page. . >> president trump on the attack following russia revelations. he and his lawyer are defending his son, don jr., insisting there was nothing illegal about his meeting with a russia arnl lawyer last year. plus, the senate puts health care on hold with passage already uncertain. a planned vote this week has been postponed until after senator john mccain recovers from surgery. and flash flooding in arizona leaves at least nine people dead, including children. this morning authorities continue their search for the missing. good morning. it's monday, july 17th.

the president begins a new week with his most recent tweet, an optimistic one in the days ahead. much will be accomplished this week on trade, the military, and security. he spent the weekend at bad minister and his tweets reflect a binary, cheering on the women's open golfers, while lashing out at hillary clinton, the media, and taking on the ongoing russia investigation. a safrpling for you just from sunday. "hillary clinton can illegally get the questions to the debate and delete 33,000 emails, but my son, don, is being scorned by the fake news media?" and with all of its phony unnamed sources and highly slanted and even fraud lent reporting, fake news is dits t distorting democracy in our country. thank you to former campaign advisor michael caputo for saying so powerfully that there was no russian collusion in our winning campaign. according to the "new york times" caputo worked in russia in the 1990s and came to know some kremlin officials and he

did work with the early 2000s for gas prom media, a russian conglom lat that supported president putin. he said this when he met the press. >> today i spent my time detailing the fact that i had no contact with russians, that i never heard of anyone in the trump campaign talking with russians, but i never was asked questions about my time in russia. i never even spoke to anybody about russia. i never heard the word russia, and we did not use russian dressing. there was absolutely no discussion of russia on the trump campaign to the day i left. >> more details are come out about the participants in the june 2016 trump tower meeting in which the republican nominees campaign welcomed damaging information from the russian government. we know that along with top trump campaign aides, russian lawyer natalia, british publicist rob goldstone, who told the a.p. he was present, and a translator, and there was

also a russian-born american citizen who served in the soviet military and has lobbied on issues important to the kremlin. the "new york times" wrote this weekend about him as a skilled practitioner in the muscular russian version of what in american politics is known as opposition research. he also told the associated press that natalia brought with her a plastic folder with printed out documents that detailed what she believed to be was the flow of elicit russian funds to the democrats. according to him, natalia presented the content of the document to the trump associates and suggested that making the information public could help the campaign. also this weekend, natalia told the "wall street journal" that she had spoken with the office of russia's top prosecutor and was in regular contact with russian authorities about her u.s. lobbying efforts. a member of president trump's legal team insists nothing happened, though he was hesitant to offer firm answers about what the president knows. take a listen.

>> do you know for sure everyone who was at that meeting with donald trump jr.? >> no, i don't represent donald trump jr., and i do not know everyone for sure that was at that meeting, and the president was not at the meeting. i can tell you the president wasn't aware of the meeting and did not attend it. >> joining us here on set, senior reporter from business insider, natasha bertrand. i want to talk about something that was said yesterday about don jr.'s meeting. >> i wonder why the secret service said -- why did the secret service allow these people in? the president had secret service protection at that point. that raised a question with me. >> the secret service responding to that statement saying, "donald trump jr. was not a protectee of the u.s. secret service in june of 2016. thus, we would not have screened anyone he was meeting with at that time." what do you make of this exchange? >> this was a very curious thing for him to say. he implied that because donald

trump jr. -- or because donald trump has secret service protection, then that means that they would have been screened before coming into trump tower, but we know that donald trump jr. was not under their protection at that time, which means that either jay was either throwing something at the wall and seeing what would stick or he thought that president donald trump himself, then candidate donald trump, was in the believe, and, therefore, his secret service protection would have been extended to trump jr., paul manafort, and jared kushner. >> he was on the arrows, on the offensive, trying to push back. let me play you another soundbyte from him, and i'll get your reaction from. >> is it possible the president knows of no other meetings with his campaign staff and russians? >> the president told me -- obviously the president has been very clear on that. he said he has no -- had no meetings, was aware of no meetings with russians, was not aware of this one until really right before it all broke, and that is what the president said.

