>> i'm yasmin vossoughian for louis burgdorf. now to "morning joe." >> senior levels of the trump campaign meeting with russians to try to on it and information that might hurt the campaign of hillary clinton. >> do you want to speak to don jr.? >> absolutely. for a campaign and now a president who continues to say there's no there there, yet virtually every week or two there's more stories of meetings -- undisclosed meetings with russian officials that beg the question if there's no there there, why aren't more of these people coming clean at a more regular fashion. >> the vice chair of the senate intel committee wants to have a word with the president's son and that was before the new york city reported that don jr. was sent an e-mail saying material he might be given in a meeting with a kremlin-connected lawyer

was part of a russian effort to aid his father's candidacy. good morning, it's tuesday, july 11th. welcome to "morning joe." with us, we have columnist mike barnicle, former fbi special agent clint watt, katty kay and author of "a world in disarray, and from msnbc news, mark halperin. last night the "new york times" reported before arranging a meeting with a russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about hillary clinton, donald trump jr. was informed in an e-mail the material was part of a russian government effort to aide his father's candidacy,

according to three people with knowledge of the e-mail. the author of the reported e-mail was rob goldstone, a publicist which helped set up the meeting, which took place in june of 2016, before trump became the nominee. the russian lawyer said she had information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the democratic national convention that she thought donald trump jr. might find helpful. the source doesn't go deeper on moscow's attempts to tilt the election and the paper is careful to point out there is no evidence to suggest the information is related to hacking that led to the release of the dnc e-mails, if you'll remember that. >> so mark halperin on the hill, if you look at this story, it seems it's just somebody is

releasing a little bit of information every day. on saturday don jr. comes out and says he's talking about adoption, on sunday he's talking about this meeting. without a whole lot of details, he didn't even know what to tell poor paul manafort, hey, just come to a meeting. there was actually e-mail saying this is part of a larger russian effort to actually help your father be elected president of the united states. what's the response been on capitol hill? >> don jr.'s lawyer puts out a lengthy statement that doesn't refute the essence of the new times reporting. i talked to republicans and democrats on capitol hill yesterday even before, as mika suggested, the revelation before last night. people are shaken by this and

not only are there a lot of unanswered question, but this is one of the biggest revelations so far. don jr. is in a very tough place now because every day whoever is providing this information to the "times" is coming out with somebody else. either said he knew this story was out there or he didn't and either way that presents a lot of troubling questions for him going forward and for the wider operation for him to deal with going forward. the defense from some people yesterday was it's fine to get help from the russians in a political campaign, all take oppo from anywhere it comes from and i do not think that will be a sustainable position if that turns out to be what happened. >> i actually saw somebody, richard haas, yesterday on another network saying, oh, sure i would have taken help from russians if it was opposition reself-.

first of a -- research. first of all, that's a lie. nobody would. i've run those campaigns. if somebody said, hey, the russian government would like to -- get the hell out of my office. anybody would do that. republicans were already in full lying mode yesterday. and then last night this story comes out. and so now are the republicans going to follow donald trump and his family down a rat hole to say, why, yes, why yes, i would have taken this meeting if i had known that it was part of a russian government conspiracy led by the kremlin to get me elected president of the united states or congressman of the united states or senator of the united states? who follows them down that rat hole? >> not very smart people. i'm sorry, i can't -- >> not very smart people. and a not very smart party. >> so there's both sides here.

coming at that time from both direction, you've got the people of the campaign, the son and others, the fact that they were willing to traffic in that stuff but this tells you more about russia. this is not a one-dimensional russian effort to influence the american political market. this could be scratching the surfaced of a multi-dimention effort to influence the campaign. >> as richard blumenthal said yesterday, he suspected it's not this first meeting, katty, it's all those that follow. >> we want every single meeting or any person in this white house has had with the russians.

clearly the kremlin felt that the trump campaign was vulnerable to be penetrated or at least targeted in this cam pan. there must have been something that made them think this was worth a go. >> mike barnicle, you have this meeting with a kremlin-connected lawyer, a contact comes forward that says, hey, the criminal wants to help you out here, talk to this lawyer. you got paul manafort running the campaign, jared kushner, the president's closest sayyid during the -- closest aide during the campaign and then you have don jr. how does kushner forget to put this on any of his disclosure forms -- >> that's jared calling.

>> exactly. >> with the answer. >> -- when he knows that there's been an e-mail sent to the campaign, to don jr. saying, hey, the russian government wants to help you get elected president of the united states. so you've got jared kushner forgetting to put an ambassador's meeting down on his disclosure form, then you have them forgetting a meeting with one of the top bankers connected with the kremlin and the attorney general forgetting to put it down on all the forms. i mean, if you're bob mueller, there's so much smoke, there's got to be fire there but right now you got to go outside to get a breath of fresh air. it is whirling all around this administration. >> clearly there's a lot going on here and one of the telltale signs that there's so much going on is it's fairly obvious that the leaks, the information from

these "times" stories comes from within either the white house or the justice department. this has choked off whatever small pieces of progress the trump administration has been making. they continually revise their statements. donald jr.'s tweet yesterday belittling the fact that he met with the russians, i'll tell you what, i've covered a lot of c campaigns, i know a lot of people who worked in campaigns, if someone comes into the office to see the campaign manager or brother or son of the candidate, you know, i have some great stuff from the russians, you call the clintons. >> this is part of a bigger scheme to influence an election. again, if somebody on my staff said we got this russian guy

connected with the russian government, i would say, okay, call the fbi and i've got to go vote. no question about it. >> exactly. it's all pretty shocking and horrifying, especially for the republican party, but what are the real questions here from your perspective, clint? >> i think it's this silliness about it's okay to just meet with russian businessmen and there are no consequences with this. >> is it okay to use the word collusion? >> collusion. so they keep parsing this out. does collusion mean i take or coordinate with an online persona to get hillary clinton's e-mails out or opposition research out there? if a consultant in florida gets them and posts them online, is that collusion? a russian operative knows how to

push this. they're going to do exactly what we're seeing here, they're going to go all the way around the periphery to everyone in the family, everyone politically connected and business interests and try and put leverage on them. >> what's of interest to bob mueller there? >> the connections now in the business realm. the one thing you can't hide are financial connections. that's what you see him staffing out a team with. he's bringing on a lot of prosecutors with white collar experience. the other thing he's going to do is bring these people in for interviews and see where there's interconstitue inconsistencies in their stories. how many inconsistencies have we had in three days -- >> are they looking for connections with putin directly or russian banks or r.t. or what? >> you'll three. you're going to look at r.t., how were connections used and

these political efforts. >> and stupid of don jr. to go on twitter when he is clearly in legal jeopardy. this time yesterday morning everybody knew he was clearly in legal jeopardy. he goes up on twitter again yesterday only to be undercut by the "new york times" last night because people inside his own white house, inside his own administration are leaking on him. >> well, the president's been silent on this. he tweeted out on a lot of topics yesterday but not on this. but you have to imagine that he and his legal team have to be trying to figure out not only who's leaking this stuff but what else might they have? you think about who would have access to this e-mail? the "times" didn't print the e-mail but his lawyer didn't deny it exists in a long e-mail.

>> perhaps it was intercepted or perhaps someone has turned it over. that's a private e-mail to a american citizen who has now had the "new york times" characterize an e-mail, which is really the biggest single document i think that has come out i think in this entire investigation of the potential russian influence. this is an e-mail allegedly to a family member saying "the russian government has an effort to help your father get elected president during the campaign." assume the best case for the others involved, that don jr. is telling the truth, he didn't tell jared kushner or paul manafort what this is about. eventually there's going to have to be an accounting of that meeting. if his account is different than what he's given so far and if there are subsequent meetings, this is as big a thing as has

occurred in this entire story. >> you've spoken with several republicans, many of whom have defended donald trump every step of the way and you said even would back george w. bush but yesterday they said something quite different, didn't they, that this was different from everyone else that had gone before. >> just assuming the facts that are already known, there's a lot of unease about where this could go because of the nature of the communication and because of the series of "times" stories. this has a different feel for some republicans yesterday and the president's silence on it is making people wonder what is he thinking about all this? where does he think all of this goes? >> donald trump jr. now has an aattorneying writing "in my view, this is much ado about

nothing. late may and early june 2016 was an intensely busy time for don jr. robert goldstone contacted don jr. in an e-mail and suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing by democratic party front-runner hillary clinton in her dealings with russia. >> he's saying he knew it was t the russian government. the money came from russia. >> don jr. had no knowledge of what specific information, if any, would be discussed. further at no time was there any understanding or commitment that he or anyone else would find the information to be reliable, credible, of interest or would either survive due diligence. >> that lasted nothing. and the meeting lasted 20 or 30

minutes. oh, wait, that was about the same amount of time as what, mark halperin? >> it's exactly the same length of the loretta lynch meeting and the accounts of that meeting have never changed from the bill clinton side but people want to know what was actually portrayed. it's a long meeting as it was characterized. >> and if you look, richard, at what was said in that statement, actually prereince priebus, in of his most embarrassing performances ever, if you go back and look at it, it's one false statement after another. this statement is a nothing burger because in the statement you're saying we got this e-mail

saying the russian government had information and was going to try to defeat hillary clinton and get involved in this campaign, but we didn't even know if anything would come of it. we didn't know whether the blackmailing information or colluding information was even good information. >> we wanted good collusion and we weren't sure if we had it. >> two things. one is it reinforces the historical lesson that it's always what you do at the time and how you react to what you do and that's when you get into the obstructions, the perjuries and management of the past. there's as an achilles heel here. one of the areas the republicans had split was over the russian angle. >> how do you think john mccain, marco rubio, how do you think -- i mean, i would hope rob portman, how do you think bob corker are going to respond to

don jr., jared kushner and donald trump saying, organization yes rkoh yes, of course we got an e-mail said they were going to influence the election, of course we took the meeting. how are we going to respond? >> that changes this into a fundamental national security question and it gives republicans cover behind that to challenge the administration. >> let's make no mistake. one other thing, mika, don jr. went into that meeting, let's strip it down. he went into that meeting expecting help from the russian government. stop. >> stop. >> full stop. >> full stop. >> that's why the lawyer's statement, the attorney's statement is so misleading because all it says is people said they had information. take out people and say the kremlin said it had information

