"morning joe" starts right now. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe" on this thursday, jum july 20th. today is the six-month mark of the trump presidency. and in true trump fashion, he just gave an interview that's taking all the attention away from his agenda. with us, mike barnicle, senior political analyst, mark halperin, column iist christa sanderson and michael schmidt. joe, we'll get to that in just a moment but first the news that senator john mccain has been diagnosed with brain cancer. the senator underwent a

procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. it revealed he has giablastoma. his doctors say the senator is recovering from surgery well and his underlying health is said to be excellent. joe, your thoughts? >> john mccain obviously a giant in washington, d.c. but he's been a giant in american life for a very long time and he served his entire adult life for the united states people in vietnam and being a prisoner of war, someone who was allowed by the north vietnamese to leave because his father was a powerful add mir in the u.s. navy but john mccain refused and

said he wasn't going to go until all of his men came home with him. he did come home physically broken but mentally and spiritually tougher then ever. he was a fighter his entire life, a fighter when he was with the rag va-- reagan administration. i'm not so sure that the most important work he's done hasn't been over the last six months when he's been fighting to uphold the basic tenets of u.s. democracy, championing checks and balances and making sure senators were reminded every day who our friend were and who our enemies were. when i went to talk to him in february, he showed me pictures of dissidents who were

assassinated by vladimir putin. he is a voice that we desperately need in the senate and this country now more than ever. you've spent a lot of time talking to john mccain. tell us your thoughts, mike. >> joe, what you just referred to is called character. and there's a lot less of character than there use to be be in the united states senate. john mccain has always symbolized character and honor. i've been fortunate to spend a will the of time with him over the years, i've been to the hanoi hilton and stood where he spent seven years as a prisoner of war. my memory of covering politics and political campaign stretches a long way back. it would be hard to talk the

winter when john mccain was running for office, heelect electrified. all of us, our thoughts and prayers are with him. he is an american mobile man. >> a lot of people are retweeting the same video right now and that's the video that remind us of john mccain's characterism. when someone started to question barack obama as patriotism and faith in the 2008 campaign, john mccain went over and politpolit

said barack obama is a good man, a good father, we just have different views of governing and that's why i'm running. my god, what we would do to have a leader like that in the white house today. >> all of us are thinking about the senator and his family. pretty simple for me. anyone who knows john mccain, who has the privilege to spend time with him has always found it to the one the greatest experiences you can have. i have to say as i suggested and as mike suggested, that campaign he waged in ' 99 and 2000 and fell short was one of the most remarkable times i have spent covering anybody. and he has shown people by example what it like to be a patriot, what it like to be someone who works hard and we're all competent if anyone can beat

this horrible disease, it's john mccain. >> we're all praying. now to the interview the president gave to the "new york times" and the message to the department of justice. trump expressed disappointment in his attorney general, jeff sessions. >> sessions gets the job. right after he gets the job, he recuses himself. >> was that a mistake? >> well, sessions should have never recused himself. and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else.

>> michael schmidt, give us some context to this. seems like he regrets hiring sessions? >> it seems that it has cast a shadow over him, the problem he has with mueller staring him down and he looks back at sessions, one of his early supporters, as one of the things that really bothers him. he's very upset about this and about the muller investigation and he thinks a lot of things could have been done about this. he believes he's his best spokesman on this. he was really pushing this issue yesterday. i think he's very upset with rod rosenstein, he comes in and

points mueller. so he's clearly frustrated by this. the interesting thing is what does this mean for? sessions will now have to go out and act as the attorney general knowing that the president basically doesn't want him there. >> and jim, you look at the came of rod rosenstein and more specifically the case of jeff sessions, here is a guy that donald trump and the entire trump campaign would tell you every day this is the greatest guy in the world, this is the smartest man we've ever met, they'd go on and on. but they don't -- obviously donald trump doesn't understand the concept of conflicts of interest. i guess his entire life is testimony to that. but he doesn't understand what is so basic to everybody else

th that's been in the law or been in government before, that if you have a conflict, if your integrity may be called into question in an investigation, there's only one thing to do, recuse yourself and yet donald trump sees that act of character as a disqualification. >> he sees it as weakness. he's been frustrated with sessions for some time. he thought he was weak. he thought that he recused himself, bowed to political pressure and put him in a jam. it's the trump definition of loyalty. in the minute that he felt he was disloyal, he did want him out. he's made it clear he's dissatisfied with his performance. he's never going to blame himself. mueller is not just digging in to obstruction of justice. he's not just looking at russia. in that interview with "new york times," he knows he's going to

start digging in to his business dealings. he sees sessions as being weak and putting him in that position. other than ivanka, there's not a single person i can think of that he has not said publicly or priva privately that he's dissatisfied with. there's nobody around him that he feels close to, who that himse himself. >> in the "new york times" interview, the president also had a warning for special counsel robert mueller saying there are areas that shoud be off limits to the former dire direct -- fbi director's examination.