in fact, there's been no information to the contrary? >> and we've also heard senator john mccain say that he expects another shoe to drop. for more details just in general to come out. do you think that the white house has a unified response to the russia story? it seems like it evolves. >> the short answer is no. we've heard about three or four different stories from donald trump jr. so far. just about that single meeting, and, of course, we just learned last friday that jay was at the meeting, that's something we wouldn't have known unless nbc reported it and unless a.p. confirmed it. you know, it's -- jay said himself that he doesn't know who else was in the meeting. there very well could have been more people. actually, there were at least eight people in the meeting. we only know the identities of roughly six of them so far. i would not be surprised if we saw more to come out of this. >> don trump jr. was on "hannity" and saying that's the end of the story. there's no more revelations to it, and then that completely changed. >> you can tell the white house is on major cleanup right now

because yesterday sakalow was on every sunday show. turning to deadly flash flooding in arizona. at least nine people have died as authorities prepare to resume their search for a missing 27-year-old man. this video captured saturday as raging water surged through the tanto national forest just north of phoenix wrrks a total of . a total of 14 people were caught in the flash floods. the sister of the missing man, miguel garnica, made an urgent plea to search crews yesterday. >> it is my brother. he has to be found. they can't stop looking until he is found. >> four people were rescued from the flooding, which was triggered by heavy rained about eight miles upstream. back on capitol hill senate republicans have delayed their vote on a bill to repeal and replace obama care. senator john mccain recovers from surgery.

mccain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye on friday, and will spend the week recovering at his home in arizona. according to the mayo clinic, the senator is in good condition, and the surgery went very well. majority leader mitch mcconnell snounsed the senate would defer while mccain recovers. majority whip john cornyn said yesterday that he expects the vote to take place once mccain returns. >> we all wish john mccain a speedy recovery, and we need him in more ways than one, but, yes, i believe as soon as we have a full contingent of senators that we'll have that vote. it's important we do so. senator mccain's ab cents is putting the success of the gop health care bill in question. those that will come out against the bill expressed their doubts yesterday morning. >> there are about eight to ten republican senators who have serious concerns about this bill, and so at the end of the day i don't know whether it will pass, but i do know this.

we should not be making fundamental changes in a vital safety net program that's been on the books for 50 yoerz. the medicaid program. without having a single hearing to evaluate what the consequences are going to be. >> i think the longer the bill is out there, the more conservative republicans are going to discover that it's not repeal, and the more that everybody is going to discover that it keeps the fundamental flaw of obama care. for all republicans' complaints about the death spiral of obama care, they don't fix it. they simply subsidyize it with taxpayer money, which i don't agree with at all. >> meanwhile, many had expected the congressional budget office to release a score on the revised bill today, but that too has been delayed. it's unclear right now when that score will actually be released. >> and president donald trump's approval ratings have plummeted to the lowest ever recorded for a president in his first six months in office. a bloomberg national poll out this morning has president trump's job approval rating at

40%. 61% say the nation is headed down the wrong path. up 12 points since december. the washington post, abc news poll finds 36% of americans approve of the job trump is doing. 58% disapprove, with 48% saying owe strongly disapprove. a level never reached by former presidents bill clinton and barack obama and reached only in the second term of george w. bush in this poll. all right. the partisan breakdown of the poll shows 82% of republicans prove. that's down just slightly from april while the president drops six points to 32% among independents and is at just 11% with democrats. in iowa independents have soured on the president as well. in the state he won by nearly 10% of the vote, he is upside down with just 43% approving of his performance in office. also, a new nbc news, wall street journal poll of counties that were pivotal in trump's 2016 victory find a r% approval. from the counties he flipped from obama in 2012, his approval rests at 44%.