because that's really what we're talking about, that's what don jr. understood clearly going into that meeting that they were talking about. you talked about the financial side of this and that's what bob mueller is going to be looking at. i was wondering about don jr. and he knew it was the russian government, aren't we no longer looking at just at just national dealings because clearly this is different? >> what's going to happen as they go into the interviews, what was this transaction, what was this interaction, what was all of this about. when a russian attorney, a russian oligarch shows up at your door, they're acting as an agent the russia. i'm tired of them saying, well, we're so new at this, we didn't

know. if you' don't know this, maybe you shouldn't be leading this country. paul manafort certainly knew. >> i found the white house's position fascinating. look at this. >> i'm saying that the president's campaign did not collude in any way. >> what do you say about that, don jr., the names coming out. >> i would certainly say don jr. did not collude with anyone. >> what about flynn? >> to my none, he did not collude with anyone. our position is clear, no one within the trump campaign colluded in order to influence the election. >> the response from the president's legal team was brief and word for word the same answer to the "times" article that came out sunday, quote, the

president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting. that's the most quiet he's ever been. >> he has. looks like the lawyers are silencing him now. >> the lawyer's comment was a purely lawyerly comment. it said nothing really. said absolutely nothing. the interesting aspect of this in terms of the ongoing investigation i think would be partially donald jr.'s tweets, especially the one where he describes the meeting about to take place and says he did not know who he was meeting with. so what's the motivation for a meeting? >> and there are consistent statements during the exact same time saying, russia, if you have these e-mails, we would like to see them. he's essentially confirming what's going on behind the scenes. president trump said if president obama knew about this effort by russia to get me elected, why didn't he do something about it? we should be asking, president

trump, if you knew, if your son knew russia was trying to get you elected, why didn't you do anything about it? why would your inner team even entertain any of this? >> what's your sense about the source of these stories, the leaks of these stories, what's your sense? >> it makes no sense to me. i am tired of hearing about this deep state leaking intelligence. there's only one way to get all these dots connected and you have to have someone in the center. we hear about nsa, a memo being there, the dni memo being there, the comey having memos about being pressured. that comes from the center. it's very difficult to get sources that want to give up their entire career and potentially go to jail in six or seven locations in the intelligence community. i don't believe our intelligence professionals are coughing up this information. i believe it's in donald trump's house.

>> this does look like it's coming from the inside and i don't know, who is that? who's trying to -- mark halperin, who is leaking all this from the inside? who's trying to get john jr. and jared kushner out of the way? >> i'm pure lily speculating bu don't agree with clint. i'm speculating it's the intel community and most likely the russians. >> and coming up, keir simmons sits down with the russian lawyer at the center of this explosive story surrounding donald trump jr. that's coming up at the top of the hour at 7 a.m. plus the ranking member of the house intel committee, congressman adam schiff joins us here on set and democrat joe manchin.

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rob goldstone, a british foreign music promoter and tabloid reporter confirmed for "the washington post" he asked for the meeting at the trump tower at the request of a russian pop star with close connections to the kremlin and president putin. >> there you go, america. look at that. the family has reportedly done business with the trump family in the past. >> what is that outfit? >> goldstone was involved in the 2014 miss universe pageant. >> don jr. did say they get an overwhelming amount of their money from russians and then eric trump was it in "golf" magazine said they got a great deal of their money from russians as well. >> it's all coming down to that. >> it's all -- >> and, by the way, they can try

to brush that aside but as clint said, this is financial. they're going to be able to track it down. can you lie and talk about fake news all you want to, make quotes and then try to run from them, it's out there. and they're going to be able to track it down. there's so much russian money around these people. there has been. you know how we know? because they've admitted it in newspapers back before he was going to run for president. >> hindsight it's remarkable that during the course of the campaign and coverage of the campaign, shame on us to a certain extent, the fact that the trump family and specifically donald trump and element of his family as they grew older have been enmeshed with the russians for 30 years. >> think about how angry the president got when you continued to be critical even after you

had lunch at the white house. i'm getting to a point here. can you imagine what types of dealings he has with russian banks and whatever, whoever over there, that are far bigger than lunch and he feels if he can blow up about a lunch gone awry, good lord about whatever relationship he has with the huge financial transactions. he's not able to make good decisions because he is enmeshed with them. favors have been done. >> if you have had for years, as mike was describing, complicated financial dealings with the russians, would that tend to make you vulnerable automatically to some kind of blackmail or influence or leverage that the russians might have over you?

>> if your house cards were built on russian money and russian finances and you were donald trump, then, yes, perhaps he would. >> and did they feel you owed them, too? >> agalorovs' father helped sponsor that pageant. trump received a portion of the $14 million that was made to bring the pageant moscow. trump said i was with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals and

top-of-the-government people. i can't go further than that but i will tell you that i met the top people. >> let's stop it there. donald trump was so tight with the russians that he couldn't even get into it. it was almost a state secret that he met over there, on paper! >> and talk about wanting to start a relationship with putin that he subsequently denied. the danger is so many threads including bringing back all the questions about the trips that the trumps took to moscow and the importance of their relationship there. if you look at his videos on youtube, this is not the guy you would want the fate of the republic to rest upon.

he seems like a pretty frivolous guy. but the questions are now bagged about all the ties and how this meeting too place, what was the predicate of the meeting and as you said at the top of the show, what you said subsequent to the meeting, the accounts by donald trump jr. is nothing, that this led nowhere, nothing came of it. it's striking how much members of congress now want to get to the bottom of this specific meeting and presumably how much bob mueller wants to get to the bottom of the meeting. >> it's impossible to explain on foreign policy or national security terms, why first the candidate, now the president, which has held this position against russia, which is sanguin

or -- >> we had to stay after the president to get to repudiate the assassination of journalists, but he did it reluctantly. and then he told bill o'reilly when he said the same thing later, he said, yeah, well, our soldiers kill people, too. >> it's inconsistent with his own political party, with every party. >> "the washington post" said after the pageant the algalarovs family said they were going to

build a tower in russia. they kept saying every time there was friction between the united states and russia, it bad for both countries. for the people to benefit, this should be federal governmentixee friend. and after amin congratulated him, he and trump jr. had exchanged messages as recently as january. now that he ran and he was elected, he do not forget his friend. >> no, mike, apparently he does not. as he said in his own statement in 2015, he has a lot of friend there, a lot of oligarchs, a lot of top government officials. donald trump has admitted that. >> yesterday, i went back and watched "all the president's

men," more than four decades ago. it's a great film. and bill goldman, the screenwriter, he wrote the line, no wb one uttered the line duri the course of the investigation but bill goldman wrote the line "follow the money." and today with another investigation and another scandal on the horizon, follow the money. >> coming up, donald trump suggested his meetings with the k kremlin was business as usual. why his first call should have been to the fbi. ♪

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partnering with putin on a cyber security unit is akin to partnering with assad on a chemical weapons unit. >> that's like tweeting out he'd like to fight drug abuse in america by starting a new drug

interdiction conference with el chapo. >> it's been an incredible week so far. there were plenty of analogies to describe president trump's idea that he blurted out on twitter to team up with russia on a cyber security unit. >> lindsey said that may have been one of the dumbest ideas he's ever heard in his life. >> almost the dumbest. but the most disturbing part of it is he just blurts it out on twitter and steven mnuchin talked about it on a morning show. >> never seen anything like it. two white house officials go out with statements yesterday that they -- or two days ago that they have to completely pull back on. >> within the same news cycle and not just two white house officials but the white house

chief of staff and the treasury secretary on a trip that this white house said was such a successful trip, those two thing, one central with putin and one the big distraction they're dealing with. why did those two guys go out in the sunday shows and say what they did? was it the plan at the time or were they doing the best they could in a tough situation? >> and you're talking about reince priebus? >> reince priebus had a different statement than don jr. after he said he checked with the team about what happened. between that and what mnuchin did, it was an historic sunday. >> what's so worrying is the idea that something like that could have been introduced in the first place. there is something fundamentally flawed with the decision making process that allows an idea like

that to be surfaced in a formal setting. >> what do you mean a formal setting? >> with the russians. if anyone was dumb enough to think it up, the idea it could be put forward and discussed with the russians, something is wrong. this is so improvisational and -- >> this is why you don't have the national security adviser in there because you want to be able to float your own crazy theories. >> putin floated it and trump dressed it up. maybe that's a good idea. >> if you doesnn't have the com sense to say no at the moment, at least say we'll get back to you. >> we have no more idea of what happened in the meeting with donald trump than we have with the meeting with don jr. and

this attorney. >> we do know he was played. >> obviously when he came out talking about a joint cyber security force. >> you can assume that putin went in with a fairly clear list of items on his agenda. >> and some say there are allegations you meddled in the election. putin's response is always very smart saying i did not do that and please show me the evidence. what putin wants america to do is cough up the sources. that trail of dead russians is going to grow really quick. i get nervous when i see an amateur president trump go in there that one of these times he going to go in just like had he talked about israel being the source. hey, here is the insttel that ss you guys are meddling in the

election, putin will say, no, i didn't, let me hand this off to my team. >> there's a reason there were only two americans in that room, the secretary of state and the president of the united states, so thinly stashed. >> you would never have a meeting like that without a note taker. meetings like that cannot happen. >> well, he didn't want to have a clear record of what happened and he succeeded. just ahead, we're going to bring in nbc's keir simmons who sat down with a lawyer about the heart of this situation surrounding donald jr. >> we'll be right back.

