the assets of and deny visas to suspected human rights abusers from russia. in realitation, vladimir putin banned american adoption of russian children. don jr. and kushner both confirmed the meeting had taken place. they primary discussed the adoption program, but meanwhile the president's outside legal team is suggesting the meeting was a setup by democrats. "the participants in the meeting misrepresented who they were and who they worked for. specifically we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with a firm, which according to public reports, was obtained by democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the

president and which commissioned the phony dossier. who authorized and participated in any effort by russia nationals to influence our election in any matter." joining me now, msnbc political analyst david corn. the counterextreme project manager and former white house director and executive director of the terror asymmetrics project malcolm nance and navid. welcome, all, to the show. wow. there is so much to talk about this morning. but, before we start, the president has been tweeting all this morning and he sent out a tweet and for the folks in the control room, it's element 2. and i want to put that up. the president tweeted, i strongly pressed president putin twice about russian meddling in our election. he vehemently denied it. i've already given my opinion.

i just want to go around the table. given this previously undisclosed meeting between folks close to the president and a russian, a russian national and then the president's tweets this morning. what do you make of where we are in this whole russia mess since you're just below me there, malcolm, i want to start with you. >> well, thanks. you know, it's literally like he spent the entire flight back from the g20 summit thinking about what he wanted to deny or what he wanted to -- how he wanted to shape the message. this morning's tweet storm is just classic. i mean, you know, vladimir putin vehemently denied it. that's okay for me. that, in itself, is troublesome. even worse is the tweet that you're probably going to talk about next which is setting up the cyber. joint cybersecurity unit with russia to stop meddling in elections.

that's absolutely insane. >> who is that just saying, there it is. >> that was me. >> david, can you jump in and talk about this. i mean, this, i'm speechless. again, two days in a row i'm speechless. here's the tweet putin and i discussed forming a cybersecurity unit so election hacking and many negative things will be guarded. say what? >> jonathan, i have known you a long time. you're never truly speechless. but the level, the level of absurdity that we've seen over the last couple days with the president saying everyone at the g20 is talking about john podesta and not turning over service to the cia. everything in that tweet was wrong. his inability to even say anything strong or assertive to donald trump about, to putin about putin attacking the united states. you have lindsey graham and other -- very few, just a very few other republicans coming out against this now saying we're going to create a cyberworking

group with them. that's like saying create a nonproliferation committee with north korea. his number one job, i mean, it's easy to laugh about this and make fun of this and i do that, too, all the time, but his number one job is to defend the united states from foreign enemies. he's not doing that. he's cozying up and saying he is honored to meet the man that the intelligence community said attacked -- >> an intellgence community that he was attacking before he was president. on the story that's in "the new york times" and about this meeting, this meeting between don jr. and paul manafort and this russian national. what do you make of that and this idea that they primarily talked about adoption. does that hold water for you? >> it seems a little bit strange and it seems stranger on a number of undisclosed meetings. this is the first we're hearing

about this meeting. jared kushner and donald trump jr. this comes on the heels of numerous meetings undisclosed with the russians, not just with jared kushner and members of the trump family, but also individuals on his campaign. i think in and of itself not particularly overly problematic in a sort of series of events around this issue. i think it's troublesome for the trump administration that they keep having more and more information come out. why was this meeting taking place? it was fairly high level of jared kushner and the president's son was involved and why did we not hear about this until now? it also remains to be seen, all these tweets this morning about foreign policy issues. i don't really think this is anyone's best interest to be undermining the intelligence community on twitter. i think that is also a key point about this. even when he's trying to be diplomatic towards other countries, he's doing it at the expense of the united states intelligence community. which is highly problematic and i think president trump would be best off listening to some of

the advice of the nintelligence community. >> right. now, i want to get you to comment on the "new york times" story but because tarant just mentioned the intelligence community and the fight that the president is in with the intelligent community. navi, as someone who is a former agent how do you feel about the commander in chief and the president of the united states constantly at war with the intelligence service that is supposed to be working for him in the protection of this country? >> you know, jonathan, when i tell my kids don't eat cookies and do your homework and they come back and eat cookies and don't do their homework i don't ask them, did they do their homework and eat cookies? i know. intelligence community has come out and said russia is behind this. i don't understand what the president hoped to gain by it

pfl vladimir putin said, yes, we hacked the election. what was he going to do there? what was his follow up? it's a pointless discussion. you don't ask your adversary if they're behind undermining your democracy. we know they are. but, look, a larger part here. years ago i worked for the secret service electronic task force. one of the biggest things when it comes to cybersecurity is hardening the cyberdefenses. but the other part is extraditing cybercriminals. guess who we don't have a treaty for extradition with? that's russia. at the core of this if we go after people in russia who are behind cyberattacks whether stealing credit cards or anything like that, you have to extradite people. i guarantee you russia will not extradite people. we had a relationship with the russians, but they would never give us a body. that is not going to change. this is just a lot of, you know, just smoke here. and i think it affects the morale of the intelligence and law enforcement when they say this is not what we need.

we need you to come out and say russia is our adversary and not have a 2 1/2 hour meeting with someone who just undermined the core foundations of our country. >> we're looking at the tweet that the president sent out this morning. fake news said 17 intelligence agencies went actually had to apologize. why did obama do nothing when he had info before the election. as we all know, the consensus of the intelligence community is that russia hacked our previous interfered with the 2016 election. you're the one person on the panel who has worked that state department. worked at the white house. give me your reaction to everything that you've heard. starting in on the "new york times" story about this previously undisclosed meeting between the president's son paul manafort and jared kushner, the president's son-in-law. >> heefrz here's the irony for the family who truly understands

and takes advantage of the media and public perception why they took a meeting with the russians during the middle of the campaign when the only thing that would result from it were questions about national security that they weren't prepared to answer. not taking the meeting would have been the easiest thing. what we're seeing right now a white house and a president that are furiously spinning to try to put some substance around a meeting that was truly a failure for national security. to spend 2 1/2 hours with the head of your adversary, the lead adversary himself, putin. to walk out thinking that they didn't really do anything wrong. there's no other person in the united states or any u.s. citizen that would get that kind of treatment from the president of the united states. right. there's nobody right now that president trump would say, oh, you were accused for a crime and you said you didn't do it. i believe you. shows two things. he truly doesn't understand what it means to keep america safe and national security. and the second part that he actually can't handle one-to-one