in counties where his performance surged against of that mitt romney's 2012 performance, trump has a 56% approval rating. >> let's dig in deeper into that washington post, abc news poll. 48% of americans believe the u.s. leadership in the world has become weaker since president trump took office. 27% believe it is stronger, while 23% say it is the same. now, as for trusting the president to negotiate with other world leaders, 47%, they say, they do not at all. 34% have a great or good amount of trust in the president, and 19% have just some. now, as to whether the president is making significant progress towards his goals, 38% say yes. 55% say no. >> all right. now to the turmoil in venezuela where a protest vote against president nicolas moduro turned deadly yesterday. a 61-year-old female nurse was killed while waiting to cast a ballot in the unofficial largely symbolic vote. the vote was organized by the opposition against moduro's plans to establish a special

assembly to rewrite the nation's constitution. a video here shows a group of supporters riding motorcycles and overrunning a polling site in a church and eventually opening fire. recordly more than seven million votes were cast, which also took place in dozens of countries around the world, including the u.s. a recent poll shows only about 20% of venezuelan support a constitutional rewrite, which the opposition says is a ploy by moduro to consolidate more power. iran sentences an american grad student to ten years in prison. we'll tell you what he is accused of. >> in the world of sports, tennis star roger federer scores a record breaking wimbledon title. very emotional for him, i should say. we'll have those stories and a check on weather when we come back. boost. it's about moving forward, not back.

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bill karins and deadly flash flooding out in arizona, bill. >> feel are out there trying to beat the heat at a swimming pool, and there are thunderstorms miles away. they didn't know that the big plooum of mud and water was headed their way. that was just outside of phoenix to the tonto national forest. a tragic story. even last night they were scared. these thunderstorms rolled through the phoenix area. they were under a flash flood warning all night long. winds were at 62 miles an hour. it started a trend down now. we'll do it again this afternoon. still have that flash flood threat for six million people from flagstaff all the way down over the rim back down to phoenix into tucson. we could get a quick inch of rain and many of these thunderstorms, and that causes flash flooding in arizona. it's amazing how the terrain makes such a difference. in florida you can get ten inches of rain and barely any flooding, and in airy you get half inch of rain, and you can get horrible mudslides and debris flows. as far as the storms go in the east, we have i few tracking up in the outer banks. not a pretty morning there.

right down along the gulf coast from just outside of new orleans heading down towards panama city and pensacola. thunderstorms for you. even storms around atlanta around an hour ago, and those storms are now dwindling and heading to your south. for today there are isolated strong storms today from skranton, wilkes-barre up to utica, poughkeepsie area. mostly wind damage. our friends late tonight from watertown up through northern minnesota we'll have a few to z storms. this is also the hottest week typically of the entire summer, and it's going to be no exception in the middle of the country. we have a little mini-meet wave coming. it will feel like 100 to 110 from about tuesday through thursday. >> all right. dangerous conditions where. >> absolutely. bill karins, thanks. iran has announced it has sentenced an american graduate student to ten years in prison on spying charges.

he disappeared months ago in iran where he was doing research for a doctoral thesis. he was identified. princeton university spokesman says they have been aware of wag's arrest for months, but they were working quietly to secure his release. they say the charges are fabricated and call for his release separately. iran also announced the arrest of the president's younger brother, relating to a corruption inquiry. staying in the region and switching gears for the ongoing diplomatic crisis in qatar. tempers flared when comments were posted on the nation's state-run media site and attributed it to the amir of that country. now, at the time officials said they were fake and posted by hackers, but that claim was rejected by four nations, including bah raun and the united arab emirates, and they all cut diplomatic ties with that country. now, u.s. intelligence officials