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there is a good question about steven mnuchin commenting on the president's cyber security idea. >> why do you have the treasury secretary talking about a cyber security plan with vladimir sp? >> either he was told to or almost like a odd opening of the cabinet meeting, people feel compelled to come out and support the chief. >> it was look that strange tweet that pence sent out when trump was on his way out. it was fawning. >> donald trump junior's defense of his meeting, it's a spell. in defense of his meeting with a russian lawyer that he was just engaging in a typical campaign practice of seeking opposition research was rebuffed by a number of high level members of past republican presidential campaigns. nicole wallace, communications director for the bush chain said i handled oppo, a reality but

never ever from a foreign adversa adversary. rick tyler wrote senior presidential campaign officials don't take meetings with nameless people. doesn't happen. >> it does not happen. >> michael steele senior advisor to jeb bush's 2016 bid said aside from the candidate himself, the campaign manager's time is among the most valuable resources for any campaign. it would be very odd for the campaign manager to appear at a meeting with a more or less random foreigner claiming they're peddling opposition research. romney ryan campaign manager wrote from experience when working on a presidential campaign and contacted by a foreigner, prudent to mention to one, your foreign policy team and two, the fbi. the chief strategists on the 2012 romney ryan team wrote on twitter, if you can find someone in other presidential campaigns

who has received oppo from foreign interests, please share. >> stop on stevens. keep that up there. this is really the challenge. this is what -- this is the challenge. we could have all these people saying we've never done it, we've never done it. stuart actually puts this the right way. if anybody who is listening to this show and most the people that are influences in washington, a lot of them listen to this show. a lot of people have run presidential campaigns, listen to and watch this show. if you know in your lifetime a political campaign, a presidential campaign receiving opposition research or support from any political campaign or from any foreign power, especially a foreign power that's hostile, russia, china, iran, syria, let us know.

let stuart stevens know. i can tell you, mike, we've been around a lot of campaigns in our -- richard, in our collective 3,000 years on the globe. i've never heard of any presidential campaign, any senatorial campaign, any congressional campaign, any campaign of the thousands and thousands of campaigns i've come across, never once have i heard of a foreign power coming in, especially a hostile foreign power coming in and offering help. >> well, a couple of things. first donald junior is taking a meeting with information from a foreign government, russia. his father is not running for selectman from new jersey. he's running for president of the united states. the second thing is the only thing in my memory that comes remotely close to this would be 1968 with the nixon campaign with information about the paris peace talks, how to delay them.

that's the only thing remotely close. >> richard, can you name a time that a foreign power came to a domestic campaign and said we're here to help? >> we're here to help. no. obviously not. again, it would set off every warning light you would have on your consult. the idea that you would actually do it -- >> t not a close call. >> there's a lot of close calls, 60/40 calls in campaigns. this is not one of those. >> this is easy. if somebody came to me and said they have information from the russian government on my opponent, i would immediately say call the fbi and give a few more choice words. >> stuart who is also a veteran of the bush/chainny campaign recalled when gore campaign was sent bush debate briefing book, they called the fbi.

if foreign interests offer you information on the former secretary of state, you call the fbi. >> still ahead, nbc news foreign respondent keir simmons just sat down with the russian lawyer who met with donald trump junior in 2016. keir joins us with the details of his exclusive interview in just minutes. "morning joe" will be right back. i'm karen, i'm a teacher.olfer. my psoriatic arthritis caused joint pain. just like my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and i was worried about joint damage.

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collude in any way. >> so when we go to different people, what do you say about that? anyone, the names that are coming out? >> i would say don junior did not collude with anybody to incluns the election. >> what about flynn? >> to my knowledge, he did not collude with anybody to incluns the campaign. again, i think i've been very clear. our position is no one within the trump campaign colluded in order to influence the election. >> the white house says there's nothing to see here, but donald trump junior isn't exactly helping them make that case. >> she didn't exactly leap to general flynn's defense either. i mean, for general flynn, it's rough inform. >> she really hedged. >> you have her hedging. >> you can't see her face, but you can hear it. >> right before general flynn is fired, the national inquirer says trump finds a spy inside his white house. a few days later he's fired.

>> maybe they should distort their voices. >> so we don't know who they are? >> and you can't tell what they're saying. that's next. with us mike barnicle, clint watts, catty cay, richard hoss, mark halprin, and peter baker. >> peter baker, this is quite a story from the new york times. what's your take on it? >> it is quite a story. because it does suggest that the attempt to collude with the trump campaign at least began early on. whether or not the campaign itself colluded certainly the e-mail that we're reporting this morning that was apparently sent to donald trump junior offering information that was explicitly coming from the russian government suggests that from

the june 2016 the trump campaign was at least aware that the russians wanted to participate in the campaign as richard hoss and others have said. it's hard to think of too many parallels like that in previous elections. i think it's one of these things that certainly shifts the story once again, and it demonstrates the dangers to a president who has his family close to him who are not seasoned veterans of campaigns or international diplomacy. >> any idea on what we're going to get to see that e-mail, when we would get to see that e-mail? i know it's not your story, but can you tell us anything about that e-mail? >> as soon as we get it, you'll see it informal we'll put it out there. my guess is investigators all over town right now are either looking to get or already have the e-mail. my guess is it's not the only one they have. >> all right. let's go through this step by

step. last night "the new york times" reported that before arranging a meeting with the kremlin connected russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about hillary clinton, donald trump junior was informed in an e-mail that the material was part of a russian government effort to aide his father's candidacy. according to three people with knowledge of the e-mail. the author of the reported e-mail was rob goldstone a publicist who helped set up the meeting which took place in june of 2016 before trump became the nominee. earlier in the day he told the a.p. the russian lawyer said she had information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the democratic national committee that she thought donald trump junior might find helpful. the times notes while the russian government was identified as a source of the information, it doesn't go deeper in moscow's attempts to tilt the election, and the paper is careful to point out there is no evidence to suggest the

information was related to hacking that led to the release of the dnc e-mails, but wow. i mean, too stupid to collude? is it an attempt to collude that went -- >> you can't, begun, they can't use the we're stupid because this is our first campaign, because paul manafort had been in political campaigns since the mid 70s. he worked for perhaps the best campaigner. >> and he was at the meeting. >> best white house chief of staff, james a. baker iii. he's been around professionals his entire adult life. so when an e-mail comes to the campaign, promising deliverables brought by the russian government, that's fairly straightforward, isn't et? a -- it? >> and what's the big e concern when the e-mail surface? >> donald trump junior is still based on his statements, he's saying this was all my deal. i didn't really tell them what it was about, and maybe he's

going to try to insulate manafort and jared kushner from this e-mail, but the reality is that the president's son was a big part of the campaign. i disagree a little bit with this notion we've talked about some of the tweets from before from past republican operative. trump tower was a loosy goosy place. people could just walk in, but if you're the candidate's son or a senior campaign official, any foreign government should raise flags but we have to go back to russia interfered with the election. >> you say it's a loosy goosy place, but you weren't going to get a meeting with paul manaformanafort jared kushner and don junior unless they knew what you were coming for. >> that's a pretty important meeting? . >> again, i'm not minimizing the cullability of all of them. all i'm saying is i bet you there are lots of meetings that took place with that cast of characters or comparable people

that were not vetted the way a normal campaign would vet them. this is of a different order, different magnitude, a different significance, but this operation did not have in place the kind of structure that a bush campaign or romney campaign would. >> of course not because they had paul manafort in there. a guy that had connections all across russia and the eastern former soviet block. and he's particular with campaigns. he worked with ford, reagan, bush, goal, trump. and here's a guy who from the very beginning had suspicions swirling around him about russian contacts. this show, every other show, had suspicions about russian connections with the trump campaign from the very beginning because of his fawning statements about vladimir putin. and a lot of people were asking during this time what does vladimir putin have on donald trump? in realtime.

>> it's amazing just, again, there's so much amazing about this. it's amazing the meeting took place in light of the e-mail. if you wanted to collude with russia, it's amazing that they would get in the room with that person and it shows you how loosy goosy was and the extent to which as republicans, as you pointed out, started to say yesterday, no problem from the point of view of some people taking help from the russian government to try to win an election. it will not be a popular view on capitol hill. >> and just how arrogant they were at the same time, that they would take meetings with people saying we come bearing gifts from vladimir putin and his government to help you defeat hillary clinton. that is stupid, and that is arrogant, and could be illegal. >> it could be illegal. i mean, they will try to make the argument we didn't get anything, so it wasn't collusion. if you go into a meeting with the intent of colluding, lawyers are going to have an interesting time trying to make the difference between colluding and the intent of collusion which is

what the white house is asking. for me what fascinating is what was happening on the kremlin's end. they must have realized they had a weak link here in the american political system that was vulnerable to an approach like this. and it worked. whether it was manafort and they knew manafort and knew they could get into the trump campaign through him because of a long dealings with him or whether it was with the business dealings of trump junior and the trump business, i don't know. but they realized this was a campaign worth approaching. >> and also that this is a potential president worth having as president of the united states because they've been able to play him. maybe they have something on him. they wanted him in there. there's reason they were working very hard to elect donald trump. >> and they weren't hiding it. they went into the meeting having said this is who it is. >> we have to put context around this. first of all, there have a lot of talk during the summer. a lot of talk of the rug russian

trying to influence the campaign. there was a lot of talks about planks at the rnc being changed to help vladimir putin. also the context around not only these meetings with russians but all the other meetings with russians. we've talked about it before. everybody lied. on their disclosure forms, everybody lied in the trump administration about this meeting, about other meetings. >> the trump story is inconsistent and the russian story is very consistent. in july of last year, everything they were doing was part of a strategic plan. they were at the ambassador level in diplomats sending them into the campaign. now we're sending in lawyers to give compromising information. we are communicating with hackers on twitter and leaking e-mails out at strategic times after the convention to sway the voters. everything is consistent. we have the dossier which talks about the strategy from russia. a russian think tank said this

was our strategy, to try to get trump elected. everyone knew this and yet, on the trump side the story is inconsistent in every single mark and everyone that's touched by the russians has a different story after they initially come out. it's always nothing and then a little bit of something and then it's we don't even know what it is. >> it's a rolling disclosure. go back to jared kushner. i never met anybody. i forgot i met the ambassador. that said, it was just a mistake. wait, i met the banker. then you have to put that down. then there's wait a second, i met a kremlin-connected lawyer who promised to give us dirt on hillary clinton from the russian government. then you put that down. what's the next rolling disclosure? how many more rolling disclosures do there have to be before people understand what's going on? >> peter baker alluded to that when he said he strongly suspects as would i that there are more e-mails in this. and in this conversation we're having, it gets back, part of it

gets back to the president's meeting with vladimir putin on the foreign trip, and the foreign trip itself. let me ask you, and this is just my impression from observing it on television and reading about it. did we have a president who was a president alone on this trip? was he separated from the group both physically and intellectually? it seems to me they played very little part in mingling with him. i saw him standing aside in meetings. what was the intent of the trip? what happened on the trip? what was different about this trip with this president than past foreign trips with past presidents? >> yeah. i mean, what's interesting is in past summit meetings like this with multiple meetings you see the american president generally trying to shape the conversation and shape the direction of the financial communication that will be issued by the group.