confrontations and conversations. a lot of his psychology and bullying and he folds when it comes to actually being one-on-one in a meeting. what ends up happening he has a furious tweet storm afterwards to cover it up. >> or he sends someone to go fire the person like fbi director james comey who wasn't even in washington when he was fired. i want to get everyone talking about the president's personal legal counsel and the statement that i read in the intro to this where they're trying to put the blame on democrats saying a democratic outfit and that's the reason why this dossier was done and it's fake and all that. i just want to remind people that, correct me if i'm wrong, but i looked it up. that this, the so-called steal dossier was not started by democrats. it was started by a wealthy republican who wanted is to stop

donald trump and their efforts ended once donald trump got the nomination. to say this was some grand scheme by the democrats to set up donald trump is ridiculous. david? go ahead, david. >> i've done a lot of reporting on this, of course, malcolm is an expert, too. but i got to say that they did put out a statement saying it had nuthing to do with the meeting. it was, indeed, working with an american law firm that was working with a russian person who had hired this russian attorney. so, there is a connection. but what mark is doing is trying to create an alternative narrative here in this bizarre world in which steal memos which i first reported on before the election was cooked up as part of a kgb disinformation campaign that used the democrats to try to discredit trump. they've been pushing this story out in a lot of different ways. there is actually no truth to it. and you're going to see this

deflection over and over again. the big question is, why was trump people meeting with the russians at a time when that was an issue? trump has made all the putin positive statements and they should have known better to meet with a kremlin attorney. >> this is part of what you'll start seeing from the white house and we've seen the last couple weeks from the president himself. the muddying of the waters. any time a direct question is asked about the relationship with putin or whether or not he believes or has accepted the intelligence community assessment it gets deflected e obama or e-mails. that is very telling that the president cannot come out and equivocally back up the establishment. >> go ahead. >> president trump has been critical of the obama administration in his tweets this morning. by that logic isn't it hypocritical that he's not taking a stronger stand right now. if he didn't think the obama administration did enough when they learned about it, he should be taking a firmer stand.

not nodding and not sitting there crafting any sort of policy response. the cybersecurity is not a punishment statgy. it doesn't prevent actors from doing certain behavior over and over again. it seems like a pretty soft response and a working group of nonsense and what's going around on twitter right now, it's like forming, again, a group with assad about chemical weapons use. >> malcolm, real quick. did you want to squeeze in there? fast. >> it's funny. i go to the spy museum in washington, d.c., and a coffee mug that has trump strategy and the same strategy which was used for this meeting. deny, deflect and make counteraccusati counteraccusations. that is an old kgb tactic. this administration has it down to a science. now they're blaming it obama and blaming it next on santa claus. it will come out in the wash with dr. mueller's investigation. it's not going to be pretty. >> thank you, i wish i could have gotten you in once more in

this discussion. coming up a viral video from an australian reporter captures america's new place in the world. that's next. for mom" per roll more "doing chores for dad" per roll more "earning something you love" per roll bounty is more absorbent, so the roll last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty, the quicker picker upper and now try bounty with new despicable me 3 prints. only in theaters.

>> what we already knew that the president of the united states has a particular skill set that he's identified an illness in western democracies but he has no cure for it and seems intent on emploiting it. we also learned he has no desire and no capacity to lead the world. we learned that donald trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the united states as a global leader. and to diminish america. >> that was blistering.

i mean, really, tell us how you really feel. that was the political editor for the australian broadcasting corporation offering his critique of donald trump at his first g20 summit. america is no longer first on the world stage. as "the new york times" put it the u.s. found itself isolated on everything from trade to climate change. joining me now, gordon chang and author of "nuclear showdown north korea takes on the world" and back with me david corn and tara. i want to start with you, but, first, let's hear what president trump said about china's president xi. let's see that. >> i appreciate the things that you have done. very substantial problem that we all face in north korea. a problem that something has to be done abouttop .

may take longer than i'd like and that you would like but success in the end. one way or another. >> that was not about president xi but to president xi. i set that up because what the australian broadcasting corporation said in that entire blistering report that he made was that the united states was increasingly isolated and that a skillful leader would find a way to make consensus and bring the world together. that one area was north korea and the nuclear missile test that everyone at the g20 was waiting for. they were waiting for the united states to do this and nothing happened. were you surprised by that? >> going into the g20 the u.s. had interest than what were different than the rest of the g19. clearly, this was going to be a contentious meeting. and i thought and a lot of other people thought that trump would use north korea to change the

narrative at the g20. talk about how the threat to the world and how the united states had to deal with this and how europe actually had to follow in america's footsteps in crafting a solution. that would have been the skillful thing to do because he would have changed the narrative and clearly he didn't do that. so, this is going to be a problem going forward because the united states does need allies in dealing with north korea. when you have 19 other important economies in the room, you would expect him to marshal them and a cause that the united states finds to be critical. >> why don't you think you did that? >> couple reasons. first of all, i don't think that he is that interested in being the leader of the free world, as you point out. that is a critical shortcoming. but also because i think in terms of developing and crafting a north korea strategy, he's done some things which actually are quite good. but it's sort of premature for him to come out with this plan. but, nonetheless, when you have a situation like this that presents itself, you cannot turn down the tuopportunity.

what they should have been doing is building up the public demrodiplo diplomacy building up the g20 to take advantage of all those people in the room. >> thing about this, tara and david i want to bring you here into the conversation. let me ask you both and come back to gordon and ask you this. if we had a normal administration, a normal functioning administration -- >> yeah. >> what should have happened at the g20? what would we be talking about at the g20 if we had a normal functioning administration. democrat or republican. tara let me start with you and go to david. >> the g20 summit you have leaders of 20 countries there and you shouldn't, north korea one of those issues. angela merkel set an agenda focused on displaced persons and trade, climate change. issues that there are perhaps disagreements on politically but areas of agreement.

terrorism another key issue that has been front and center. another issue that the trump administration could have gone in there and set the agenda. obviously, the trump/putin meeting took center stage for a variety of reasons. but the u.s. had the ability to set the agenda. tweets sent out on other key foreign policy issues and uniting key countries around those issues. north korea being the obvious one and we didn't hear that coming out of president trump. we didn't hear that coming out of him verbally or during the twitter account during the g20. i also think these distractions and the podesta comments, those are not helpful to any foreign policy or national security issues. they're distractions. they get the media focused on the wrong issues during a very important summit and to be frank, they show a lack of seriousness. a lack of appreciation for the gravity of some of the issues that we do face today that should have been front and center of the president's mind while he was over there. >> david before you answer, let's hear what gary cohn the

economic adviser to the president had to say. >> get 20 of your friends to agree we're going to have dinner tonight is very really hard. but i thought it came together pretty reasonably. diversity of opinion in a group of 20. >> diversy of opinion, getting friends together. >> that is pathetic. that is absolutely pathetic. that is what he is touting as the success here. i think to pick up on the last point. starting your visit to the g20 by starting that everyone is talking about john podesta. that's dilutional or idiotic. you don't have any other options. whether it was north korea or counterterrorism. the president has shown no real interest in doing the hard work. he came into office saying, hey, i want to get china to take care of this. a meeting with china and he tries and says, oh, i gave it a shot. oh, maybe next time.