>> the president said he has not done business in russia other than the miss universe pageant, but asked again if he would fire mule fer he went outside of what his charge is, trump responded "i can't answer that question because i don't think it's going to happen." joe. >> i mean, donald trump is saying the only business ties that he has with russia for the miss universe pageant, yet his sons prove to be. >> eric trump in an interview talking about investment and golf courses said russians love investing in their golf courses. it's crazy saying the miss universe pageant is the on question they've had. is it donald trump that doesn't know how washington works but hasn't been looking at history

for the 71 years that he's been on this planet? spiro agony want run out of office because of watergate. they started to investigate and found high had been paying the taxes he was supposed to pay. we don't even have to talk about bill clinton. we know where that investigation ended up. and right here bob mueller is into the going to put walls up around all these different areas of inquiry. >> you raise a good point. what happens with the special counsel is they turn over every rock and look at everything. what we don't want to happen is that they closed up shop and then it turns out there's something that they missed.

what became clear yesterday from our interview was trump is he's watching very closely. he believes that's what it is. but if mueller is going to step outside those lanes, that's what trump considered he called it a violation. and he said it was a red line. so if you're trump, you're closely watching mueller, seeing what he's doing but at the same time you see mueller hiring folks that trump thinks have expertise in areas that areout side of the russian meddling. he looks at mueller, he's concerned about muter. this is your obsession. >> kristen, he's attacking the attorney general, attacking the deputy attorney general, atta attacking comey and now he's

attacking bob mueller. it's almost as if donald trump finally, finally six months. >> well, donald trump always trying to run the strategy of saying whoever his enemies, discrediting them as much as possible early on so that if or when that immediate wins he can immediately believing it's invalid a. >> this is not the first time those in trump's orbit tried to discredit trump. i remember a fire pack conferring the young

conservative fire brand where she mispronounce is his horrible a lot and talks about how many conflicts of interest there are. this interview is just the latest in a series of things he's doing to try to make the case that anything that comes out of this investigation will be illegitimate. i don't know if that's because he expect there is will be something that comes out of this investigation. but it's not a new strategy and it not even in the interview, he knows something bad is come -- he knows. he knows. it like at the end of billions, they talk about pulling on that led. he knows can can't pull on that thread too hard or everything else ushs happen be.

you look at the poll numbers and even republicans suggest that he stay away from attacking bob mueller. how effective do you think an all-out war against robert mueller, the fbi director that got us through september 11th would be? >> i think they're one of the most remarkable interviews with any president i've ever read, for a lot of reasons. and i wonder if there's any method to what he did in this interview, if there's anything he was thiing about, if he said if i said this, it's going to improve my life kaylee i think there isly downof that, which i think is him drawing this line

and saying this investigation shouldn't go on with his poll now. . the question was was he venting or does he have some three-dimensional view of his chest that's not anding out yet. >> i think one of the best tweets in the past month has been that perhaps he's playing four dimensional hungry, ungri hip hippoand those of you who were subjected of the investigation are. let's forget the legal side of

this for a second and just look at the political side. if you're mitch mcconnell -- >> oh, my god. >> if you're republican senators, if you are paul ryan, if you're republican members of the house, if you're actually somebody that's running a hospital in rural america in, oh, i don't know, let's say in rome, georgia and you're trying to figure out how you continue to take care of the elderly or if you're running a nursing home in peoria, illinois and you don't know how you're going to take care that people have dementia in your nursing home? >> there are people in the senate and house who desperately know they need to pass a health care reform bill. what are you thinking this morning as you see this bizarre ram blink interview that donald trump gives to the "new york times"?

>> i mean, just put a camera on his lawyers, watching that. can you imagine? we haven't even scratched the surface including one at that he says ps also, his current take on napoleon and at that even prp and rand paul will be our guest coming up. you're watching "morningio owe o. from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions,

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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. more now from the "new york times" interview, and this is

stunning. the president looked to put to rest the questions surrounding his second discussion with vladimir putin at the g-20 dinner. it came to light that the two leaders met and that the president was not staffed by any american personnel. >> she's sitting next to putin and somebody else. and that's the way it is. so toward dessert i went down just to say hello to melania and while i was there i said hello to putin, really pleasantries more than anything else. actually, it was interesting, we talked about adoption, russian adoption. it was interesting because he ended that years ago.

it was interesting because that was a part of a conversation that don had in a meeting and most other people call up and say, by the way, we have information on your opponent. i was just with a lot of people, they say who are you taking a meeting with? >> um, i just don't know really where to start right there. i think all the people that were in the meeting, mike schmidt, should be asked whether they told donald trump they would have taken meeting with russian intelligence officers and with two russian interpreters in the room. that's remarkable, which is going to lead and should lead to a flurry of follow-up questions to see whether donald trump was telling the truth or not there but also adoption issue. this meeting with vladimir putin, this meeting that he said was 15 minutes, others suggested

it might have lasted close to an hour. he said they talked about adoption. that was actually the day before donald trump signed off on something that later was disproven. that was a statement that that was what don jr.'s meeting was about as well. >> we tried to press him as much as we could about what he talked to putin about and that was all that was said, this thing had come up with don jr. and the conversation just starts veering in different directions and all of a sudden he would try to move it back. so we sort of left there not having a full total understanding what the meeting with putin was about. so that was a bit frustrating. but as we went from there, the conversation went in different