in this case, the american played a part in this final communication but it was angela merkel shaping the message, and it was about climate change. it was about trade. and on these issues the president of the united states obviously stood apart. that's by plan. that's by design. here in the white house they thought that was a good thing and made him look like he was standing up for american interests against foreign competitors and that previous presidents had gotten so sucked into this idea of being friends with foreign leaders that they forgot who they represented. that's the thinking inside the west wing, but in europe and around the world, it's led to a situation where the american president is not necessarily the leader but the outlier. >> is it policy now within this administration that we are now engaged in the deconstruction of 70 years' worth of effort around the world to it further peace and further prosperity, the the

construction of all that? >> obviously steve bannon talked about deconstruction of the matterive sta matt matter administrative state. that's the philosophy that has infused what trump has been about. it's an anti-globalist thinking. it's the idea that these international bodies and these international constructs that have been created over time have, in fact, not worked out to the united states' benefit, and that in and of themselves that not going to be president trump's priority, that he's going to get out there and get in your face and advocate for a different set of rules that benefit the american worker. now, there's a big debate about that, obviously, and inside even this white house there's a big debate between what we might overly simplify called the globalists and the nationalists. we'll see that on the coming days. that's a big fight right now between those two sides. are they going to try to build

up wall to protect americans against what they consider to be dumped steel and if that is the case, that will be a provocative move among our international partners. >> richard, though, the spin that a lot of trump apologists are making, the spin inside of the white house, he goes alone, he doesn't care what europe thinks. he's his own man. he was isolated. he was alone. and what did donald trump tell us from the beginning? i'm a deal maker. i can make deals with anybody. i'm going to go to china and make the most beautiful deals. i'm going to make the greatest deals with china. no. he made no deals in fa. he was like the kid left alone in the class. nobody wanted to talk to him. they're figuring out how to work around him. the so-called deal maker was a complete flop. he didn't make any deals. in fact, he didn't even make a deal on north korea. he didn't even push vladimir putin because he was so scared of vladimir putin. he was so cowed by vladimir

putin that he didn't even push him on north korea. so this whole argument, richard, that donald trump wasn't going to follow the european's blindly is insanity, because it goes against what trump promised the american people which was i'm a deal maker. i can be tough with these people, but then get them to work with me. he did get the second part of that. instead, it was the g 19 and america was left in the cold because he couldn't make a deal with anybody. >> it is the g-19. and we have abdicated american leadership, and it's not just on climate and trade. those are two particularly big things. i agree what happens on steel tariff could be pulling a thread on the entire global trading system which would have all sorts of consequences for american growth and foreign policy and the rest. you're right. going into the g-20, i would have predicted it would have

been high yjacked by north kore. i would say put together a coalition of the willing to deal with north korea. we left. south korean president made his own speech policy of the north. china and russia pushing against us in the security council. we left germany more isolated than before. >> but donald trump didn't bring it up why? because vladimir putin didn't want him to bring it up? >> russia has emerged in some ways. it's not just china that is unwilling to use the influence with north korea. russia is increasingly entered, and russia now is a spoiler yet again, yet again, they have become something of a spoiler. >> so he kowtowed to vladimir putin on north korea. >> well, effectively -- >> it appears. >> the russians are stepping into that space and blocking american efforts at sanctions in the united nations on the issue of north korea, and it is a

question of american pullback. other people are going to take that opportunity, and the opportunity that is being taken is being taken increasingly by authoritarian regimes. we'll have a word where it's not american leadership and values pushing the agenda, it's authoritarian regimes pushing the agenda. >> it's changed the way americans will not only look at north korea but the world from now on. >> thank you. >> usa today, richard hoss. mark, let's talk about the human element of donald trump junior. obviously that's going to be playing a role in how the white house handles this. >> yeah. look, the president's son-in-law has been as much under fire as anybody on the investigation on capitol hill we believe through the independent counsel as well. the president is close to his son-in-law, but he's closer to his son, and don junior now combative in the media over the

last couple years but now is in a very vulnerable position. as i said, i've heard many people comments on the fact that the president has been silent. he's been absolutely silent on this topic. no public appearances, using twitter for other purposes. people are looking to see will he come to his son's defense and how vulnerable is don junior personally and politically. there's a real human element within the trump family of how they will try to rally behind a very vulnerable now oldest son. >> and you think they would because this president responds to the smallest of things on twitter. he's very robust on twitter and talks about anything and everything that he's feeling, so i'm sure he has deep feelings about his oldest son, and we will be hearing from the president shortly. >> i think we actually might.

>> okay. peter baker, thank you. still ahead, we go live to moscow where keir simmons has an exclusive interview with the russian lawyer who met inside trump tower with the promise they'd get information from the russian government. plus we go live to casey hunt and peter alexander. we'll be right back. ♪ [brother] any last words? [boy] karma, danny... ...karma! [vo] progress is seizing the moment. your summer moment awaits you, now that the summer of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the summer of audi sales event.

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know and being told to come to trump tower for a meeting with the trump campaign. she says they wanted information, particularly financial information about the clinton campaign. information she says she didn't have. this is the woman, natalia veselnitskaya, at the center of a storm over a meeting with donald trump's son in june, 2016. >> translator: i wake up one morning and find you're the focus of all the high ranking upstream media. >> reporter: on june 9th, two weeks after trump secured the nomination, his son and son-in-law and paul manafort met with the russian attorney. in june you met with donald trump junior, paul manafort, jared kushner. what was the purpose of that meeting? >> translator: i never knew who else would be attending the meeting. all i knew was that mr. donald trump junior was willing to meet

with me. i could recognize the young gentleman who was only present in the meeting for probably the first seven to to ten minutes, and then he stood up and left the room. it was mr. jared kushner, and he never came back, by the way. and the other person at the same meeting was always looking at his phone. he was reading something. he never took any active part in the conversation. that was mr. manafort. >> and they had the impression, it appears, that they were going to be told some information that you had about the dnc. how did they get that impression? >> translator: it's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. they wanted it so badly. >> reporter: this morning she denies claims she's connected to a russian government effort to aid donald trump's presidency. >> reporter: have you ever worked with the russian government? do you have connections to the

russian government? >> translator: no. >> reporter: what she was doing, she says, was lobbying against sanctions imposed by the u.s. on russian individual sanctions she claims are unfair. this was a long interview. we are still picking through it. we'll have more through the day. >> all right. keir simmons, thank you very much. we look forward to hearing more about that. joining us now from capitol hill, kasie hunt. kasie, you've been following how members of congress are reacting to this. i would take it this would be a bridge too far. this would be the time they part with trump, right? >> you would think that there might be some resistance based on all of this. i haven't had a chance to talk to many of them hopefully here in an hour or so. the initial reaction has raised a lot of questions. you have republican senators, susan collins of maine saying i want to talk to donald trump

junior in front of the senate intelligence committee. i want to raise an issue of context. while all of this is going on, and these allegations are unfolding, the white house behind the scenes is lobbying to water down a russia sanctions bill. remember, the senate a week or two ago passed a bill saying don't loosen sanctions on russia by yourself. tieing his hands. it went to the house where it got hung up on what was initially described as a procedural issue but since then has been the subject of focus by the white house. and that's all taking place as all of these new questions are being raised, and at a time when it's not even clear exactly what was discussed in that meeting between president trump and vladimir putin. the president said over the weekend, look, we didn't talk act this issue of sanctions against russia, but sarah

huckabee sanders contradicted that yesterday. take a look. >> i know there's a little bit of a question there, and there were sanctions specific to election mettling that i believe were discussed but not beyond that. >> so that's a pretty direct contradiction of what the president had tweeted. and i think it's going to be very telling to follow now how this bill winds through the house. so far you'd had paul ryan essentially defending the delay in the house saying we're not trying to do anything that would make major changes here. i think that considering everything going on with don junior, the pressure is going to ramp up on him. >> yeah. i'm also just wondering politically when this becomes too radio active for members of congress and senators, especially those who might be interested in getting elected again. is this still not? >> it's one of those things i

feel like every -- half the days i'm going to capitol hill it's to ask questions that are difficult. in the beginning members of congress would say i don't respond to the president's tweets. i don't respond to this or that. i think that dynamic has shifted with time, and i think especially heading into the midterm elections, there are members that are going to start to get nervous that they're going to appear to be soft on russia in their districts. this is a bipartisan thing right now, and the republican party has been historically maybe more hawkish. i think a lot of them are starting to feel uncomfortable. when their own personal political interest start to come into direct conflict with president trump and their fear of president trump's base starts to wane, that's when you'll see a sharp divide. >> yeah. thank you. before you get elected, you have to get nominated. the question is how the political dynamics here really work out. the other thing, i sit here and criticize this administration for a lack of consistency. i will say one thing.

their policy toward russia has been consistent for two years. >> weak, soft, an it seems like something else is going on. that's the consistent policy. >> well, we have in the next hour, coming up, congressman adam schiff, and there was one quote that just jumped out at me during keir simmons' going through the interview, and he is still sifting through the interview, but the woman, the lawyer says to keir simmons, they were looking for information. they wanted it so badly. >> yes. i heard that. >> that would indicate, at least to a casual observer, that it seems they were requesting more than they were looking for. >> that seemed to be what keir was saying before the clip. he also said that they had approached -- >> yes. >> absolutely fascinating. all right. what's the white house saying act all of this? nbc's peter alexander joins us next with his latest reporting. "morning joe" is coming right back. i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune.

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they had the impression, it appears, that they were going to be told some information that

you had about the dnc. how did they get that impression? >> translator: it's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. they wanted it so badly. >> that was part of the nbc news exclusive interview with the russian lawyer who met with donald trump's son and son-in-law during the heat of the campaign. it all folds into a new report in the new york times that says donald trump junior was sent an e-mail saying that material he might be given in a meeting with that lawyer was part of a russian government effort to aid his father's candidacy. joining us now from the white house, peter alexander. peter, the white house is working to try to down play the significance of this meeting. what else are they saying? >> mika, that's right. the real challenge for this white house is that their blanket denials no longer are believable at this point. we heard from sarah huckabee sanders saying there is no evidence of any collusion here,

and it may prove there was, nfrt, no collusion. that remains to be determined but there certainly is evidence of contacts and conversations with the russians, and repeatedly through the course of the campaign as recently as the last couple months the president, the vice president, and others have said that no such thing occurred. we are hearing from the attorney for donald trump junior. i exchanged several messages with him and he released a statement in line with the white house. he said the following. this is much adieu about nothing. he said don junior had no knowledge as to what specific information if any would be discussed. his father knew nothing about it referring to the president. the bottom line, he writes is that don junior did nothing wrong. i have been representing people for almost 30 years in investigative matters and i see nothing here. the president's outside council released the same statement as before saying the president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.

basically there's a wall being built around the president. many people will have to answer for themselves if they think it's possible donald trump junior was acting without any conversations with his father as he learned the information. what's striking is now much the same way with james comey's memos and the question of obstruction in the case, the memos offered a paper trail. now it's not he said she said. there is a paper trail with this e-mail that raises questions about whether donald trump junior replied and whether others in the campaign replied to that e-mail and whether there were more meetings that we don't know about. >> mike, so the lawyer for don junior says he's represented other clients through the years. who else has he represented? >> he's a lawyer. he's represented extensive organized crime figures. several other quite notable figures who have been in the headlines. he's a lawyer. >> he is specialized in crime families, right?