he's not serious. of course, as you know, jonathan, we don't have an ambassador to korea and most of the state department is not functioning. he did not include mcmaster in the meeting with putin. so a lot of things that should just be done as a matter of course and functioning in the administration is not happening. you tie that in with donald trump's lack of curiosity or interest in a lot of these issues or knowledge and it really is a recipe for disaster. and, as the australian said, decline in american leadership on many important issues. >> you know, gordon, so, the president's not -- doesn't seem terribly interested in, well, a whole lot of things about the job. but, also, he places a lot of importance on personal relationships. one-on-one relationships. he said great things about president xi a while back about, you know, great we're going to have a great relationship and same thing about vladimir putin,

the russian president. and then nothing happens. he placed all this importance on president xi to help him with north korea and i believe last week, because it seems like an eternity. could have been two weeks ago when the president sent out that tweet i put a lot of faith in president xi and hasn't been successful so far. what more must the president do to ensure that the korean peninsula does not blow up? >> well, he's going to have to impose severe costs on china. you know, at the last week of june he did impose costs on china. he unplugged the bank from the financial system and he did a number of other things that got chinese upset. what happened at this meeting at the g20 is that trump said to him in private, i think what he did is he told the chinese, i can amp up the pressure. so, i think in terms of china what he's doing is one thing saying, oh, they're good guys in

public, but in private they're having very, very tough conversations. that's probably the right way to go. >> so, that's not -- did the trump administration, the president is actually doing something right when it comes to the north korea crisis? >> they're doing something that can turn out right. this is extremely tricky. i'm not saying what trump is doing is going to work. but what i'm saying is at least he's laying the ground work here. so, this is a very difficult conversation with the chinese. we know they're supplying the north koreans with ballistic missile activity. instead of talking about the other issues, i think the president should have said to the chinese in public, as well as in private, how come the north koreans are launching chinese missnlz. >> that's the question we'll have to save the answer to for another time. up next, a closer look at the man who was asking russian hackers for hillary clinton's e-mails. stay with us. the opioid my doctor prescribed

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>> i will tell you this, russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. well, according to a recent report by "wall street journal" one gop operative did attempt to get hillary clinton's e-mails by a russia's hacker. more on that story, next. and stay asleep longer. so you'll be ready for whatever tomorrow brings. because mom's love is unconditional. even at 6am. nature's bounty melatonin. we're all better off healthy. nature's bounty knows healthy cholesterol starts in your gut. so we made cardio-health, an innovative way to support healthy cholesterol, containing lrc, a probiotic strain that helps you metabolize dietary cholesterol. because we all want to be healthy for whatever comes next. nature's bounty cardio-health.

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there is no evidence the gop party line on possible collusion between donald trump's campaign and russia. last thursday "wall street journal" offered the strongest evidence yet that there is evidence to pursuing that big question. "wall street journal" reporter shane harris wrote about his report with peter smith who sought obtained e-mails that he believed were stolen from clinton's.

former national security adviser mike flynn was an ally in his search for clinton's e-mails. another journal story revealed that smith listed top names from the trump campaign in recruiting document while seeking the e-mails. there is no evidence, according to the story, that smith sought or received coordination from them. and bannon and conway denied any contacts with smith during the campaign. a former trump campaign official also told "the journal" that if flynn worked with peter smith, it would have been in his capacity as a private individual. but, in a lengthy post, cyberexpert mike -- i'm sorry matt tate claims that smith approached him last summer to verify the veracity of e-mails offered to him. tate reached this conclusion following weebs of interactions with smith. the combination of smith's deep knowledge of the inner workings of the campaign. this document naming him in the trump campaign group and the

multiple references to needing to avoid campaign reporting suggested to me that the group was formed with the blessing of the trump campaign. back with me, david, nayyera and joining me now the reporter that broke that story, shane harris, senior writer for "wall street journal." shane, let me start with you. how did this come about. tell us more about peter smith. >> well, actually, i found out about peter smith from matt tate who you mentioned who identified himself as someone who was talking to me about this. and he described the story very much as he wrote it in that ess essay. he had the alliances with the trump campaign and wanted matt's help in this effort to find hillary clinton's hacked e-mails, which peter smith believed were her hacked e-mails. in the course of looking into that peter smith learned i was reporting on this story and he

contacted me. we had a fairly lengthy interview in early may in which he laid out the entire operation which corresponded very closely to what matt described. subsequent reporting and he passed away about ten days after that initial interview, we were never able to follow up with him directly but with some of his associates and looking at the material he sent around to recruit people and describe his effort in which he called out trump associates. >> shane, let me play some sound from then candidate donald trump on july 26th and ask you about it on the other side. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. >> shane, where does that comment from donald trump fit

into the story that you've written and what matt tate wrote about on the blog? >> i think that comment which comes in july, july 27th follows on the heels of some conversation that had been going on particularly among conservative activists like peter smith about the possibility that these e-mails may be obtained. we had never seen donald trump talking about that that openly and not exerting russia to go out and find those e-mails. five weeks after that that peter smith formally sets up a company to go out and try to collect this information and pay people under the company that he formed in delaware, as he said, to avoid campaign expenditure reporting. it forms in this conversation that is brewing among the summer among activists and then five weeks later peter smith is formally engaged in this process that he had essentially been kicking around with associates prior to that time. >> one last question for you on

all of this, shane. matt tate if i remember correctly in his blog he was very concerned about these conversations he was having with peter smith, wasn't he? >> we should make clear that matt tate never agreed or thought it was particularly well advised. ultimately he backed out of it after peter smith asked him to sign a nondisclosure agreement. the gaug coordinated with the campaign and also trying to skirt campaign finance. so, peter smith may have misread matt when he reached out to him thinking he was an ool ally in cause. >> someone at the table reporting a lot on the russia story. what do you make of this gigantic piece in this very big puzzle? >> well, first i have to congratulate shane and say i was very jealous when i read the story. just a great piece of work, shane. >> thanks, david. >> i want to make one point that this gets to some possibility of

collusion between michael flynn and someone who was trying to make contact with russians who he supposed had these hillary e-mails. it was more a theory than anything else. but there is this one paragraph in shane's piece in which he cites anonymous sources saying intelligence intercepts picked up conversations with russian hackers on how they could get information to michael flynn, if they had something. and they may or may not be related to the peter smith operation. but i found that absolutely fascinating. because, yet again, it points back to flynn. and we know that before the election flynn was also in contact with the russian ambassador of the united states. we don't know what those conversations were about. but, again and again we have the pathways back to flynn while it's known publicly that the russians are probably the ones behind the dnc hacks and then the wikileaks released that material. >> now, in the, save it from the