directions. what he is clearly irritated about are the stories about don jr. he was trying to use his meeting with the republican senators that afternoon to show that it wasn't a big deal, that this was just simply an information gathering meet that any politician would have taken, including his colleague he had had lunch with, the senators, and that this is just politics as normal. he said he did not know at the time, which he has said before, he did not know about the meeting but that if he had known, he probably would have said go ahead and do it. >> mike barnicle, they got caught in a lie, the president of the united states and don jr. about what that meeting was about when they talked to the "new york times" on saturday. that was a lie. it want about adoption. and why donald trump would stumble back into that mine

field, oh, yeah, they talked about adoption, the same thing don jr.'s meeting talked about. it's already been proven in don jr.'s e-mails and everybody that was at the meeting and now everyone was add that meet, the members of the united states senate, whether they told the president it was a good idea in the middle of the campaign to get dirt from former russian intelligence officers and other who is proved to be agents from vladimir putin's government. >> the interview is incredible. i don't think i've read an interview with a sitting president of the united states.

despite their great represeabil he was not under oath. if he was under oath with a skilled prosecutor, he would be in trouble. and the other thing is if listening to the president in the context of everythings that been going on for six months now, it seems like the white house is almost a man alone without any real friendships other than his family. >> not just friendships. he's a man alone without lawyers. there's a reason he has tension with the white house counsel. there's a reason he has tension with his personal attorney. because he does interviews like this. there's no lawyer in a america who would consult a client to go out and freelance on a topic, on a sprawling investigation. that's why when you talk to

anyone in the white house, the reason he does those things in the interview is they do think something's going to happen. there's nobody around donald trump today, other than maybe his daughter, who doesn't think this results in charges against. and he knows that and he's worried about that. and he thinks he can talk his way out of anything. and he does have this ability to believe his own reality. he fees that the russians didn't interfere in the election. he thinks it was fake news. it doesn't matter what his advisers or lawyers tell him, it's what he thinks. he believes his guts in negotiations in the situation is better than anyone else's. we'll see. and if it goes on. there's so much more here, i don't even know what to think. the president reflected on

napoleon bone part -- the president said, well, napoleon finished a little bit ahead but i asked that. he said he did so many things, even beyond. the his one problem was he didn't go to russia that night because he had extra curricular activities and they froze to death. same thing happened to hitler, not for that reason, though. hitler wanted to consolidate. he was all set to walk in but he wanted to consolidate and when it dropped to 35 degrees below zero, that was the end of that army. the president then spoke about the russian army saying, quote,

but the russians have great fighters in the cold. they use the cold to their advantage. they've won five wars where those against him froze to death. so we're having a good time. the economy is doing great. um -- >> wow. >> um -- >> i don't know where to start there, mika. i will say that there is not an historian alive who has ever suggested -- mark halperin, let me bring you in here, that napoleon lost to the russians. i believe it was in 1814, was it, because he had extra curricular activities that night and they lost. nor has anybody ever suggested that stalin was able to defeat

hitler's armies because it dropped to 35 degrees below zero one night. just a little footnote here, history fans, the battle of stalingrad itself lasted six months. that reading of history, mark halperin, is every bit as fascinating as his suggestion that andrew jackson was angry with the development of the civil war when jackson of course was dead long before the civil war began. >> there's not a ton i'm finding on wikipedia that the president was making. one of the things, just reading the raw transcript, his ability to and his propensity to flip from top being to topic and to talk about stuff like history and then the economy back to

back with no real transition in what he says. and a lot of people are wond wondering why he did it. why was he reforming on all these topics? the history stuff is interesting but i keep going back to the stuff that he said about the investigation and the window it gives you into where his mind is at on all these things. >> yeah. kristen, not to overthink this because it doesn't teal like this was a lot of thinking going on here, but there is sort of like the fake news out, there this reinvention of facts and realtime. it's almost as if he's riffing but with facts. >> i think honestly you're not going to find a ton of voters who are going to fault him for

weird live misconstruing an awful lot of history in a short period of time. that's the type of thing that isn't going to be a problem as much as the fact that he's talking to france and france's leader and he winds up in a weird digression about praising the strength of russian soldiers. when you are under investigation, when your approval rating on the handling of russia is 33%, why does nfrg else come back to the russia story? even when you're asked about something else. that is what strikes me about the most bizarre about that comment. >> if you're keeping score at home actually, the russians defeated napoleon in 1812. but given, the battle was a five month battle and i've yet to hear anybody suggest, mike barnicle, that napoleon's extra

curricular activities just the bizarre and only bus it does actually affect a foreign leader, donald trump telling mike schmidt and maybe we should talk to mike about that, too, that he likes the french president but he has found that the french president likes to hold his hand. what do you even do with a comment like that? >> that is weird. >> what do you do about the whole rationale for the interview in the interview is like mind bolling. but michael schmidt, you were there in the room and he start talking at one point about president mack rone loves to hold his hand. what do you do when you're sitting there and he starts talking about that stuff? >> the interesting thing is it's a 50-interview.