>> yes. >> peter, what kind of pressure, if any, does the white house feel internally about the need for the president of the united states to speak to the country about what is going on? >> well, as evidenced by the president's own tweets, apparently not a lot, at least not yet. since this story broke, we by our count, i think it's 26 separate tweets or retweets. he loves to fight back on twitter. he went after chelsea clinton and james comey in the last several days and hours, but on this topic in terms of protecting his son, he's been notably silent. that's the question that everyone wants answered right now, what he knows about this specifically. we may not get our first chance to pose those questions to the president until this week. later this week he heads to france. the belief is that he would hold what's described as a two and two. a news conference with macromac

the french leader, but this drip, drip, drip from the white house or story is increasingly turning into a gusher. >> and mark, i'm looking at the president's twitter feed. he has become social media director for "fox and friends." he has tweeted head of the nypd blames someone for skipping vigil. and white house calls out senate democrats for obstructing nominees, and then yet another "fox and friends" retweet. three in a row. senator cruz says it's crazy to have an august recess without having obama care repealed, and then he follows up with a "fox and friends" story about senate democrats confirming only 48 of 197 nominees. >> all topics near and dear to his heart, but not as near and dear as his son. as mika suggested, this is the president's greatest tool. he talks about how valuable it is, and it is.

and for him to remain silent now going on a third day about what's going on with his son is just -- it's a little bit head scratching and one possibility is he doesn't know what to say about it yet. that interview that keir simmons has, that lawyer's account is at odds with don junior's account some some points. at some point the p.r. and legal team around the trumps are going to have to decide how to push back. the lawyer's statement last night is not on point with the central accusations raised by the new york typ"the new york t particularly was he informed in advance that whatever information presented was part of a russian government effort to help his father get elected. >> the response yesterday didn't make sense. it wasn't a defense. and then the response following the e-mail story didn't make sense either.

what they're saying is we were hoping to get information -- and what don junior said yesterday in his statement, and his lawyer said, the story after the e-mail story was we were hoping to get information from the russians, and possibly collude with them. but there was really nothing there, so we called off the meeting when she started talking about doadoptions. last night's statement basically said the same thing. we were hoping to get information from the russian government, but we got nothing. that was it. that's your defense. >> there's political peril going to capitol hill, embarrassing news stories, but because bob mueller is up and running and because of the nature of this alleged e-mail, we're not talking about potential legal peril. when you get into potential legal peril of a president's son, that could be one reason why he's not tweeting. this long-awaited molt in which

the president's lawyers would know do not tweet because you're creating legal problems. that could be the explanation. >> it look like the thrust of everything donald junior has said is they were approached through this guy and so forth. listening to the lawyer, she said it was the opposite. that it was -- it cape from the other direction. that rather than the russians taking the initiative according to her story, it was the americans taking the initiative. >> and the other is different. >> the other big discrepancy is that the initial account was she led off with some incomprehensive vague things about ties between the clinton campaign and the russian money and the dnc. her account is she got nothing like that to present at all. that's a big difference. >> espionage business, they can be very much pulling a reverse. they set up the meeting. now you create an open for compromise. you let their story come out first.

the trump family story come out first. then you come back and say that's not what happened at all. they approached me. you don't know what the truth is. >> look at this e-mail. >> the taking of the meeting puts you in this situation. this is the same with the flynn situation. he travels over there, shows up at r.t., on camera, he's there next to putin. he's in a position where he has to defend it, and they can shape it anyway they want. >> peter, one question the white house seems to be making the difference just listening to sarah huckabee sanders. you can hear their argument. there was no collusion because we didn't get anything from the meeting. is that an accurate portrayal of what you're hearing or are they not even going that far? >> i think that's not unreasonable. we did hear something of that effect from sarah huckabee sanders here yesterday. the bottom line is that the story from the white house has evolved. initially it was that there were no contacts or conversations with the russians of any kind.

the president during his news conference back in february said i don't have any ties to russians and no one in my circle does either. now there's evidence that there were ties. the story keeps evolving but the backstop in effect for the white house is you can say whatever you want, but there wasn't collusion because we didn't get anything out of this. this is normal operating procedure as others have suggested. if someone's offering you opposition on your opponent, you take it. but all republican and democratic operatives we've spoken to have said under these circumstances when that information is coming from a russian foreign national, it's a different circumstance. >> still that doesn't make sense. they are saying it wasn't collusion because we didn't get anything, but they're also saying well, it actually was perfectly normal for us to try and get opposition research from the russians anyway. >> yeah. >> and therefore, they would say if we had got it, that would be

fine. >> everything argues against itself. it doesn't make any sense. >> doesn't make any sense. peter, thank you. the big question is how were republican going to be reacting today on capitol hill? now are they going to be reacting to the news that this administration during the campaign family members actually got letters, e-mails, promising help from the russian government? and set up the meetings under that scenario? and what will it mean for the house of representatives? when it comes to the sanctions bill? coming up, we have congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the intel committee. he's going to join us straight ahead. "morning joe" will be right back.

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yogig-speed internet.me? you know what's not awesome? when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids. and these guys. him. ah. oh hello- that lady. these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh. sure. still yes! you can get it too. welcome to the party. introducing gig-speed internet from xfinity. finally, gig for your neighborhood too. so when is the vote? >> next week. >> specifically -- >> well, i would expect it will

turn to it perhaps as early as tuesday or wednesday. it's important we get this done and get it done soon. next week is my expectation. >> i think there's still a path. i'm not polly annaish about this. it's difficult when you can only lose two votes and there may be two that are irretrievable. we're in a tight spot, but we have to give this every effort. >> i don't think that we can fix this bill by a tweak here and a trim there. it needs a complete overhaul in order to garner my support. >> congressional sources are telling nbc news that republicans are hoping to release a second draft of their health care legislation by thursday. with us now from capitol hill, dr. and senator bill cassidy, doctor, senator, very good to talk to you. where are we sitting right now with this republican health care bill? >> i think you kind of had clips

from the spectrum of opinion. we got to get it done, and it's all lined up to oh, my gosh, we can't do this particular bill. it shows a continued divide. hopefully the new should have the same solution as louisiana, new york, or california seems crazy. we should allow the state to come up with a solution for their state, and i continue to say that's a good republican principle, good conservative principle. that may be the way forward. >> mike barnacle. >> senator, what are the odds that the united states senate or before you go on your august recess that mitch mcconnell takes a knee on this bill, just a tko? gets counted out and that's it and you move on to something else? >> mitch is not the kind of guy to take a knee. now, granted, it might occur, but i would like to think, mike,

that there would still be a path forward. if not, this bill and another. i don't think any of us are ready to take a knee. >> mark halperin? >> your conception if you don't get your conception basically the states get to decide. under the current senate bill who are the americans who will be worse off? >> i haven't seen the current senate bill. that's a little bit hard to say. one of the ways to keep people from being worse off is by giving statsds large block grants, if you will, that they would wrap around those who might be negatively affected to keep them from being negatively affected. i would like to think that the people who would be worse off would be the special interests. that kind of benefitted under obama care. i would like to think that we kind of take dollars back from them and distribute to those who need it, but i have not seen the final bill yet. >> won't be poor be worse off if you are cutting $750 billion from medicare, and then in the underlying budget another $300

billion, $400 billion? it seems fairly obvious. you're a doctor. you strip $1 trillion from medicaid funding. i said medicare. excuse me. medicaid funding. it will be people disproportionately poor and lower income that will be impacted, right? >> two things about that. if this bill works, the way it will work, is if you pull back on medicaid, you actually create a private insurance option which is as effective as good for these folks as medicaid expansion. >> a private option will be as effective for the working poor? >> yeah, possibly. there are some people who do not take a better paying job because they do not want to lose their medicaid. there's a cliff, if you will, between medicaid benefits and that on private insurance. that should not occur. >> right, but there are single moms that -- but there are single moms that don't have a job, and you know that, and they go into emergency rooms at 11:00 at night because they don't have any other option for their children who are suffering. those are the people --

>> totally. on the other hand -- >> those are the people that will be hurt, aren't they? >> if she's not working she may still qualify for medicaid. it's income-based. number one. number two, children would still be covered under chip and other programs. number three, what i tried to say earlier is that the cuts to medicaid that people are talking about don't occur until 2025. not all, but major portion of it. when the inflater rate goes down. we have eight years. if the medicaid inflation rate is still high, we can increase that in the out years. by the way, i have not seen the final bill, have not committed to voting for it, but i do think it's important to clear up misconceptions. >> senator, how much is the whole russia investigation and the president's preoccupation with russia. the white house being distracted by that. how much is it getting in the way of business in the senate? >> best as i can tell, not at all. i've had three town hall meetings. two last week and then a telephone town hall last night. not a single question came on russia. it's all about health care, the economy. national flood insurance

program. we're in louisiana. we have some problems with flooding. i was just struck listening to your program beforehand. in a telephone town hall and two town hall meetings not a single question about russia. i'm not sure that that is as much play in the senate or at home as on tv programs. >> are you concerned about don jr. and other members of the trump campaign meeting with russian lawyers claiming to be representatives of the russian government or claiming to be part of a bigger plan for the russian government to influence the presidential election? >> i think we have to all be concerned about russian influence in our election, whichever form it took, but i have confidence that the various people investigating will come to the bottom of it. in the meantime, if we get distracted by something for which there's an ongoing investigation and don't tend to the issues at hand, obama care premiums, skyrocketing, for example, are -- the economy, jobs related to the economy. one, we're not doing our job, and, two, we're being too easily

distracted. we need to focus on the matter at hand. >> all right. senator bill cassidy, we have to go. wish we had more time. thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you all. >> still ahead in the words of the russian lawyer who reportedly offered up a research into trump campaign "they were longing for such information. they wanted it so badly." plenty more of the nbc exclusive interview with that attorney straight ahead on "morning joe." plus, all the headlines are swirling, and you would expect president trump to be tweeting, and he is. "working hard to get the olympics for the united states. l.a. stay tuned."