campaign where they say if michael flynn was doing this thing, it was in his personal capacity. is it even possible to separate your personal capacity from a presidential campaign when you're operating at that high a level? >> and that's part of the challenge. there's always been an understanding. one of the technical legal terms that all is a personal activity. then there's official government activity. but usually you hear that as a separation between government and personal. campaigns are inherently personal, particularly at that high a level. we see this all play out in how flynn and several trump associates neglected to declare on their security clearance forms who they've had meetings with. so, those can no longer be personal conversations. when you're trying to go for the highest job in national security and a security clearance. everything that you've done in the course of the campaign matters. again, for a family that really

seems to value their public image and perception did a really terrible job of managing the perception being reality. a lot of these meetings and a lot of these activities were better off being undone. >> malcolm, before i come to you since we're now talking about him, michael flynn, the former national security adviser to president trump. let's hear what he had to say at the republican convention when donald trump was being anointed the republican presidential nominee. >> we do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law. lock her up. that's right. yeah, that's right. lock her up. she, she put our nation's

security at extremely high risk with her careless use of a private e-mail server. >> malcolm. why shouldn't we think that flynn, himself, was being reckless or careless in his contacts whether personal or through the campaign, allegedly, with russians? >> well, you should. and as a matter of fact as you played that clip, my first thought was, this is exactly what someone should play at the sentencing hearing. >> you just jumped right on -- >> well, you know, michael flynn is a tier one target in this investigation on the basis of everything that we're learning in public sources. the inspector, the inspector general of the defense department is investigating his finances. director mueller is investigating his links to others. in turkey a national

intelligence spy hunting team going through his links to a possible gru and other intelligence agencies. peter smith in relation to mike flynn is a tier three person. roger stone being the second tier there. there were, obviously, multiple dirty tricks who were there trying to coordinate this information. and i happen to know because i wrote about it in my book "plot to hack america." the genesis of this story came from russia in march of 2016 and it came to fox news through judge napalotano where they claim the inner workings of the -- by july turned into an obsession on the basis of trump's statement. michael flynn has other issues. if i was him, i would be worrying about that potential, you know, lawsuit. indictment on attempting to abduct an american resident from pennsylvania. i wouldn't worry about being locked up on minor political

charges. he has issues. >> yeah. he has issues and we don't have any time to go into the rest of that, but, thank you to david corn and nayyera. but coming up in our next hour, our reporter round table will discuss the g20 donald trump's health care battle to come. more "am joy" after the break.

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for a limited time, you can qualify for two treatments at no cost. stand up to chronic migraine. talk to a headache specialist today. you know, it wasn't the best week for chris christie, america's least popular governor clocking in at 15% approval announced a shutdown of new jersey state government ahead of july 4 holiday, then promptly

hit the beach at a state park that was closed to the public because of the shutdown. his attempt to catch rays led to a flurry of criticism and ethics complaint and from the depths of the internet, a new meme with a week like that. with a week like that no wonder he is thinking of his next job. for the next two days, he is hosting a sports radio talk show which the station says is an audition to replace long time host mike francesca. there's one problem with him becoming the next sports radio star. >> do you have our selection of music for the governor? ♪ i should have been a cowboy. >> nice. >> with you and jerry jones at the eagles game last night. >> i'm a cowboys fan. >> come on, man. even i know that's a problem.

joining me now, mike pesca, host of podcast. thank you for being here. come on. >> i think that's fine. there's tradition in sports talk radio, you can play the heel. mike's co-host mad dog was a giants fan, not football, baseball team, leads to clashes. >> san francisco giants. >> that's right. add it all up, that's certainly the least of his situation to reflect. >> being a cowboys fan is not a problem? >> that could work. he can make that work. it is churn. in sports radio, you try to elicit emotions, get people mad. seems to be good at that. kind of the opposite of what to do in politics. i think he has good sports knowledge and also that's a little overrated part of the job. there's only four or five sports you have to know, you have to know the local teams and he knows them. good communicator, former prosecutor. rhetorically, when he got in trouble for communication it was more the optics. in terms of verbal

communication, radio is a good medium for him. the problem is it's not an easy job. just because you show some skill or promise, the mets signed tim tebow. there's a better shot of tebow making the major leagues than christie sliding into the number one spot in sports talk radio and running with it. >> you just laid out what would make him a successful sports radio guy. so why don't you think he can do it? >> my scouting report if he were a player would list those attributes. now there are detriments. it is hard to overcome the fact that his listening area mostly hates him. even though wfan has a different listenership, it is not a fun -- i think callers want to call up and lambaste him for the beach, for bridge gate, and hasn't shown a sense of humor. bridgegate, he can't own that, he is denying it legally. it is good to have tension with

your sports talk radio host, i don't think hate listening drives ratings. >> i thought that's what sports radio was about, nothing but hate listening, hating on the other team, hating on something that somebody said. i mean, i'm still trying to figure out why having governor christie take over from him is bad. >> i think he has promise, but this is going right to game one of the world series. this is the biggest slot. if you give him time, i'm certain if he wanted to concentrate and work his craft, he could get up there. this is starting on the big stage. sports radio to the outsider may seem like a lot of haite, but i is catharsis. you vent feelings through the host. i don't know that christie, when he was good at politics and people were upset at the teachers unions, he did that, but seems to have positioned himself in a place where the average man, mostly men listening, are not going to use

him as the avatar to vent feelings. they want to vent at him. >> that's the thing. now i understand, folks will be calling up and saying you're a jerk, you're this, you're that, and the fact that he has no sense of humor when it comes to himself. can you learn that? >> he does have a sense of humor, he had to make a lot of jokes about his weight. he's just a really good communicator. on these issues, he's really thin skinned. the dynamic of sports radio is such that there's usually the jock or the expert and then the guy running the show and talking about the commercials. i don't know which role he is going to play. it would seem he really has to loosen up about things that callers are going to yell at him. >> we have a statement from christie's spokesperson about him auditioning. as for the governor's future, he appreciates the interest and concern about his next

employment from his friends in the media but he is not concerned at all about it. signed the chris christie spokesperson, brian murphy. >> that's what he said. >> brian murray. >> that's what he said for years running for president. >> thank you very much. up next, trump is back in america and mitch mcconnell is bearing down on health care. more "am joy" after the break. the future of sleep is here with the new sleep number 360™ smart bed. it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides. right now save on sleep number 360™ smart beds. plus, it's the lowest prices of the season with