so many things i had forgotten because there are so many different topics that get tackled in the entire thing. he's talking about this and that and i'm just trying to sit there and pay attention and direct this back towards russia and back toward the news. so it's interesting to hear a playback now. the thing about france is he clearly likes his trip to paris. he was really taken by that. it seems like this is sort of a theme in his foreign travels. when he went to saudi arabia, i think he was very taken by the prince there to really and that he would legally like to see

here. it was clearly something he was taken by and wins him over and these foreign leaders have discovered that. >> coming up, jared kushner heads to capitol hill next week, but not to press congress on the president's agenda. instead he will be interviewed by senate intel staffers about his role in last year's meeting with a russian lawyer and others inside trump tower. details on that straight ahead on "morning joe."

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some of president trump's top 2016 campaign advisers will go to capitol hill next week to speak about their recently discovered meeting with the russians, who promised damaging information on hillary clinton. the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, jared kushner, will be interviewed by staff of the senate intelligence committee in a closed session on monday.

donald trump jr. and exc-campain manager paul manafort are also schedule to speak before an open committee on wednesday. this as financial records filed in cyprus reportedly show paul manafort to be in debt to pro-russia interests by as much as $17 million. >> whoa. >> the records were certified as accurate by an accounting firm just a few months before manafort joined the trump campaign. responding to the report, a manafort spokesman did not report whether the debts might have existed at one time but he maintained that the cypress records were stale and do not purport to reflect any current financial arrangements. jim vandehei, so much could be

revealed with disclosures of financial documents and tax returns, correct? >> they could. let's talk about the meeting and the interview. donald trump is saying anybody would have taken this meeting, it's politics as usual. there's lots of trump supporters who watch your show. there's nothing normal about that. if a motley crew of russians e-mails you, says we have the good on your political opponent, i can't think of anyone i've known in politics that would say, you know what, i'm going to get the gang together, i'm going to get our top three officials who are running our campaign, we're going to meet with you, we're going to see if you have. and then if you're robert mueller, you got to believe they took the meeting, had the meeting and they didn't even bother to tell dad, didn't bother to tell the boss who they're going to meet with on a busy day, in a busy part of the campaig campaign they have the goods

that could sink your political important. let's not tell dad. they're going to have to tell what was discussed, what came from it and when you have to fill out those disclosures forms, when the whole world is talking about russia, you wouldn't remember a meeting with that group of people. that's why robert mueller's team is going to be all over that in addition to the other meetings. jared kushner, it was three different meetings that he somehow forgot with top russian officials when the world is watching when everyone thinks the russians just tipped your elections and, huh? i don't remember that. that's why these hearings are important, that's why donald trump's nervous and that's why donald trump did the interview. >> well, i want to follow up on a couple things, mike barnicle, that jim vandehei just said.

first of all, that you wouldn't remember the meeting with the these russians. secondly, knowing how the trump campaign ran, as mika and i did, pretty darn well for a while, we know you don't keep things from donald trump. there's no way there would be eight people meeting in trump tower, including paul manafort and jared kushner that donald trump didn't know about and sign off on. the cam didn't work that way. it just didn't. i want to follow up on what jim vandehei said for people who support donald trump out there, who hear him saying and other people saying getting intel from russians, from an enemy for a political campaign is somehow a normal thing in american politics, if you had jim

vandehei's years, my years, your years, mark halperin's years, everybody's years on this panel right now who have been involved in politics pretty closely and followed a ton of campaigns, easily well over 100, 125 years of political experience on this panel, not one of us, not a single politician elected or defeated that has ever gotten opposition research from russia, iran, venezuela or other countries who see themselves as enemies of the united states. mike, are there? can you name one? can halperin name one? mike schmidt, can you name one? vandehei? kristen? mika? can anybody name one politician that we've known in all of our

years following politics that would have gotten opposition revery much from an enemy of the united states? >> no, joe. and we began this program with the news that john mccain is suffering from brain cancer, diagnosed with brain cancer. so let's start there. john mccain never would have taken that meeting. i can't think of anybody in the united states senate running for senate declared cyber warfair on husband us. so the since is you have reported on so many presidential elections and run across so many political candidates, have you ever known anybody or any campaign or anyone who would even suggest that they would get opposition research from an enemy of the state? >> no, and i'll tell you what's

significant, i think, about the president's persistent claim that lots of people would -- will have taken that meeting. i believe it and not just those or capitol hill, people who work in his white house. look at that meeting. i've never heard the kinds of things he said that have been done, elarged a corruption and, mika, he just made things worse for himself by saying, hey, i just talked to all these republicans senators who say they would have taken the meeting, too. you're going to have one republican senator after the united states, once again the

president of the united states deciding to freelance, not being able to stay out of his own way. mika, you and i mueller who's g decide donald trump's fate. it's not the republican senators. it's not us. it's not trump supporters or opponents of donald trump. bob mueller will look at this, and bob mueller and his investigators will look at how unusual this meeting was, the fact they lied about it. the fact that paul manafort owed money to pro russian interests when he started to work at the campaign. and i'm sure we'll find out about donald trump's finances and debts that will make this more troubling. >> we'll wait for that. i mean, from my perspective in covering all of this, i feel that taking the meeting comment was perhaps the most revealing comment trump has made so far in his presidency.