say that the uae did orchestrate the hacking. nbc news correspondent ali aruzi is with us. how did the u.s. get involved? this was a very significant development in the region. >> that's right. earlier this year saudi arabia, the uae, egypt, and bahrain accused qatar of financing and supporting terrorism and extremist groups and interfering in the affairs of other states. they made a list of demands to the qataris to stop supporting these things such as the muslim brotherhood, to distance themselves from iran and to shut down al jazeera news network, which is owned by the qataris. they didn't aquiesce. the spat kept growing. now they believe that the uae called for qatari government social media web sites to be hacked back in may. their objective was to pull quotes from the qatar's amir,

which ultimately prompted this diplomatic crisis between qatar and other countries i mentioned. now, according to u.s. intelligence officials, they became aware last week after analyzing new data that the qatari amir had been falsely quoted as praising hamas and saying that iran was a great islamic power. iran as an archenemy of saudi arabia. now, they have said that they've posted these quotes. secretary tillerson was there last week saying all of these countries are important to him, but doesn't sigh this dispute being resolved very quickly. amman. >> live in london. thank you for that. still ahead, a record eighth singles title for the newest wimbledon champion. you may know who he is. >> on the diamond it is a glove and not a ball that threw the feds last night. sports, everybody, is next. ♪

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award winning engine. the volvo xc90. the most awarded luxury suv of the century. this july visit your local volvo dealer to receive sommar savings of up to $4,500. . >> 6-3, 6-1, 6-4. >> it's another one for the ageless wonder. federer, the champion of wimbledon for an eighth time. >> roger federer is the champion of the grands tour tournament at the all england club for a record eighth time. a fitting end to a marvelous performance in london as federer captures his 19th major trophy after a straight set victory in

the wimbledon final. he took less than two hours to wrap up the title match and he didn't drop a set the entire tournament. with his 36th birthday next month, federer is now the oldest man to win wimbledon in the open era. let's turn now to major league baseball where the cubs new all-star lefty made his pitching debut for the defending champs yesterday. to baltimore jose who landed on the cubs roster after a cross-town trade with the white sox last week. he is already making his presence felt. the lefty pitcher struck out 12 in seven scoreless innings on the mound, giving up no walks and just three hits in chicago's 8-0 win over the orioles. and now we go to chicago where the mariners nelson cruz gets plunked by the white sox's derek holland. a former teammate. cruz takes the base. he jokingly lunges towards the mound as if he is about to charge before a smirk. cruz would have to have his revenge another way. launching a go ahead homer in

the top of the tenth. it earned seattle the eventual 7-6 win. in miami marlins outfielder john carlos stanton going for a ball hit in the air deep in right center field. he misses the attempt at a leaping catch and loses his glove over the wall. the dodgers go on to beat the marlins 3-2 there. and, finally, in boston a 420 foot shot is apparently not far enough for yankees slugger aaron judge who is robbed of a home run by the red sox's jackie bradley jr. coming down with a ball after leaping to grab it in the triangle in center field. what a play. it's a relief for boston starter david price who goes on to strike out 8 over 8 scoreless innings as a red sox double-header against new york with a 3-0 win there. >> man, he has some serious -- getting all the way -- >> that is an amazing catch. >> i got to say, it was quite a weekend for roger federer. venus williams, in the second set, that was tough to watch. >> amazing performance

throughout the entire tournament. still ahead, the latest on the senate health care battle. new polling shows americans are divided on the issue. we're going to dig into those numbers for you. plus, president trump's re-election campaign doubles its spending on legal fees as the russia investigation continues, but the president's lawyer insists nothing happened. those stories and more coming up next. what's the story behind green mountain coffee and fair trade? let's take a flight to colombia. this is boris calvo. boris grows mind-blowing coffee. and because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. all for a smoother tasting cup.