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we can'twhy?y here! terrible toilet paper! i'll never get clean! way ahead of you. charmin ultra strong. it cleans better. it's four times stronger and you can use less. enjoy the go with charmin. not the dumbest thing i heard but it is close. he gave a good speech in poland, president trump did, and had what i think is a disastrous meeting with president putin. nobody is saying, mr. president, the russians changed the outcome, you won fair and square, but they did try to attack our election system. they were successful in many ways and the more you do this, the more people are suspicious about you and russia. >> good morning. welcome back to "am joy." i am jonathan capehart in for

joy reed. after his second presidential trip abroad, donald trump is back in washington this morning, right now he is in virginia at his golf course, but he's already been tweeting up a storm amid questions of what happened in his first meeting with vladimir putin at the g20 summit. he and putin apparently discussed forming an i am pen trabl cyber security unit so election hacking and many other election things will be guarded. interesting. that's not the only russian meeting in the spotlight. last night, "new york times" reported on a meeting in june, 2016, two weeks after trump clinched the nomination between donald trump junior with jared kushner and kremlin connected russian lawyer at trump tower. don junior said the meeting was mostly about an adoption program ended by the russian government. mind you, this march when the times asked him whether he discussed government policies related to russia, the younger mr. trump replied 100% no. and that's not all.

the president is back just in time for congress to return to the hill after a week long recess with republicans more divided than ever on how to deliver the promise they made for seven years, repealing and replacing obamacare. joining me now, msnbc contributor, ian tuttle from national review, paup opinion columnist, katherine ram pell and robert george from "new york daily news" editorial page, my old stomping ground. >> indeed. >> thank you all for being here. there's so much going on between russia, this new meeting of "new york times" reporting on, health care, i want to jump in on what lindsey graham had to say about the president and his sort of positioning with russia where it seems like the president is just giving putin a pass, giving russia a pass and not taking the idea that they interfered with our election seriously. >> it's a little ironic in that throughout the presidential

campaign one of trump's main talking points was that the world is laughing at us and is taking advantage of us. admittedly, it was in different realms when he was mostly talking about trade, but it's hard not to look at the meetings we've seen the last few days not only with putin but xi of china and think they seem to be playing him a bit and he is not totally aware of it. >> i offer the understanding that the bar has been lowered for this president, but the fact that he brought up the fact russia could have meddled in our election, that putin said he brought it up repeatedly, questioned him repeatedly, that showed that president trump didn't just go into the meeting and say we're not going to talk about that, we're going into something else. the problem is you have this ever increasing cloud of russia over this administration where i think reporting from my paper shows that they're obviously withholding information about their contacts with russia. if you said unequivocally 100% no you didn't meet with anybody, turns out yes, you did, now you say i don't know about that.

i'm going to be very interested to see how he says that he didn't remember this meeting. did it slip your mind? it is hard that everybody is slipping their minds when it comes to meetings with russian officials. >> there's a strange affliction that effects everybody around the president. it is russian amnesia. donald trump junior forgets that he had this meeting. several people forget a meeting. kislyak, including jared kushner, flynn and on and on which makes it completely absurd that the president then when he talks to putin said well, did you interfere, putin says we didn't do anything about it, and he happily takes it at complete face value where even donald trump would take nothing at face value if it was coming from anybody, not even just politicians, people in the

developing world, in the building and development world in new york city. i mean, it's absolutely, completely absurd. this is where we are. >> one of the interesting things about the trump administration vis-a-vis russia thus far is there is a conflict between what you hear from the white house and actual policy going into effect. so for instance trump goes to poland end of last week and signs a missile defense program with them that the obama administration had rolled back. that's explicitly directed toward russia and aggression and you have these mixed signals. it is not a clean narrative. if you look at the policy going into effect, including what's coming out of congress, it is a much more aggressive policy for russia. >> which the administration is trying to water down, the sanctions that the senate passed that the administration is trying to water down when coming up in the house, he is right, it is mixed signals. >> something to get to in this

"new york times" story about yet another undisclosed meeting between donald junior and jared kushner and paul manafort. the personal attorney for the president, his legal counsel put out a statement and the statement says specifically we have learned that the person who sought the meeting, the meeting between donald junior and jared, et al, is associated with a firm that was retained by democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president which commissioned the phony steel dossier, on and on, you see it on the screen. what they're saying is that this is all a democratic plot to bring down donald trump. >> ding dong, completely, utterly wrong. there's this donald trump spin that's a hurricane we can't get our heads around because there's this idea that you went to the meeting. if this was a democratic plot that said to come meet with

russian officials, maybe you wouldn't have gone to the meeting, right, but the fact your son said he never did this, now it comes to the fact that he did. and one thing we didn't talk about, who was in the meeting with putin. he brought rex tillerson, the highest award for a civilian by russia. that to me is something that looks bad. the optics looks like you brought somebody putin already really likes. >> secretary of state. >> he wasn't just given an award by the russians, he was given the award by vladimir putin. of the four people in this shot we're looking at, three of them have pre-existing relationship. >> to me, if you have a plus one, the national security adviser sometimes comes to these meetings, so to me while yes, he is secretary of state, the fact that people with russian ties are surrounding the president and now when you finally have

one big meeting with him, that's who you take to the meeting with you is questionable. >> can you please explain to me why there is no outrage, real palpable outrage on capitol hill about this cloud of russian operatives around the oval office. >> the first is that we are gradually learning not all the reporting is 100%, with respect to my esteemed colleagues, lot of post stories, "new york times" stories have been dismantled under james comey's testimony, so you have reporting that's coming out and then things are rolled back once you do get the official testimony in senate intelligence committee or whatever the case might be. >> what stories have been rolled back or discredited? >> the one undermined slightly was the fact that it was four intelligence agencies that had,

that agreed russia tried to attack when the original story it was all 17. >> james comey's testimony in the senate intelligence committee was explicitly in reference to i think an april "new york times" story, i'm not saying -- >> i'll let you finish, then i have to jump in. >> i'm not saying there necessarily shouldn't be. i think the fact that they passed an extremely robust sanctions package out of the senate almost unanimously, i think 98-2, is a strong sign congress wants to jump in on this issue ahead of the white house. >> i wish they'd do more than pass resolutions, get out in the microphone with a bill. there's a consensus, widely agreed on consensus in the intelligence community that the russian interfered in our elections, if you want to boil it down to the four, then the