still to come, forget russian interference. if you take chris kobok at his word, we may not really know who won the election. we'll dig into it more on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪

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michael schmidt, we're processing this interview. it was staggering. what was your biggest take away? >> oh, i guess two things. one is that the president clearly thinks he's his best spokesman. and that he can win you over and tell his story to you, and that you will come along to him. once we got him going yesterday, he was going to talk and talk and talk, and i think would have gone on for probably another few hours if his aides hadn't really pulled him away. the second thing, and this is the first time i've ever interviewed a president that was interesting.

we're sitting there talking about weighty subjects of russia and mueller and all this stuff, and then all of a sudden his six-year-old granddaughter comes running in. he turns to us and her and says show them how you can speak chinese. she says hello in chinese, and then he gives her a hug, and then she runs out. and then he says to her, say grandpa, i love you, and she does in chinese. in the juxtaposition in this moment of the weighty subjects and the tenderness of being a grandfather was quite something. >> fascinating. michael schmidt, thank you very, very much. still ahead on "morning joe," on may 11th, former spokesman for the justice department j matt miller tweeted one thing i learned at doj about comey, he leaves a protective paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate happened. stay tuned. that was six days before the report came out that comey, indeed, had memos.

last tuesday matt wrote a piece asking will trump take revenge on the justice department? eight days later trump voiced new frustration over attorney general jeff sessions. his hire. matt miller joins us just ahead on "morning joe." and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪

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talked to john said yeah, i might have to stay here a little bit longer, take some treatments and i'll be back. and we talked about five minutes. it's going to be a tough week, but he said i've been through worse, and basically then we started talking about health care. literally it went five minutes until he turned away from what i think most people would have a hard time absorbing and focussed on what he loves the best. so pray. i don't know. god knows how this ends, not me. but i do know this. this disease has never had a more worthy opponent. thank you. >> that was an emotional lindsey graham who just before addressing the press let a room full of his colleagues know that his best friend in the senate, john mccain had been diagnosed with brain cancer. welcome back to "morning joe." with us we have our contributor

mike barnicle, jim vanbahi, mark hallpren, christen s sulta-sanderson, bill crystal, and matt miller. we're going to get to the interview with president trump in just a moment. but first, joe, let's talk about senator john mccain diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. of course, this all came to be after he had surgery in the past week to remove a blood clot behind his eye, and then it was determined the situation was much worse. it's -- it's hard to really put your arms around what an incredible impact he has every day in washington when he serves. >> what an impact he has, and also how much he loves this

country. mike barnicle and i have joked before on this show about the ups and downs that i've had with john mccain through the years, and we've joked about it. he's joked about it, but there's no doubt, and i've told him personally that his most important fight has been the fight he's been waging to protect more than democracy over the past six months or so. he is a maverick. he has always been a maverick. he's always been tough. and i would point my children to john mccain, and i'm sure you would to, as proof that in washington, at work, it's just as important to be respected as it is to be loved. john mccain never really cared whether everybody loved him or not. whether everybody had warm and

fuzzy feelings about him or not. but he was always independent and fierce in his work, and he still is. and that's why the man has so much respect, not only in washington but around the country and around the world. >> joe, he's earned every down of respect that has been given to him across all of his years, and today as he fights brain cancer, he still symbolizes, despite, he might have disagreements with him politically or ideologically, but he's a man of character, a man of honor in an age when we see far too few people in public life with the same type of character and honor. you're never going to get close to the type of character and honor he has. >> and bill crystal, conservatives, obviously, have had an up and down relationship with john mccain through the years. but, again, the respect that they've always a had for him,

the respect that people like you have always had for him even when you disagreed with him. his service to this country in vietnam, his refusal to come home. he wasn't going to leave a man behind in his unit. working for ronald reagan. working in the house. working in the senate. running for president. and over the past six months, being a fierce voice for conservativism and for the constitution. give me your thoughts on john mccain this morning. >> yeah. i never disagreed with john mccain much. i tended to agree with him. i voted for him twice in primaries and got to know him well in the 90s. i was in awe of john mccain before i got to know him when i came to washington. i read about him as a p.o.w. i've known him for 20 years. i was close to him on foreign

policy issues beginning in 1995. i got to know him, and i'm still in awe of him. he's -- he's a remarkable man. and it's terrible news. >> he is a remarkable man. >> we'll be following that. >> and everybody that served with him, mika, also thought he was a remarkable ban. i remember hearing bud day, a legend himself, tell me about john mccain and how he just had the respect of everybody that was around him. that was the case in vietnam. that was the case at the hanoi hilton. it's also the case in the united states senate where, again, i think you and i both agree some of his most important work to this country, he's been doing over the past six months. and we pray to god he'll be able to do it for years to come. >> yes. we do. we're going to turn back now to the interview, the president gave to the new york times which