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>> welcome back, everybody. it is the bottom of the hour. let's start with the morning's top stories.

crews in arizona are set to resume their search this morning for a missing man who was swept up in a deadly flash flooding over the weekend. at least nine people, they were killed saturday as raging waters surge the tonto national forest north of phoenix wrrks a total of 14 people were caught in the flash flood that struck as family and friends were seeking relief from the summer heat. iran has announced it has sentenced a u.s. national citizen to ten years in prison on spying charges. xiyue wang was doing research for his thesis in the country. princeton says they were working to secure his release. >> hundreds of family friends and community members gathered for a vigil for the four missing pennsylvania men whose bodies were discovered in a grave on a farm last week. the event honored jim taro patrick, mark sturgis and tom

meo. cosmo dinardo and john michael craft were charged in connection can with the men's deaths. senate republicans, they delayed their vote on a bill to repeal and replace obama care as senator john mccain recovers from surgery. mccain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye on friday and will spend the week recovering at his home in arizona. according to the mayo clinic the senator is in good condition, and the surgery went very well. on saturday majority leader mitch mcconnell announced the senate would defer consideration of the gop health care bill while mccain recovers. majority whip john cornyn said yesterday he expects a vote to take place once mccain returns. >> we all wish john mccain a speedy recovery, and we need him in more ways than one, but, yes, i believe as soon as we have -- we have a full contingent of senators that will have that vote. it's important we do so. >> that was senator john cornyn. while senator mccain's absence is putting the gop health care

bill in question, senator susan collins and john -- have come occupy gebs the bill. they expressed their doubts just yesterday morning. meanwhile, many had expected the congressional budget office to release a score on the revised bill today, but that too has been delayed. it's unclear right now when that score will be released. meanwhile, a new washington post, abc news poll shows half of all americans, they prefer the current health care law. about one quarter want the republican option being pushed now. 17% would prefer something else altogether. when it comes to priorities, 63% of americans say it's more important for the federal government to provide coverage for low income americans. 27% say the government should prioritize tax cuts. >> the president's legal team is insisting he knew little about the june 20 san francisco trump tower as more details continue to come to light. we now know that along with top trump campaign aides russian lawyer natalia, british publicist rob goldstone, who told the a.p. he was present, and the translator, there was

also a russian-born american citizen who served in had the soviet military and has lobbied on issues important to the kremlin. president trump says he only found out about the meeting a few days before its actual disclosure, but on june 27th, a week and a half before the first report, his campaign made a $50,000 payment to the offices of the new york lawyer alan who was then hired to represent trump jr. in the russia probe. this as president trump's attorney defended that meeting. >> doesn't it show intent and willingness on the part of don jr. and jared and paul manafort to collude with the russians, and let me just point out, natalia was not just some russian off the street. she had close ties to people in the kremlin. >> well, number one, the discussion was going to be about -- if it was going to be about russian opposition research that a russian lawyer had, the fact is shows go on -- you know that goes on in campaigns all the time.

opposition research is a big part of the campaign. >> it doesn't go on with russians all the time, gentleman i. >> look, this was -- here's what happened. first of all, nothing happened. >> isn't it also important whether or not it's legal, whether or not it's wrong, whether or not it's ethical? >> you can conflating, jake, three perspectives here. the legality, was the meeting and what took place legal or not? as almost every legal expert says, it's not illegal. then you are trying to put a moral ethical aspect to it. it's easy to do that in 20/20 hindsight, but not in the middle of a campaign. >> a news poll shows doubt to the extent that russia played a role in the 2016 presidential election. 40% of americans are either unsure or don't think it happened. since april, the number of republicans and conservative independents that believe russia played a role and the trump team sought to benefit from it has been cut in half.

still, more than half of americans think the president is trying to interfere with the ongoing investigation. 63% of those polled think the meeting with russian lawyer natalia was inappropriate. >> joining us here on set once again senior reporter for business insider natasha bertrand. you heard the lawyer sort of making his argument saying look this was op research. how are others responding to this? >> well, no opposition researcher that i have spoken to says that this was legitimate opposition research in any sense of the word. opposition research is not a dark art. it's something that professionals undertake using publicly available data, facts and figures that, you know, they may take a series of tips and phone calls and there may be some kind of certain mystique to it, but in no part of opposition research does -- is -- does that involve, you know, taking information from a hostile foreign power that supposedly is high level and sensitive and