big four. >> the fbi, cia, nsa and dni. >> that's their job. if you quibble 17 or 4, the 4 is like all the cops who are coming after you. we have to talk about health care. where is trump care going? does mitch mcconnell -- >> it is on life support. >> he is the master of the senate now. is it going anywhere? >> no. they kind of boxed themselves in. at some point bad policy has become bad politics, right? back in the day everybody hated obamacare, republicans hated obamacare, lot of democrats hated obamacare, wanted it to be repealed. republicans felt like they swept office with a mandate to repeal it. once americans figured out what that meant, what that meant for medicaid and what that meant for various protections for people with pre-existing conditions or rural hospitals or subsidies or

what have you, then people started to get more uneasy, right? the issue is that republicans have basically written checks they can't cash. and everything they would like to be doing is so politically unpalatable to their base even once people understand what the mechanics would look like, they have to try to keep their promise to repeal this bill but everything that would go into making good on that promise would be completely -- >> the best story came out this week was where senator pat toomey from pennsylvania admitted the reason their repeal policy is in shambles is because no republican expected donald trump to win. and they said it was so much -- it is so much easier to be, you know, without power and just, you know, basically voting for all these bills, knowing they

won't become law than taking ownership and getting into the weeds of health care policy, which is now what they're trying to do, and it's a fiasco. >> what you're talking about, the dog caught the car. what do we do now. we have to go around the table, less than two minutes less. ian, what are you working on? >> illinois just passed a budget for the first time in a couple of years and now we have an interesting situation, passed over the veto of the governor, credit agencies are threatening to downgrade to junk status. this is a long term crisis of unfunded liabilities that is the state's own fault. >> pension liabilities. >> to the degree of $250 billion. this is a real story and no one has figured out how to get illinois out of this hole. >> so the trump organization, meaning the president's real estate empire is known for

luxury apartments and big high-rises. the other thing they own is federally subsidized apartments that benefit for millions from federal aid. i'm working on a story now that hopefully people will read by tomorrow, monday. monday "new york times," post at midnight, essentially people are concerned he could in turn pay himself millions through hud. >> sounds like a familiar refrain with this administration. robert george. >> bill de blasio, our mayor, decided to go fly over to show solidarity with resisting protesters in hamburg, germany. he is up for re-election. he has basically no opposition now. it is a problem because we just had a horrible assassination of a police officer. the wake and grieving going on now, the funeral is going to be this week, but the mayor is out of town and feels that basically

he didn't have to tell the media he was flying over there. a lot of criticism coming right now. >> katherine, the great "the washington post." >> i'm working on a piece about how partisanship and tribalism caused our common liberal democratic values to deteriorate. there was a poll recently came out a few days ago showed, for example. >> there it is on the screen. >> 4 in 10 republicans believe that we have allowed too much expansion of the free press and too much freedom to criticize the government, which is astounding given what's in the first amendment. democrats obviously are no angels as they say on some of these issues related to dissent and free speech, but it is a problem on both sides. >> thank you. coming up, the story that

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xfinity mobile. somebody for some reason appears to be shopping a fairly convincing fake nsa document that purports to directly implicate somebody from the trump campaign in working with the russians on their attack on the election. it is a forgery. >> my msnbc colleague rachel maddow told a stunning story about a document her show received. she went on to explain why in her view someone would fake an alleged smoking gun of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. >> one way to stab in the heart aggressive american reporting on that subject is to lay traps for american journalists who are

reporting on it. trick news organizations into reporting what appears to be evidence of what happened, and then after the fact blow that reporting up. you then hurt the credibility of that news organization, you also cast a shadow over any similar reporting in the future, whether or not it's true, right? even if it's true, you plant a permanent question, a permanent asterisk, permanent who knows, as to whether that, too, might be false like the other story. whether that, too, might be based on fake evidence. >> at least one other news organization buzz feed said it was pitched the same fake document. joining me, tara moler, msnbc contributor malcolm nans, and senior writer "the wall street journal" shane harris. shane, let me start with you. have you seen fake documents come across your mailbox, your inbox? >> not that i'm aware that are fake.

i don't think we received the same document that rachel and buzz feed received, but certainly information has come across in my career that's difficult to corroborate on its face, very difficult to look at and know whether or not it is accurate without significant more reporting. in this case rachel show did the right thing, be skeptical of this information and tried to find experts who could help them assess whether or not it was legitimate. for reasons she laid out, there were red flags in that document. they were wise not to trust it and to alert other journalists about it. >> one thing, shane, that rachel pointed out in the piece that was a huge red flag for her because it was such a bombshell thing is that there was someone who was named, outright named in this document. why was that such a huge red flag? >> because an intelligence report of the kind she's describing you would not see an american citizen simply named in it, you might see a reference to someone anonymously as u.s.

person one or a, they wouldn't be sitting there, jonathan capehart won't be named in a document like that. >> i hope not. >> right, you hope not. in the rare circumstances in which u.s. officials are authorized to learn the identity of an american citizen named in an intelligence report, that's closely held information, it is not just stated in a report that's disseminated. that was a huge red flag right there. >> malcolm, also in rachel's reporting she lays out a time line of certain things that happen which raised a question for me who would create such a fake document, especially when reality winner was arrested on a saturday, the story appeared on a monday, but the justice department announced about an hour later after the story hit that an arrest was made, then that fake document arrives in rachel's inbox two days after

that, which raised questions in my mind who would have the access to that document in order to then create a fake document to send to rachel. >> right, yeah. when i listened to her story, i was fascinated by this. i handled documents at that level, excuse me, and my first question was about the time line, reality winner was arrested on a saturday. rachel's team got that letter via her website two days after the intercept put that report out. someone had to have seen that as an immediate opportunity. the normal trolls out on twitter don't think of these things, it takes them a day or two, but it appeared to be a pretty fine editing job and did appear to offer them crown jewel intelligence that would have once proven wrong, would have completely destroyed the news media's credibility for that.

and cudos to them for taking time to do that. i'm a little disappointed they didn't call me to look at the document, but, you know, it is very important. i've been saying this since last august on msnbc. it's called black propaganda. that is when you take legitimate information, edit it, put it back into the information stream and then allow it to destroy the receiver. >> malcolm, one thing i thought was interesting is how given rachel's reporting and how she showed it, if you haven't seen it, please go online and find rachel's report and watch it. she talks about the cut and paste job that led clues to it being a fake document. were you surprised that this fake document was so sloppy? does that note to you this is an amateur or was it done in a way

somebody wanted to get caught? >> well, you know, it's not a professional intelligence agency, that's for sure. some people alluded it might be the russian fsb or could be someone within the fbi. you know, i don't believe that. i think this is part of the dirty tricks teams who are on stand by right now that we've seen active over the last year. you know, you have some of these characters on twitter, extreme right weet twitter who anointed themselves as ar biors and defenders of donald trump's legacy, they can easily go down there, use some skills and do this. that key thing about identifying a u.s. citizen, i have been unmasked in an operation and it will say u.s. citizen or person with a serial number that's not anywhere accessible by someone. only i believe they identified 14 people at the national