is dominating the news on this six-month mark of trump's presidency. trump in this interview expressed disappointment with his attorney general, jeff sessions. who decided in early march to recuse himself from the justice department probe into potential ties between the trump campaign and the russian government. after it was revealed he had undisclosed contacts with russian ambassador sergey kislyak. take a listen. >> session gets the job. right after he gets the job, he recuses himself. >> was that a mistake? >> well, sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. >> president trump went onto say that it was, quote, extremely unfair, and that's a mild word

to the president. matt miller, pick this apart for us if you could. >> wow. >> yeah. it's a huge wow on so many levels. you have said the country appears to be headed for a massive crisis? and attack on the very ib dependence of this justice department. that was back on the 19th in the washington post. there has been kind of a steady attack on the justice department since we -- since even trump was on the campaign trail. >> i think that's right. he started attacking them during the campaign. and he stepped it up in office. i think he's really waged a two-front war against the justice department since he was sworn in. first by trying to get jim comey to pack off the flynn investigation and try to get others to interfere and eventually firing comey. when that didn't work and there was a special prosecutor appointed by trying to subvert it from without.

trying to convince his base that bob mueller is somehow biassed. he's a republican, by the way, and that you shouldn't believe anything that comes out of them. it's an unprecedented attack on the rule of law in this country but the president of the united states. and i think -- i don't think it's a coincidence that this latest attack came the day after we found out that bob mueller is looking at that meeting that don junior held. i think his anger has been simmering and at times it boils over, and it boiled over yesterday after he saw it's getting close to his family. >> and how fascinating that we saw this before with james comey, and it was actually the family. it was donald trump and it was jared kushner who were nervous enough about what comey was doing to both say he should be fired when everybody else around him was suggesting that perhaps that wasn't the smartest thing to do. mark, let's talk about the

attorney general, jeff sessions. you know as well as i do there was nobody closer to donald trump during the campaign than jeff sessions. this shows just how transactional donald trump is. that jeff sessions goes from being the smartest guy in the senate, the smartest guy in washington d.c., one of the smartest guys he's ever met, donald trump said, to suddenly being a terrible letdown to the president as he speaks to himself in the third person, and somebody that should have told him he was going to recuse himself when the actual facts didn't arise until after he was attorney general that would have required him to recuse himself. what's your take on this attack? extraordinary attack from a president to a sitting attorney general, and can jeff session continue to be attorney general with a president that has no faith in him in. >> he took an enormous risk when he got out early and endorsed the president. they spent a lot of time together in 2016.

and he got one of the plum jobs in any administration, and by all accounts, he has been enjoying the job. the president has made it clear privately for a long time, this is exactly how he felt. there's some indications that -- from what i've heard, that he really wanted this part out. that he wanted that part of the interview to get a lot of takes and knew that it would. and the awkwardness now, again, for a normal white house, this would be one of the most extraordinarily awkward moments you could imagine, a president so publicly criticizing his attorney general. in this administration, most people i communicated with think it's perfectly possible that sessions who has a public event today, will simply muddle through this and accept the reality that his boss basically suggested he regrets hiring him. >> wow. >> bill crystal, how does that happen? how does the attorney general continue working as attorney general and what message is sent to other republicans that are being asked to jump off of a

cliff on health care, on tax reform, on other unpopular issues, if the builds aren't exactly popular. when you see jeff sessions took an extraordinary risk supporting donald trump early on and now he's been thrown under the bus, chris christie basically finished his political career in new jersey by skrurping out early for donald trump, and then donald trump threw him under the bus on the vice presidential pick, then promised him he'd be attorney general and threw him under the bus there too. what message does that send when donald trump asks you for a favor? >> i think we know something about donald trump's character, loyalty is a one-way street there. i think jeff sessions should make clear he's staying in the job and is going to do the job. he was confirmed by the united states senate and works for the united states people. as long as sessions thinks he's doing a good job, he should stay there and defend his decision

which was clearly the right decision to recuse himself. he should defend robert mueller and say the investigation is appropriate and he has confidence in the fbi and the law enforcement agencies of the u.s. government. i think it's an opportunity for sessions to do something good in a way for the country and remind us that we have the rule of law and that people don't simply serve to make donald trump and his family happy. on the russia thing in general, i think it's a little bit too much psychology. what's the one thing that drives donald trump crazy? russia. the russia investigation. why? it taints his victory or something? i think it's because he's scared about what's going to be found. that's been the consistent theme throughout. every time russia comes up, he does everything he can to stop the investigation and does everything he can to discredit it as he did in the interview last night. >> we will see. we will see what mueller comes

up with. the president also had a warning for special counsel, robert mueller, saying there are areas that should be off limits to the former fbi director's investigation. >> if mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances related to russia. >> would that be a breach? >> i would say yes. >> the president has said he has not done business in russia other than the miss universe paej end, but asked again if he would fire mueller if he went outside of his charge, trump answered i can't answer that question, because i don't think it's going to happen. also president trump spoke about deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who is overseaing the russia investigation. trump said after sessions recused himself he asked hoosier