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jr.? >> absolutely, absolutely. or a campaign and president who continues to say there's no "there" there, but virtually every week or two there's more stories of meetings -- undisclosed meetings with russian officials that beg the question, if there's no "there" there, then why aren't more people coming clean at a more regular fashion? >> the vice chair of the senate intel committee wants to have a word with the president's son, and that was before the "new

york times" reported that don jr. was sent an e-mail saying that material he might be given in a meeting with the kremlin connected lawyer was part of a russian government effort to aid his father's candidacy. >> author every the book, a world in disarray. also on capitol hill, senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc mark halperin. so last night the "new york times" posted a piece reporting that "before arranging a meeting with a kremlin connected russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information

with hillary clinton, donald trump jr. was informed in an e-mail that the material was part of a russian government effort to aid his father's candidacy. according to three people with knowledge of the e-mail. the author of the reported e-mail was rob goldstone, a pebble cyst who helped set up the meeting that took place in june of 2016 before trump became the nominee. earlier in the day he told the a.p. the russian lawyer said she had information about reported illegal campaign contributions to the democratic national committee that she thought donald trump jr. might find helpful. "the times" notes while the russian government was identified as the source of the info, it doesn't go deeper on moscow's attempts to tilt the election, and the paper is careful to point out there's no evidence to suggest the information was related to hacking that led to the release of the dnc e-mails, if you'll

remember that. >> right. mark halperin, on the hill, this story, it seems that it's just somebo somebody. >> poor jared kushner, hey, just come to a meeting. then after that he is going to have to revise his statement again because we find out last night through "the times" reporting that there was actually emails saying this is part of a larger russian effort to actually help your father be elected president of the united states. what's the response been on capitol hill? >> don jr.'s lawyer put out a statement that doesn't refute the essence of the new "times" reporting. we talked to democrats and

republicans on capitol hill even before the revelation from late last night, and people are shaken by this. so far don jr. is in a tough place now because every day, whoever is providing this information to "the times" is coming out with something else, and if you go back to saturday when he first responded for the saturday story, either he knew this e-mail was out there, assuming the e-mail exists, or he didn't, and either way that presents a lot of troubling questions for him to deal with going forward and for the wider operation to deal with going forward. the defense from some people yesterday was it's fine to get help from the russians in a political campaign. you'll take oppo from anywhere it comes from, and i do not think that will be a sustainable position if that turns out to be what happens. >> i actually saw somebody on

the nets work saying, oh, sure, i would have taken help from russians if it was opposition research. first of all, that's a lie. as a congressman from florida, nobody would. i have run those campaigns. if somebody said, look -- i would say get the hell out of my office. anybody would do that. republicans were already in full lying mode yesterday. they led by the kremlin to get me elected president of the united states. who follows them down that rat hole? >> not very smart people. >> not very smart --

>> i'm sorry. it's just -- >> not very smart people. and a not very smart party. >> we are now just scratching the surface of a multi-dimensional comprehensive russian effort to influence the outcome of the american political campaign. i say that without knowing whether they "succeeded" from their point of view, whether what they did, again, we still don't know. >> as richard bloomenthal said yesterday, he suspects it's not the first meeting that's going to be the bigger problem. it's all the meetings that followed this one. >> i mean, it's still flabbergasting that the white house is not at some point in the last -- ideally back in march saying we want every single meeting that every single person in this white house or on

the campaign has ever had with russians. we're going to get it all out there. they haven't. i think to richard's point, clearly the kremlin felt that the trump campaign was vulnerable to being penetrated or at least targeted in this way. there must have been something about the trump campaign that made them feel this was worth a go. >> a targeted opportunity. >> yeah, and bloomenthal -- >> mike barnacle, you have this meeting with a kremlin connected lawyer. an e-mail comes forward from a contact they made while they were in moscow that says, hey, the kremlin wants to help you out here. talk to this lawyer. you have paul manafort running the campaign. you have jared kushner, the president's closest aide during the campaign, and then you've got, of course, don jr. i'm just curious how does jared kushner forget to put this on

any of his disclosure forms when he knows -- when he knows th that -- when he knows that there's been an e-mail sent to the campaign to don jr. saying, hey, the russian government wants to help you get elected president of the united states. you've got jared kushner forgetting to put an ambassador's meeting down on a disclosure form. then you have forgetting to put down a meeting with one of the top bankers in russia. again, connected to the kremlin. and now this. you've got the attorney general forgetting to put it down on all the forms. i mean, if you're bob mueller, there's so much smoke. there's got to be fire there, but right now, i mean, you got to go outside to get a breath of fresh air. it is swirling all around this administration. >> clearly, there's an enormous amount going on here, and one of

the telltale signs of so much going on is that it's fairly obvious that the leaks -- the information in these "times" stories come from within either the white house or the justice department. >> right. >> this is choked off whatever small pieces of progress the trump administration has been making. they continue to revise their statements. donald jr.'s tweet yesterday belittling the fact that he met with the russians. i tell you what, i've covered a lot of campaigns. i know a lot of people who work in campaigns. if they say i've got some great stuff from russia, a russian guy gave me this stuff. you know what you do, you call -- >> by the way connected to the russian government. >> this is part of -- clint would be the one to go to.

part of a bigger scheme to influence an election. you would immediately, again, if somebody on my staff said, hey, we have this russian guy who is connected with the russian government, i would say, okay, call the fbi, and i've got to go vote. >> exactly. it's all pretty shocking and horrifying, especially for the republican party, but what are the real questions here from your perspective, clint? >> i think it's this silliness about it's okay to just meet with russian businessmen, and there are no consequences to this. >> is it okay to use the word collusion? >> collusion. so they keep parsing this out. does collusion mean i take or coordinate with an on-line personal note to get hillary clinton e-mails out or opposition research out there? if a host in florida points -- the russians know exactly how to

push this to protect the principle. they're not going to go directly to donald trump and say here's what i want you to do on behalf of our state. instead they're going to do exactly what we're seeing here, which is they're going to go all the way around the periphery to everybody in the family, everyone that's politically connected and business interests and try to put lerchverage. >> congressman adam schiff and joe manchin. but nbc's exclusive interview with the russian lawyer who met last year with donald trump jr. and jared kushner. inside trump tower. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. so how old do you want to be when you retire? uhh, i was thinking around 70. alright, and before that? you mean after that? no, i'm talking before that. do you have things you want to do before you retire? oh yeah sure... ok, like what? but i thought we were supposed to be talking about investing for retirement? we're absolutely doing that. but there's no law you can't make the most of today. what do you want to do? i'd really like to run with the bulls.

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yeah, and i can watch thee bgame with directv now.? oh, sorry, most broadcast and sports channels aren't included. and you can only stream on two devices at once. this is fun, we're having fun. yeah, we are. no, you're not jimmy. don't let directv now limit your entertainment. xfinity gives you more to stream to more screens. >> this morning we're hearing for the first time from the kremlin connected lawyer who met with donald trump jr. last year. joining us live from moscow, nbc news foreign correspondent kier simmons. kier, you spoke with natalia

veselnitskaya this morning. what did she have to say? >> we just wrapped up that interview with natalia veselnitskaya. she got a phone call from a man she didn't know for a meeting with the trump campaign. she said they wanted information, it particularly financial information from the clinton campaign. information she says she didn't have. >> this is the woman natalia ves skia -- >> you wake up one morning and find you are the focus of all high ranking media. >> on june 9th two weeks after donald trump secured the nomination, his son, donald trump jr., along with jared kushner and former campaign chair paul manafort met with the russian attorney. >> in june you met with donald trump jr., with jared kushner, with paul manafort. what was the purpose of that

meeting? >> translator: i never knew who else would be attending the meeting. all i knew that mr. donald trump jr. was willing to meet with me. i could recognize the young gentleman who was only present in the meeting for probably the first seven to ten minutes, and then he stood up and left the room. it was mr. jared kushner, and he never came back, by the way. the other individual who was at the same meeting was always looking at his phone. he was reading something. he never took any type of part in the conversation. that was mr. manafort. >> they had the impression, it appears, that they were going to be told some information that you had about the dnc. how did they get that impression? >> translator: it's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. they wanted it so badly. >> and this morning she denies claims she is connected to a russian government effort to aid

donald trump's presidency. >> have you ever worked for the russian government? do you have connections to the russian government? >> translator: no. >> what she was doing, she says, was lobbying against sanctions imposed by the u.s. on russian individuals. sanctions she claims are unfair. this was a long interview. we are still picking through it. we'll have more through the day. >> all right. nbc's kier simmons. thank you very much. we look forward to hearing more about that. coming up on "morning joe" congressman adam schiff is standing by. his committee is leading the house probe into russia, and it appears there may be a lot more to investigate. we'll get the congressman's reaction to the new developments surrounding donald trump jr. next on "morning joe."

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and i am a senior public safety my namspecialist for pg&e. my job is to help educate our first responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. everyday when we go to work we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. i live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. once i moved here i didn't want to live anywhere else. i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california. >> he said therm told information that you had about the dnc. how did they get that impression? >> it's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. they wanted it so badly.