security agency would have a raw document with that name in it, and generally wouldn't. it would have a separate sheet of paper with that person's name on it. >> tara, as much as we talk about the danger, rachel talked about the danger these fake documents pose to journalists and journalististic enterprises and journalism in general in terms of credibility in reporting this story, but what kind of danger lies in the national security and intelligence community over these fake documents? >> sure. i think there are a few things here. it is obviously troublesome. goes to the heart of the credibility of the press if they are getting fake documents, if by accident somebody reports it, puts attain on their reporting going forward, whether fair or unfair. having said that, i think in this particular case, i'm not sure, i usually agree with a lot of what malcolm says, i'm not sure it was a highly sophisticated copying of a document. it was a pdf document put online by the intercept, and after put

online, somebody out there, shouldn't be that surprising, you see the twitter comments after these segments, somebody could have been a senior level person or random person decided to take that pdf and decided to do high level editing to it. didn't seem that high tech. then they sent it to the e-mail made public where they take tips from audience viewers and anyone anonymously or with identification, modify the document. did it in a way that was fairly obvious to anyone that looked at that senior level in the intelligence community that it wasn't real, both because of unmasking element and crappy cropping job done on it. i think the lesson is what msnbc is absolutely correct, review these things with caution, bring them to experts to look at, get to the truth, don't report it as fact and we saw it play out here. >> you're not concerned that the

national security intelligence community shouldn't be worried there are people out there doing things that could undermine their credibility. >> they should be worried about it. i'm saying it shouldn't be as difficult to catch, if you get a document claiming to be supremely high level of classification, top secret, secret, compartmentalized, we all know what those are in, if you get a document like that, you probably don't want to print or publicize without necessary verification. probably want to run it by somebody, want the document examined forensically. yeah, there's reason to be worried, but as long as the media has the proper safeguards in place, i think it is worrisome and it is worrisome if this is an orchestrated campaign to undermine the press. >> malcolm, you're trying to say something. say it fast. ten seconds. >> jonathan, there's a saying in our community, the target is the tactic, all right? you notice who they went after. they went after buzz feed which already raised a series of red

flags after releasing a report related to the steele memos early on. then went after the top ranked show on cable television, rachel maddow. that right there reveals everything about the intent and strategy behind the releasers. they intend to damage digital media and top ranked cable show. >> thank you very much. up next, america's least favorite senator is about to cruise into the health care debate. iceberg dead ahead! stay with us. (dog) yeah, these beneful

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let me ask a question asked in a previous segment, that is what is the likelihood that what senator cruz is talking about, what mitch mcconnell wants to do in terms of trump care, going to call it trump care, that it is actually going to happen, jess? >> i think it is unlikely. we have seen red state rural gop senators really coming out against this because their constituents don't want it. the average american hears ted cruz say you may want bells and whistles health care plan. what are the bells and whistles of health insurance, of health care coverage. we're not talking about a car, we are talking about vital, life-saving proceedings, we need this and america understands that. no, i don't think we're going to see anything happen before the august recess. >> i talked to my sources on the hill, republicans have already turned to tax reform. they're not even paying attention any more. they think of it as dead. you hear more from paul ryan and

house republicans about tax reforms coming up, get this going, get that going, and ignoring what's going on in the senate with the health care bill because there's little likelihood of it actually passing. >> ej, is this just theater? >> no. first of all after what happened in the house where the thing seemed dead and came back to life, i think opponents of repealing the affordable care act cannot lay back until the thing really is dead. i think you have to accept that there's an opening for this to come back to life at some point. having said that, the beautiful thing about this debate is every once in a while substance triumphs over spins and slogans. as long as the republicans were just sort of passing a slogan, repeal obamacare, knowing it would never become law, that was easy. but what they really want to do which is cut money from medicaid, a lot of it, cut money from subsidies, a lot of it, and put a lot of that in tax cuts, the results of that are awful

for a lot of people, particularly as jess pointed out, for republican senators. terrible for rural hospitals. terrible for a lot of lower income people in rural areas. these are republican constituents. once they stop passing a slogan and pass a real bill, it's very hard for them to justify what they're doing. >> the thing i find most curious is why, is senator ted cruz the person to invest your hopes, to get repeal, replace obamacare, to institute trump care? he is the least liked person on capitol hill in either chamber. >> slightly more popular than repealing obamacare. you have to put your feet somewhere. >> i'm not sure of that. >> i think we still have a town hall in kansas two days ago where literally half the population of the small town showed up to protest repeal.

there are some 277 in town, 150 -- that's like footloose but for health care instead of dancing. this is not working in red states because of what ej said, people understand the substance when it comes to health care. all republicans want to do is deny president obama a major piece of his legacy. that's the point of repealing obamacare, not helping the health care system. >> senator chuck grassley sent out a tweet saturday, we'll show it to you. 52 republican senators should be ashamed we have not passed health care reform by now. we won't be ashamed. we will go from majority to minority. i mean -- >> okay. >> they have been trying to do this since 2009. you would think once the dog caught the car, they would actually, the dog would be able to know how to drive the car. it is dereliction of duty that republicans after spending all this time don't have a plan of their own that they can plug in

and go. >> people forget this is what caused the government shutdown. ted cruz trying to repeal obamacare, trying to get them to de-fund obamacare. they have not been able to agree on a plan within the party for 8 or 9 years now. the idea they're going to magically agree over the recess, come to some sort of bill that's not only going to pass the senate and the house is laughable. there's no way that's going to happen. maybe mitch mcconnell, maybe he finds some way to pass the senate, which is looking increasingly unlikely, he himself thursday said he didn't think he could get it through, he was looking at fixing the existing system, but getting that bill through the house is nearly impossible. >> senator pat toomey said something interesting in "the washington post" that one of the reasons republicans have trouble here is they never really expected trump to be president, so they never expected to have this opportunity, so they didn't

do the really long term work necessary. some conservative think tanks tried, but the party in congress, it is not an issue republicans focus on a lot. one senator told me a couple months ago, wasn't being partisan, he just said we had to learn health care because we had to pass obamacare. the republicans weren't that engaged in that debate and so when the time came to put together something that might work, it was extremely difficult, and since so much of what they wanted to do was the very big tax cut primarily for the wealthy, all they could do is cut a lot of money out of health care. and as soon as they start doing that, as i said earlier, they've got a big problem. >> i'm glad you bring it up. the next question i was going to ask, i'll ask it of you, can you move on to tax reform. jess, you were the one that said they put health care in the rearview mirror, and already focused on tax reform. can you do tax reform if you

haven't done health care reform? >> you know, one of the reasons you're hitting on something really important. one of the reasons they wanted to do health care reform first is because under the complicated reconciliation laws, if they don't make the cuts they want to make in health care, they'll have a much tougher time in tax reform under complicated reconciliation rules. they wanted to get a chunk of tax cut in through this bill and create a circumstance in which it is easier to cut more taxes later under these rules. so you're absolutely right. if they don't pass this repeal with a lot of cuts that are in there, tax reform does become much more difficult. >> and another thing that becomes much more difficult, not because they can't get anything done on health care and can't get anything done on tax reform, but there are other things out there congress has to do like fy 2018 budget. >> there's a budget, there's raising the debt ceiling.