deputy, quote, his deputy he hardly knew, and that's rod rosenstein who is from baltimore. there are very few republicans in baltimore, if any. huh? trump also said a special counsel should never have been appointed in this case, but in an interview conducted before the president's comments were published last night, rosenstein stood by his appointment of mueller and defended his fairness. >> i made the decision to appoint director mueller based upon his reputation, he had an excellent reputation. really bipartisan support for his integrity. and that's why i made that decision. i'm not going to be able to comment upon what he may or may not be investigating but i can assure you if there were conflicts that arose because of director mueller or anyone employed by him, we have a process to take care of that. we have ethics experts to review allegations of conflicts. i'm confident we'll meet the

right result. >> it's interesting. the president said -- i mean, there's so many remarkable things he said. it's hard to boil it down. i will say one of the funny things he said was, well, baltimore? there aren't a lot of republicans in baltimore. there arenweren't a lot of republicans in trump tower until donald trump discovered birtherism would get him a seat at the table in the republican primaries. in fact, i don't know that anybody around donald trump actually in trump tower was a registered republican. so for him to be saying how could we actually appoint somebody from baltimore when there aren't a lot of republicans in baltimore is beyond me. let's go to matt miller. matt, there was a veiled threat, i would think, maybe it's just the lawyer in me or at least a warning to robert mueller.

that if you cross certain lines and if you actually find something that might be illegal that i've done in the past, and you cross a red line and follow that, then you've crossed a red line, and there seems to be some sort of warning there. i'm not saying that's obstruction of justice, but what exactly is that? and how do you -- how do you process what the president said about the special counsel? >> i think you're right. i think it's very much a warning to bob mueller. it's a little strange to basically threaten to obstruct justice in the pages of the new york times. not a lot of people would do that in the open. and i think you have to interpret it as the president is testing the limits. he's testing what he'll be able to get away with. this is basically a challenge to congress. i've said openly now on the record if bob mueller looks into

my finances, i may get rid of him. is congress going to let him get away with that? he crossed a red line when he fired bob mueller. you don't fire an fbi director because you're unhappy with how he's investigating a criminal investigation into your campaign. congress did nothing. here he's throwing out a trial balloon and waiting to see how people will react. people from both parties, but especially on republicans, it's incumbent on them to stand up and say this would be unacceptable. if you were to fire bob mueller over this, that's an impeachable offense. >> matt miller, thank you very much. christen, you point out that there always seems to be some road back to russia. or some connection to russia where it builds the notion that perhaps there's some problem for

him with russia. in every one of these, he's either upset about sessions because he recused himself, or even if he's reinventing history, somehow russia comes out on the positive side of things. >> i think it's -- bill was right when he said this was clearly this unique, bizarre sore spot for him. whether it is a sore spot for pride over the election or a sore spot because it's threatening his family at this point, he would do so well to leave the story alone, to let the investigation play out. to be out there on the stump talking about the health care bill. to be talking about tax reform, to be talking about any of these issues that the republicans on the hill would like to see move. having the use of the bully pulpit to try to move public opinion on those issues would be so much more valuable use of time, and yet, because this russia issue feels so personal, he keeps getting stuck there f. but i want to talk for just a second to consider what happens if, for instance, attorney general sessions were to step down or to be fired.

so what next? you have the acting attorney general, someone currently at the justice department in trying to appoint a new attorney general, what do you think kind of position do you think the u.s. senate is in right now? especially with the questions now every member, republican member of the senate is going to get asked today when you're in this meeting did you say that you were somebody who would take information from a foreign government? i mean, the relationship between capitol hill and the white house is not great at the moment. for a variety of reasons. and so what is the next step? it doesn't seem as though there's a lot of thinking of, okay, i did this interview. i said these things. what are the next three steps in the game? there is not that kind of strategic thinking going on, it wasn't seem. >> and mika, you know, somebody pointed out earlier, and i think they're exactly right. it may have been bill crystal, that maybe we're overanalyzing this too much. maybe this is not about donald

trump being anything other than scared. because he knows what's in his background. and he knows what -- why he is being seen with vladimir putin as he is. he knows himself, not us, why he has compared american soldiers unfavorably to vladimir putin in his interview. he knows why he told us in 2015 that he thought putin was a better leader than barack obama, even after he brought up to him that putin assassinated journalists and political leaders. we knows all of that, and i think maybe as bill crystal said, we're just making this a little more complicated than it needs to be. donald trump is scared. he is scared to death that somebody is going to pull on that thread and everything is going to unravel. so does it make political sense to fire james comey?

no, it doesn't, unless keeping james comey will get you in legal trouble. and so he does that. he gets rod rosenstein appointing special counsel and now he has bob mueller. maybe he's scared to death that year and years of shortcuts are going to catch up with him in. >> no. i think also, you could say we're overthinking it and we probably should have, everybody, should look at what he said during the campaign, and take him for his word. the comments he made about russia. the comments he made when we asked him who do you turn to for advice? who is a great thinker? him. talked about himself. i can't think of anybody in the white house who would advise him to make the comments he made to "the new york times." christen, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe,"

health care has republicans down. but could tax reform be the cure? journ jeremy peters is working on this for the new york times, and he joins us next. we, the people, are tired of being surprised with extra monthly fees. we want hd. and every box and dvr. all included. because we don't like surprises. yeah. like changing up the celebrity at the end to someone more handsome. and talented. really. and british. switch from cable to directv. get an all included package for $25 a month. and for a limited time, get a $100 reward card. call 1-800-directv. choicehotels.com. badda book. that's it?. he means book direct at choicehotels.com for the lowest price on our rooms guaranteed. plus earn free nights and instant rewards at check-in. yeah. like i said. book now at choicehotels.com