isn't available to the public already. this is something that opposition researchers have told me is unusual and out of the ordinary. >> three polls show that the president had 40%, 38%, and 36%, and he obviously using his favorite medium twitter responded saying "with an inaccurate number for the abc-washington post poll, even though 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time." can the president continue to ignore these low poll numbers? are they at all having any kind of impact on his base with the russian investigation and his standing overall? >> no. his support among his base remains pretty strong. in that same poll i believe it was something like 85% of republicans still support him. there was a little dip in his poll numbers around the time that he fired fbi director james comey and around the time that the health care bill passed, which is extremely unpopular.

as long as his base of support remains strong, then he can continue to -- >> we bring up these poll numbers over and over again, and yet, it seems -- it keeps going back to the base. they're not moving. >> they're not budging. >> no matter what. >> it seems like they work if his favor. he also cites that the polls showed he was going to lose to hillary clinton, and he swings that to his favor. >> this poll was not inaccurate, by the way. it was roughly two percentage points off from the actual election results. >> interesting, though, when the polls work in president trump's favor, we hear more about them. thank you so much, natasha. still ahead, hollywood paying tribute after losing a pair of giants on the big screen. a look at the extensive careers of george ramiro and martin landau. dr. who taps its next time lord. those stories and a check of your forecast when we return. just like the people

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wildfires are facing a more difficult job of being fought. 60 new fires broke out over the weekend. the blazes have ripped through several communities and forced as many as 37,000 people to evacuate. it's unclear at this point how many homes and businesses have been destroyed. with that let's get a check on your weather now with nbc meteorologist bill karins. some relief out there, hopefully, bill. >> sometimes thunderstorms can also have lightning, and that causes new fires. they can't win with the peak of the heat in the peak of the season. the thunderstorms in arizona don't get a lot of big heavy rain events, and when they do, they get a lot of flash flooding where, that happened again overnight. flash flood watch for six million people for one more day. especially through northern

pennsylvania much of the upstate portion of new york, right through areas of western massachusetts and southern vermont. again, wind damage is the threat. also our friends in minnesota late tonight, that will be our overnight storm threat. here's the timing of the storms for today. that few storms could be around philly and new york also. here's by 1:00 heading towards the lunch hour or at the end of the lunch hour. hit and miss sprinkles and storms were starting to form around philadelphia. this cold front is where we'll see the stronger storms. notice they bubble up with intensity and reds here. even a few in between new york, trenton, and philadelphia. it's at 5:00 p.m. binghamton, utica, and glen falls and saratoga. by 11:00 p.m. this evening some of the storms head to the catskills and poconos, skps a few trying to make their way. nothing bad. the heat will be on. as i mentioned brks a half hour ago, statistically this is the warmest week of the summer for the lower 48. as we go throughout the day today and into tomorrow, the

heat really is building already excessive heat watch in effect from areas from kansas through missouri. today the temperatures are the highest in california. sacramento, redding. they're still on track for one of the hottest summers ever for places like las vegas, salt lake city, even phoenix with a very hot stretch earlier this summer too. by tuesday the heat moves to denver, to amarillo, and it's not until the middle to the end of the week that we see our first sustained heat wave. look at st. louis. this is not the heat index. this is the actual temperatures. 100, 102, 102. it doesn't quite make it to chicago. you will get lucky in the great lakes, but through the central plains and will spread towards d.c. too by the end of the week. this is to be expected. we're in the middle to the end of the summer when most of the areas, and it's going to be a steam bath brsh especially towards the end of this week. >> thanks, bill. some sad news out of hollywood this morning. martin landau, best known for his role in a television series "mission impossible" as well as for his oscar-winning portrayal

in the film "ed wood" has died. landau who rose to fame in alsfred hitchcock's film "north by northwest" and he played in "mission impossible." the versatile covert agent who was a master of disguise. he also notably turned down the role of mr. spock for "star trek," and he went on to earn an academy award nomination for "tucker, the man and his drome" as well as another nomination the following year for "crimes and misdemeanors." then in 1994 landau played the broken down lagossi in "ed wood" earning him best supporting actor. he was 89 years old. also, legendary filmmaker best known for directoring "night of the living dead" has also passed. a pioneer in the zombie moror movie drama, he created the cult classic for a mere $100,000.