>> we talked about that yesterday. >> not only that, faa, reauthorization the federal aviation administration, also next month funding for a crucial veterans affair program that allows veterans choice, greater flexibility in choosing health care actually, going to expire if they don't fund that, and there's all of these like s chip, state children health insurance plans expire in october. massive bills, lined up like new trains and are hitting this bottleneck which is trump care or obamacare repeal and nothing is getting through, and they haven't produced anything. if they don't produce something by july, august recess, it will be one of the most unproductive sessions ever. >> is the effort to repeal obamacare that is the choke point or is it the inability to govern when you control all the levers of government? >> i think it is the lack of ideology to govern by. running as partisan, governing

bipartisan ship doesn't work, we just want to stop democrats and take obama's legacy doesn't work as a governing strategy. not only that, you have a man at the top who has no interest in policy, no desire to learn. this is a guy that got there and said this health care thing is tough, it is actually complicated. >> who knew. >> he is so swamped by the russia allegations, he can't call up any senators and be like you have to do this for me, what are they going to say, what are you going to do to me? >> ej, let me give you the last word. what are they going to say? >> the democrats could be doing the republicans a big favor by keeping them from passing a repeal that would be a political disaster in the 2018 elections. i think that's one of the ironies here. and because they so dislike government, they couldn't start with one of trump's priorities that could have actually put democrats in a tough position, which was infrastructure. >> right. >> have we talked much about

infrastructure lately? i haven't heard -- >> nothing. thank you all very much for being here. coming up at the top of the hour, the government ethics chief offers new details why he is quitting his job. but up next. do we finally know what happened to amelia earhart? we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,

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if you were going to go to court, what agree of confidence would you have in this photograph? >> i would say that these pictures of the earhart compare favorably to the picture from the marshall islands. i usually go from not likely to likely to very likely to extremely likely. and i'd say this is very likely.

>> amelia earhart's disappearance has been unsolved for 80 years. in a new documentary airing tonight on the history channel, new evidence may explain just what happened to the legendary aviator. joining me now is sean henry, former fbi executive assistant director and lead investigator. this is an incredible story. how did it come about? where did that photograph come from? >> a researcher who has been involved in the search for more than ten years, just something he's taken on as a passion of his, he has been searching through the national archives for years looking for any documents from the navy, naval intelligence, u.s. military that might indicate what happened to her. and in the course of his search of the national archives, he came up with several documents, but he also came up with this photo. >> and this photo was sitting in the national archives. >> presumably for decades.

>> and no one knew it was there. and so why do you think that there is still this fascination with amelia earhart? >> i think amelia earhart, the story goes back so many years, but because there was never any conclusion put together, i think people have always wondered what happened to her. i grew thinking that she crash landed in the ocean and likely drowned. >> yeah, that's what i grew up knowing or was taught. but that is -- >> there is no evidence that she crashed. there is no debris, never a plane found, no bodies found, yet that was the common narrative. here we now have a picture that shows i believe that she is in the marshall islands with her navigator fred noonan and that photograph corroborates stories that they have talked about her being there, there are multiple people, people that i've interviewed, i went to the marshall islands.

and this has been the common narrative that they know she landed there, they know that she was taken by a ship that was a japanese ship. and took her to saipan. and these people have been telling these people for 80 years and sure enough we have a photo that shows her. >> and correct me if i'm wrong, so the photograph was found in the national archives. but also in the national archives there is a document where there is a quote that says earhart was a prisoner in the marshall a islaeye eye lansds. so right there it says no, she crashed and was a prisoner.land. so right there it says no, she crashed and was a prisoner. >> i haven't reviewed that document. people have been looking for it for a long time and i haven't seen what that says. but the fact that it refers to her being in the marshall islands, there were also some intercepted communications between the japanese military

and the japanese attache in washington where they talk about her being in the mar hshall islands that was decrypted by the united states government. so there are a number of indicators that she was there. there are narratives that hav d. and now this photo comes to light. >> of course two questions come to mind. why didn't the american government tell us this, why didn't the japanese government tell us this? >> and i think those are questions for the next half of this investigation. we've i believe conclusively put her in the marshall islands that she land safely and she was held by the japanese. that i think we can say. the totality of all the evidence that occurred, why did the japanese government hold her, why did they not talk to the u.s. about it, why did the u.s. government if there are these records in the national archives not come forward. those are questions that are

unanswered. there is a lot of supposition and a lot of speculation. we don't have time to go through all that right now, but i think there is a lot more to this story. >> and what is the japanese government saying now? i mean i'm assuming that yyou went to them and say what do you have to say? >> nbc has gone out and talked to the japanese government. multiple agencies. and they said that they have no records of me amelia earhart be in japanese custody. of course nobody alive at the time is still alive. so there is a lot more investigation to be done. since this first aired last week, we have gotten dozens of phone calls and e-mails from people who say that they have additional information. a grabbndfather saw something, they found documents. so we will pursue that. >> i'm very much looking forward to watching this tonight. thank you very much, sean henry. it airs tonight at 9:00 p.m.

eastern on history. that is our show for today. joy reid will be back next week. up next, alex witt has the latest reaction to donald trump's meeting with vladimir putin. more news at the top of the hour. m so frustrated. i ju want to find a used car without getting ripped off. you could start your search at the all-new carfax.com that might help. show me the carfax. now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. show me used trucks with one owner. pretty cool. [laughs] ah... ahem... show me the carfax. start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the all-new carfax.com. (singsong) budget meeting. sweet. if you compare last quarter... it's no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with no artificial preservatives, flavours or dyes. made with no artificial preservatives, i'm karen, i'm a teacher.olfer.

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text to reorder blades with gillette on demand... ...and get $3 off your first order i'm alex witt here in new york. it is high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. let's get to what is happening. republican lawmakers are pushing back on president trump's plan to form a cybersecurity unit with president putin after confronting him about meddling in the u.s. election. here are senators lindsey graham and john mccain this morning. >> the dumbest idea i've heard, but it's close. they are ready to forgive and for get. the more you do this, the more people are suspi