>> that was stunning. that was part of kier simmons exclusive interview that we just heard with the russian lawyer who met with donald trump's son and son-in-law during the heat of the campaign. the house -- democratic congressman adam schiff of california. also at the table the news and finance anchor of yahoo news. >> in march you said, "there is more than a circumstantial evidence that trump aides colluded with russia." in this e-mail one of those pieces of evidence is this e-mail evidence to you or was this news to you? had you known anything about this e-mail in the past? >> you look at the time table, this is a month before the russians start dumping information they have derogatory information about secretary

clinton. if that report is correct, this e-mail disclosed to the trump campaign the truth that the russian government had damaging information that they wanted to help elect donald trump and it put certainly the first family on notice of all of these facts. it makes all the denials we've seen since that much more unbelievable suspect so certainly this bears a lot of investigation. these participants are all going to have to come before the committee. we're going to have to try to obtain any relevant emails or documents. yet another, i think, rather stunning public disclosure. >> you say stunning. were you surprised by this disclosure? >> well, you know, certainly some elements i have been. the shifting explanations by the trump administration. first there was we never had any kind of meetings like that, and then there was, okay, we did have a meeting, but it was about adoptions. then, of course, paul manafort, the campaign manager is there. why would he come to a meeting

about adoptions? then it's about the act that's a sanctions legislation that sanctions russians who are committing human rights abuses. then we learn that, well, actually they went hoping to get damaging information from the russians about hillary clinton. is this collusion? >> certainly if the trump campaign went to a meeting with the russians seeking to enlist or receive the help of the russian government in getting damaging -- >> which is what the trail of evidence and emails suggests is the case? >> yes, that would be a potential form of collusion that they are going to coordinate with the russians, the dissemination of damaging

information. again, this is still in the category of allegation that needs to be investigated. here you have very direct potential evidence of the russians communicating with the campaign. we have stuff that will help your campaign. we want to help your father get elected. well, you don't have the goods in the meeting, but if you go forward with something, then we'll help you with the act. that, of course, would be illegal. if they were soliciting or receiving essentially in kind contribution from a foreign government in a u.s. election, that would violate, i think, any number of laws. >> do you think the scenario that played out six months ago with sally yates when she was alarmed at potential -- by the russians with michael flynn when he knowingly lied about sanctions with the russian ambassador. what are the odds that you think

the russians could have been using this knowing very well that this meeting did take place knowing those within the trump administration for months now have been denying any such meetings and said they never met with russian officials. >> what instrumentalities did they try to exert influence, because the most critical thing is do the russians have any information that they can hold over the head of the administration to influence u.s. policy? that could take the form of meetings that they know took place, offers to give help they know took place. it could take the form of if they were engaged in money laundering with the trump organization. i'm not saying this happened, but if it did, obviously that is something they can hold over the president and the first family. we need to find out did any of this happen? if it did, it could very well shape why the president approaches syria the way he does, why he approaches ukraine the way he does, why he approaches sanctions the way he does, why he says the things he

says about we don't know whether the russians were involved. we need to get to the bottom of this. it would be the worst form of negligence for the congress not to. >> mike. >> so obviously you're going to want to have donald trump jr. testify before your committee. >> yes. >> under oath. >> yes. >> as part of that process given what we know now publicly, where do you go as a prosecutor or as a congressman on this committee to get to intent? >> well, you know, i think, first, we try to get whatever materials that we don't already have in terms of documentation. then we bring in the witnesses who set up the meeting. clearly it was an expectation on the trump campaign even from their own statements that they were going to get some goods on hillary clinton. why if that was correct, why was that e-mail sent. if this lawyer and i would take everything she has to say, obviously with a huge grain of salt, we know that the russians use sometimes private sit zbrenz, to do their business.

they did don't always use certified agents of the svr. we'll want to know what went into that. why did the person who sent that e-mail believe that the russians were trying to help elect donald trump? what information did he believe that they had? there's clearly a back story here that we need to get to the bottom of. >> which leads to the second question that caddy raised about collusion. what is the ultimate legal definition of collusion? >> it's a term to cover all potentially problematic conduct. there is no statute that uses that term or coordination, which the term the fbi director more often used. >> if you conspire with others to violate any number of laws, there's a crime. if there's a -- if there's an effort to get help from a foreign power, if there's a

conspiracy to engage in illegal quid pro quo, an act of bribery where you will get help in exchange for a legislative change. that would be problematic. if there's any conspiracy to obtain i will lift information, to steal the information. any number of those things could be violation of law. those are things that bob mueller will be looking at for the purmz poses of do we bring prosecution? there are things that congress needs to look at for what were the full range of actions taken by the russians. did they have the help of sugs persons, and most important, how do we protect ourselves from this happening again? if there is any leverage the russians have over the president, we need to know about it. >> especially given the sanctions bill. where does it stand right now? >> it has obviously overwhelming support in the congress. i think this is true in both houses. the only issue is will paul ryan bring it up for a vote?

what pressure is the white house exerting to prevent that from happening? i would expect that the pressure will be irresistible. we'll get to vote on it. will we get to vote on the bill that came out of the senate or a watered down version -- they're in the house as well with wanting a tougher sanctions bill? >> i think they are. it's not what the members want. it's what the leadership is willing to allow and how much pressure they're under from the white house. >> congressman, of all the people that were participating in this meeting, one is currently tied to the administration. paul manafort no longer part of this team, and, obviously, don jr., a private citizen as well, working with the trump company. jared kushner, given what we in and out know, do you think that he should have a security clearance revoked? >> certainly it doesn't appear that a lot of the meetings that he participated in and the discussions that are alleged to have taken place weren't

disclosed during his backs ground check process. i would presume that from the open source reporting. if that's the case, then i think he should have his security clearance reviewed and very likely revoked. you can't, i think, go into any kind of discussions or submit documents about whether you had meetings with foreign nationals and omit, for example, if it proved to be true, a discussion of wanting to set up a secret back channel with a foreign adversarial power. for anyone else they would have their security clearance revoked. the holder says of that clearance are in a difficult position. >> so donald trump jr. just tweeted. he says congressman schiff, media and dems are extremely invested in the russia story. if this nonsense meeting is all they have after a year, i understand the desperation. is that all you have? >> there's an awful lot more

that's even in the public domain. of course, the evolving accounts from don jr. don't inspire a lot of confidence. this is someone who is very adamant never had these meetings, never had any kind of help or offers from help. this is preposterous. he was making the same argument before. of course, he has had to evolve his story many times since then. i'm sure he will evolve it many times in the future. i don't give that a whole lot of credit. >> ranking member of the house intel can i, adam schif, thank you very much for being on with us this morning. up next, we turn to the senate side of the russia investigation. member of the intel committee democrat joe manchin joins the discussion next on "morning joe."

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16 military service members are believed to be dead after a military plane crashed in rural mississippi. a local official said there were 16 people on board, and most of the bodies have been recovered. the c-130 aircraft reportedly broke up in midair. witnesses reported hearing a boom before seeing the plane fall from the sky. the debris field reportedly stretches for miles, but the fuselage came to rest near morehead, mississippi, about 90 minutes outside of the state capitol in johnson. according to a u.s. military official, the plane originated from cherry point, north carolina. mississippi's governor has asked the state to join him in prayer for those killed and their loved ones. moments ago president trump tweeted. marine plane crash in mississippi is heartbreaking. melania and i send our deepest condolences to all." joining us now author and columnist new york daily news and msnbc contributor mike

lupika, and from capitol hill members of the select committee on intelligence democratic senator joe manchin of west virgin virginia. joe, good morning. >> first of all, prayers and thoughts go out to the families of the 16 service -- unbelievable. i flew on that plane a lot. c-130s. that's what we have squadrons of in west virginia. when i was governor, i flew them quite a bit. >> thank you for that. we wanted to get your thoughts on what we are hearing so far. these "new york times" revelations about donald trump jr. >> you know -- >> and this meeting. >> i'm sorry. >> i have been thinking a lot about how could you ever do something or how could you even think that there was a proper meeting to have. first of all, it starts with the campaign. how do you put your campaign together? paul manafort, the campaign manager, to allow anything like that to happen, to allow any type of a meeting to transpire, a campaign manager is totally incompetent to allow that to happen without fighting and threatening to leave if something this egregious happens

and so that would question paul manafort because we all know that he was for hire. he would go where the highest dollar was. for don jr. to take that kind of of a meeting or for him to think it's proper to be in that meeting, it's uncalled for. i can't explain it. it just tells you this whole transformation from the private sector to the public sector, you know -- in the private sector you do whatever -- no bars hold. whatever you can do give you a competitive advantage. i understand that. but, boy, in the public sector that is so much different. to see that we have digressed, that we have digressed in the public arena to this type of behavior is just uncalled for. >> let's crystallize what you were saying and hear from it. of course, nbc's kier simmons got an exclusive interview with this russian lawyer, and in this meeting with this woman that you are about to hear from jared kushner, paul manafort, the head of the campaign, and, of course,

donald trump jr. the three of them took the time to meet with this russian lawyer. here is the nbc exclusive interview with kier simmons hearing from her. take a listen. >> translator: i knew mr. donald trump jr. was willing to meet with me. i could recognize the young gentleman who was only present in the meeting for probably the first seven to ten minutes, and then he stood up and left the room. it was mr. jared kushner, and he never came back, by the way. the other individual who was at the same meeting was always looking at his phone. he was reading something. he never took any active part in the conversation. that was mr. manafort. >> they had the impression, it appears, that they were going to be told some information that you had about the dnc. how did they get that impression? >> translator: it's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. they wanted it so badly.