the film was inducted into the national registry of films by the library of congress in 1999. he was just 77 years old. also this morning, the popular bbc program "dr. who" has broken new ground in the announcement of the show's 13th doctor. the network announced yesterday that actress jody whittaker has been tapped to play the lead in the iconic sci-fi character on tv. whitaker was officially unveiled as the new time lord in an introductory video that aired after the conclusion of the final men's wimbledon match. the casting makes whitaker the first woman ever to play the doctor. she's expected in her first appearing role during the show's christmas special and will take over the role the following season there. >> can we just say how sad it is in hollywood. we lost two titans particularly with the passing of george romero and how he advanced horror films. >> landau, such an iconic actor as well. >> i think, though, there is some excitement about the fact

that dr. who is now going to be played by a woman. >> awesome. up next, yasmin bond. >> i don't know about that. >> i can see that. >> come on. you guys could be, like, the, you know -- >> no, no. all right. still ahead, if you are enjoying bacon with your breakfast this morning, you may want to put that piece down. >> details on how americans love of the pork product is pushing prices to record highs. other stories driving the business day ahead. it's not a quick fix.

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welcome back. turning now to the turmoil of venezuela where a protest vote against president nicolas moduro turned deadly yesterday. a 61-year-old female nurse was killed while waiting to cast a ballot in the unofficial largely symbolic vote. the vote was organized by the opposition against the president's plans to establish a special assembly to rewrite the nation's constitution. video shows a gang of moduro supporters riding motorcycles, overrunning a polling site in the church and eventually opening fire. reportedly more than seven million votes were cast, which also took place in dozens of countries around the world, including the u.s. a recent poll showing only 20% of venezuelans supported a constitutional rewrite, which the opposition says is a ploy of moduro's. turning now to the

diplomatic crisis. tempers flare when comments were put on the state-run media site and attributed to the country's leader. they said they were fake and posted by hackers, but that claim was rejected by foreign w rejected by bahrain, egypt, saudi arabia and the uae and they cut ties. u.s. intelligence officials said the uae did in fact orchestrate that hacking. let's turn to business, china topped analyst xmgss with a reported 6.9% second quarter gdp growth from last year. we're joined live with gemma from london. there were concerns in china's softness in economy. these numbers say different story. >> yes they did beat but only 0.1% ahead of expectations so not a huge amount. you look at the reaction of both mainland stock exchanges. both closed the session down. why was this? no clear reason although we think maybe there's a degree of

skepticism from traders when they look at chinese data, not sure how much of it they can necessarily trust and we also look ahead to the second half where growth is expected to slow down the chinese government itself expects 6.5% growth for the year as a whole so that would anticipate a slowdown in the second half. there's also concerns of the high leverage of debt in the system and the fact there's still a great reliance on external demand. let's look at what's happening specifically with regards to the chinese investment imports. this is interesting. we saw the data come out that $20 billion was invested by the chinese into overseas ports in the past year. this was double the amount that we saw a year earlier and it really shows how keen the chinese are to really reinforce their position as a leading maritime power and expand routes between asia and european countries. back to you. >> gemma, quick question. america's guilty pleasure bacon, prices at an all-time high. lot of people in the newsroom