>> so, joe, the russian lawyer says they really wanted that information. donald trump jr. has confirmed the meeting and confirmed in his statements that they were looking for information on hillary clinton. what do you deduce? >> well, first of all, she seems surprised they even met with her. i think she was surprised and caught off guard by the meeting itself. i don't know what went on to set that meeting up. i know when you are running a campaign, you do opposition research. you do everything you can to gather all of the information that would give you an opportunity to either highlight your opponent and the deficiencies that opponent has, but you don't go to the length when you are going to a known at versary such as russia, the cold war, the standoff they've had with them over the years. that's something that would be totally unacceptable. i can't explain it. it makes no sense at all, and

i'm sure that mark warner has talked about this on the intelligence committee. we're going to have people coming forward. i'm sure richard burr and mark will call the appropriate people and have our staff look at all the info they can and the dialect back and forth and any type of paper moving back and forth. these meetings, what was the purpose? we'll make a determination. >> senator, donald trump jr. is tweeting this morning that the democrats and the media are so obsessed with this story that they're making a big deal out of it, and there's not a big deal to be had. does he have a point? >> no. >> that members of your party are just obsessed with russia and trying to bring down the president by any means possible? >> well, trying to make it political is the wrong approach to take because you have republicans speaking out. they're aghast also. when you have lindsey and john mccain and lindsey graham and everybody else speaking out. this is not proper behavior. a not in any type of political setting. we haven't sunk to that low. i know we're getting close to the bottom, but thank god, we

haven't hit it yet. to have this as acceptable behavior is wrong. just wrong. you know, maybe they didn't do anything illegal. just say i made a mistake and made a bad judgment. i come from the private sector. i would have used anything i could to get advantage over my competitor. i thought the same rules applied in the public sector. that would be more acceptable to me. it wouldn't be acceptable, but it would be more explanation to me that you just are having a hard time transitioning. guess what, public sector has to be done in a very transparent way for the public to have confidence and faith in our process. >> we have don jr. talking about this nonsense story, this nothing meeting. the republican senator coming out and saying nobody cares about this. well, actually, you know what, mike lupica, investigators care about this, and investigators in any state in america would care about this. maybe the law doesn't matter to don jr. maybe the law doesn't matter to a lot of republican senators,

but there's still our prosecutors in america. there's still our judges in america and there still are good people in america. >> there are still laws in america. >> who believe we are a nation of laws and not a nation of men. >> joe, at what point do more republicans than lindsey graham and john mccain stand up and do something and not look like they're suffering from a terrible stomach mality, which is no guts. look at what this russian lawyer said. it's quite possible that they were looking for that information. it's not us that was looking for that information. it's not the devil liberal hollywood elite. she's suggesting that the trump campaign -- joe, why would donald jr. think that russia was an enemy? he has grown up thinking these were business partners of his father. he must have looked at some of these russian people like they were santa claus. >> and, again, i mean, he said he has gotten -- he said he has gotten more money, the trump people have gotten more money from russia than anybody else. don jr. said that back in

2008-2009. eric trump says basically the same thing a couple of years ago. >> they know how business works in russia and business and billionaires have direct ties to the kremlin. this isn't just some billionaire whose son is a musician that tried to set up a meeting that maybe they could provide some information. they know that everyone has ties to the very top. >> there's a quote. russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets. we see a lot of money pouring in from russia." don trump jr. joe, where does the investigation go from here? >> well, joe, i mean, it's going to continue. it's not going to stop. you said something. the rule of law. that's what makes us different from any part of the world. we are a land of laws. no matter how high you are on the totem poll or how low you are, you should be treated the same. justice is blind. you are treated the same. you just can't have certain

aspects of what you think because of your wealth or your stature if you are able to do things that other people can't, and they should be forgiven. donald jr. should come forward and come to the committee, and he will be requested to come to that committee, speak openly. he made a mistake, say you made a mistake. it was just uncalled for to do that. to thinking that you are going to get an advantage and your father is in a campaign to where basically he might be the underdog or he was the underdog, and you are doing everything you can to equal the playing field or level the playing field. there are certain things you just can't do in the public sector. you have to learn that. they might learn the hard way here, but there are people not backing off, and i think republicans feel the same as democrats. it's about our country. if it we can't protect the things that made us the country that we are, god help us all. >> senator, to that point that you just raised and i'm a little off message here, we focus intently on russia and the first family, members of the first

family, including the president playing foots y with the russians. you are speaking to us from the capitol where polarization has taken such effect that very little gets done. yet, earlier today 16 americans dressed in the uniform of the united states marine corps boarded a c-130 at cherry point, and they are now in a corn field in missouri, plane having crashed. they're dead. every single day around the world hundreds of thousands of americans wearing the uniform of the united states of america do their job. why can't we, you in the senate and the house do your job? >> mike, i couldn't agree with you more. i mean, you know, this is the toughest place to come to work every morning if you can't get your head on right. what's the purpose of being here? i don't come to work as a democrat. my friends shouldn't come to

work as a republican. we should come to work as americans. we have infrastructure. we have a tax system that's out of date. we have job opportunities that we're not taking advantage of because our economy -- people don't have confidence and we're not growing the way we should be. we should be taking care of the health care catastrophe that we have looming right now that because of politics it could collapse, and people basically their lives are in jeopardy. we can't come together to find ways to repair it and fix it? you have to come to this job? i'm in a hostile work environment. people are trying to defeat each other every day. we should be coming here finding ways to work. this is horrible. being a former governor and being in west virginia we don't have things this way. we try not to. there's a time when you play politics and have a good time with it, have your differences and go on and sell your goods if you can. there's a time that basically the state of west virginia, the country, the united states of america, is far above anything that i do and my reason and purpose for being here. it's because of that.

not because of being a democrat or being a conservative or being a liberal or being a republican. it is absolutely unbelievable, and to get your mind around this, for all of you in that room to come to work every day knowing that a person is supposed to be your friend, but hz has an r by your name and you might have a d by your name, and they're trying to get you defeated, and then we have a two-year process wroosh right now we're in a 2018 cycle. everybody is shooting at everybody here already. i'm sick and tired of it already. i can only imagine the good people in west virginia got to be sick and tired of it. we'll get through it. we're stronger and better than this. we are the hope of the world. if we don't get it right, god help the rest of the world because nobody else will step to the plate. we cannot leave this void. >> mechanics of the senate intelligence committee senator joe manchin, thank you for being on the show. >> thank you, joe. >> he got to dallas through a devastating -- retired police chief david brown and what's

transpired over the past year. he joins the conversation ahead. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ where all the walls echo with laughter ♪ ♪ and every room has its own chapter ♪ you've carried on your family's tradition. let us help you prepare for your family's future. financial guidance while you're mastering life. from chase. so you can. you on a perfect car,rch then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates... maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance. binders, done. super-cool notebooks, done. that's mom taking care of business. but who takes care of mom? office depot/office max. this week, get this ream of paper for just one cent after rewards.

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bird: new birds eye veggie made. so veggie good. one year ago in the course of just one week's time, elton sterling was killed by police in baton rouge, louisiana, and philandro castile in minnesota. then during a demonstration in dallas, five officers were shot and killed, nine more wounded. and the figure of calm at the

center of that city's storm was police chief david brown. >> become a part of the solution. serve your communities. don't be a part of the problem. we're hiring. we're hiring. get out there and protest line and put an application in and we'll put you in your neighborhood and we will help you resolve some of the problems you're protesting about. >> and the former dallas police chief david brown joins us now. he's out with a new book called "called to rise: a life in faithful service to the community that made me." we were talking before with mike lupica about what a moving moment that was out of that tragedy. we really saw a community come together and you right at the center of it. what was the big lesson learned? what was your take-away? >> i think the biggest take-away that i've seep is that we can

resolve our issues, that it's not hopeless, our divisiveness can be conveyed around compromise if we let it. and that even though we might be entrenched in our position, that there's a higher calling to rise above the fray and come together, that we're -- our country has been at its best when we are convened around compromise. that's the biggest take-away i believe. >> that service was one of the most moving things i've ever seen. what you said is true. the greatness of the this country comes after the worst moments. that's when we're defined as a people. >> yes. >> it was so vivid that day, you standing there, taking the hand of a white mayor, the former president, the current president, and in the wake of this unbelievable tragedy. but what we saw in dallas what we saw in this si on september 12th in 2001. everybody beginning to get back up together. >> yes. and i think that even though

when we unlayer the things that were obviously divided over, sometimes it boils down to a difficult conversation about race. and we just -- we avoid it every chance we get. we try to avoid it. and policing is in the middle of it, particularly now, it's just between communities of color and policing. we're talking past each other. we're not listening as much. >> probably the same here, but why do we avoid it? >> well, i talk about this in my book quite a bit. i think the avoidance is it's a wound that won't heal. that's the avoidance. >> and police are in the middle of that. >> we're in the middle of that. we're responding in high-crime areas, particularly our white officers are struggling to try to message the right things. every time a viral video comes up we take two steps back, whatever progress we make. i think the hope is that even in our deepest, darkest moments in our country as it relates to an

unarmed black man being shot and killed by another officer, there are so many more stories of noble, courageous, brave men and women here in new york we just had an officer shot and killed, ambushed. >> assassinated. >> who sacrificed their lives every day. in dallas last summer, those five officers were human shields for the very people who were protesting just minutes before the shooting started. >> so, chief, in your city, and in every city across the country, big and small, fire truck comes down the street, people say, hey, help is on the way. police cruiser comes down the street with the sirens on people say, oh, there's trouble on the block. >> that's right. >> what can we do as a country to get more police officers living in the city that they police, getting to know the neighborhoods of the city where they work? many of them live in suburbs because of the exhibition of it. they don't get paid a whole lot. what can they do to help correct that situation? >> i sum it up by saying people

in the community, particularly people of color got to put more skin in the game. i know that's asking a lot, but the comments i made last july was put an application in. that wasn't a call to do something that i wasn't willing to do. as a senior, i quit school because of the crack cocaine epidemic and walked down to the police headquarters and put in an application and got hired. my first beat was my local neighborhood. it's local. people in the community, in dallas, chicago, baltimore, in those areas where we're struggling the most to make a connection with the community, people in the community need to be more active in local government. >> few people are making me more proud to be a texan than you and your leadership following that tragedy. >> thank you. >> your words about submitting application, that you're hiring. what have we seen after that? have lessons been learned? are you more optimistic now following that tragedy? >> i am optimistic but i'm naive

in some ways and i love being naive about things, i love being more hopeful. we do have difficulties in this conversation about police and community relationships, particularly in black communities. and dealing with young black men. but when i went down to put in an application to get hired the secretary looked at me and said they're not going to hire you. that's what she said to me. and i could have been discouraged and walked away but i wasn't going to take no for an answer. i had inner city kid written all over me. i didn't look like a police officer. the message is to iner city people, don't take no for an answer. when you want change, demand it and insist on it and make yourself the change you are seeking. make it. >> in light of all the depressing news we've been covering, this is a great way to end the show this morning. >> it really is. >> "called to rise." chief david brown, thanks so much in so many ways for being on this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now.

>> thanks so much, mika. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today starting with what did he know? a bombshell new report, donald trump jr. was told before hand that the information he was getting was coming from the russian government. >> if there is a conspiracy to obtain foreign assistance, that's a crime. >> don jr. now lawyered up, congressional investigators looking for answers a the white house fires back hard. >> don jr. did not collude with anybody to influence the election. plus, an nbc news exclusive. the russian lawyer at the center of it all speaks to our keir simmons. >> have you ever worked for the russian government? do you have connections to the russian government? >> translator: no. >> we begin with donald trump jr., who just moments ago responded on twitter again with this -- media and dems are extremely invested in the russia story. if this nonsense