are very concerned about that. also, what can you tell us why farmers are struggling to keep up with demand? >> well we'll start by saying a couple weeks ago i was talking how much americans are eating beef so really meat is back on everyone's tables but what's really happening here you're absolutely right. pork belly prices at a record high, frozen reserves at a six-decade low. apparently americans are starting to add bacon to all sorts of meals on top of bagels, panca pancakes, triple bacon sandwiches, finding much more to do with bacon in the kitchen. >> i have a feeling someone will run down and get that bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. >> i'm kind of hungry now. >> gemma, live in london thanks very much. >> i feel we've been adding bacon to a lot of things for quite some time. not a new thing. coming up, president trump looks to hit the reset button on his agenda, new details emerging about the meeting between top aides and his campaign and the growing list of undisclosed

participants. nbc news' peter alexander, robert costa and jeremy peters will have the latest in the russian saga. republican leaders in the senate are facing increasingly dim chances of delivering a legislative win to the president, with their health care bill, once again fighting for survival. democratic senator debbie stabenow joins our conversation. "morning joe" just moments away. ♪ ♪ 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. how to win at business. step one. point decisively with your glasses. abracadabra! the stage is yours. step two.

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dunt te it show intent of willingness on don jr. and paul manafort to collude with the vugss. she had close ties to the people in the kremlin. >> if the discussion was going to be about russian opposition research that a russian lawyer had, the fact is you know that goes on in campaigns all the time. opposition research is a big part of campaigning. >> it unt idoesn't go on with t russians. >> first of all nothing happened. >> that was president trump's

attorney jay sekulow and the list of undisclosed participants in the meeting. before we toss it over to "morning joe" a check of the stories on the day ahead. president trump is back in washington after spending the weekend at his bedminster country club. >> reporter: good morning, an unexpected start to the new week for president trump and senate republicans. this was supposed to be the time when they were zeroing in on finally taking a vote on a revised health care plan to overhaul obamacare. that won't happen any time soon because ironically a medical emergency. senator john mccain had surgery to remove a blood clot from behind the eye. he's fine but must remain in arizona all week that, puts the timing of a vote up in the air. the senate will still try to work on how they can bring the votes together because that's a question mark. is there enough support within the republican party to pass anything? it looks doubtful right now.

also of course the cloud of the russia investigation is still an issue for the trump white house, after the president spent his weekend in new jersey, he tweeted about the issue calling it a russian hoax story, saying his son don jr. was being treated unfairly on twitter and also this week the president will have a made in america theme week, trying to change the subject, turn the page. they'll talk about the american worker, they'll showcase products made state by state across the country and later in the week the president will take the ritual of christening a new aircraft carrier named for one of his predecessors, celebrate the start of the "gerald r. ford." a big, eventful, always followed by controversy kind of week for the trump administration. >> i'm sure it l thank you for that report. attorney general jeff sessions will be in minneapolis addressing the national district attorney's association, expected to focus on sexual assaults on

college campuses and human trafficking. supreme court justice neil gorsuch will be in san francisco where he'll speak to the ninth circuit judicial conference. anthony kennedy had to cancel his appearance after his wife fractured her hip. >> "morning joe" starts right now. good morning everyone, it's monday, july 17th. welcome to "morning joe." with us we have contributor to "time" magazine msnbc political analyst and former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments alice jordan, political writer for the "new york times," nicks aconfiscori, editor for "the washington post" david ignatius, political reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst robert costa and "new york times" reporter jeremy peters. joe, absolutely nothing to see

here for the trump presidency this weekend. >> nothing to see here it's all a fake hoax. the news that tumbled out starting on friday and continued through the weekend is pretty remarkable and you also look at the denial its, they continue to come from the trump white house, the president himself calling this a phony story and yet you're starting to hear a lot more conservative commentators suggest that there actually is something to this, that it's no scandal. this is very real. if you look at some of the polls that came out this weekend more and more americans are starting to believe that themselves. >> yes, it's absolutely stunning. we'll start there with president donald trump's approval ratings which have plummeted in one poll to the lowest ever recorded in a president in his first six months of office, a bloomberg national poll out this morning has president trump's job approval rating at