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xfinity gives you more to stream to more screens. >> we do have to repeal obama care, and we will end up replacing it with something that is going to be outstanding. far, far better than failing obama care. >> let obama care fail. it will be a lot easier. and i think we're probably in that position where we'll just let baobama care fail. we're not going to own it. the republicans are not going to own it. >> for seven years you promised the american people that you would repeal obama care. people are hurting inaction is not an option, and frankly, i don't think we should leave town unless we have a health

insurance plan. >> each day this week it seems president trump has held a different position about what to do with obama care. joining us now, jeremy peters. jeremy, what will be the fallout to the party if the republicans can't get health care done and how do they keep up with the president? >> i think, mika, the biggest threat from this failure, this collapse, is not the kind of voter anger that you saw in 2010, 2014, 2016 in which a lot of republicans were primaried from the right. i think the real danger is going to be in voter disallusionment and apathy. they're going to look at republicans in congress and say okay, we gave you the house, then the senate, and the white house, and then you still can't do what you promised to do. i was on a call with conservative leaders yesterday, and one of them summed it well

by saying this is a read my lips moment for the republican party. they have broken a fundamental promise. a promise on an issue, by the way, that as galvanized them more than any other in at least a generation. >> bill crystal, that is true. you look at 2009, 2010 and then the elections in 2012, 2014, and 2016. and yes, obama care galvanized republicans and the base, but isn't it true that the republican base and donald trump's base is more galvanized. they're more galvanized by neil gorsuch and the possible replacement of justice kennedy, immigration reform, building that wall as donald trump always talked about? and the business community, a lot more concerned about tax reform, regulatory reform than obama care? >> yeah, could be. i think they could have said we

made a good faith effort to repeal and replace it. they had good ideas. medicaid to the states with more flexible. there are states doing versions of that. arkansas, they're working pretty well. but god forbid, but not just trump, any of them, ever make a substantive argument for the bill. they let the democrats define the terms. if you have a mandate everyone has to be covered, that's the case with obama care. it's been a pathetic demonstration, it would help to have president trump make the case for the bill, but pathetic for the republican party and the conservative movement just intellectually and politically. the other thing is donald trump said i don't own it. i mean, that's the perfect thing

for a president. harry truman, the buck stops here, president trump, i'm not going to own it. >> we're all fixated on russia. you don't get all party control often in this town. when you have the presidency, the house, the senate and you're six months in and blew it on the one topic you went after, you could end the year with nothing, when you have all-party rule, you should jam through as much legislation, reengineer the country in your image as much as you can, because things as we're finding with obama care, once done are hard to undoe. so the decision even to do health care first to me was stupid when he had a real chance to do tax cuts and infrastructure, things that are at least more doable than health care that would have gone to help boosting the economy which is still the one thing that keeps him in a position of strength especially with republicans, the stock market yesterday was at a record high. business basically does like the environment they have. they like deregulation. there are jobs out there. there's even some indications that the lowest rungs that people are starting to see at

least marginal improvement in their income. that's not a bad place for him to do. to do health care and get nothing done and now make tax reform even harder, waste of time. >> yeah, but mark, we early on, mark, not only did we say it around this set, but there were a lot of people in washington, a lot of conservatives going to donald trump, and telling him, don't start with health care reform. it killed the democrats, governing majority. it hurt hillary clinton and bill clinton in 1993. start with tax reform. do an infrastructure bill. do education reform. they got these warnings from everybody. and their argument always was, well, we need to start with health care reform, and then we'll save enough money for a tax bill. that's why they could never really -- they had everything backwards. they were going to remanage,

reorganize one fifth, one sixth of america's economy on a bill that had no transparency, that didn't have regular order, that didn't go through committees, that was written by a hand full of staffers, and the intent of it wasn't to reform health care. the intent of it was to save enough money through cuts to give tax cuts. i mean, it's been an insane process from january 20th forward, hasn't it? >> the point bill made can't be emphasized enough. they did not have the courage of their convictions to write a bill that fulfilled some of the conservative ideas the republicans have been talking about on health care, or to defend it in a robust way. i don't think anybody thought the president would defend it. health care policy is not his specialty. with the exception of paul ryan giving a couple of speeches where he talked about why this would be better for americans than the status quo, they've been purely on the defense. jeremy, on tax reform, do you

think republicans are going to have the courage of their conviction? congressional leaders and the white house to explain why the tax changes are not just what they want but better for the country? >> so, we reported yesterday in today's paper that conservative groups led by the kochs and their freedom partners and the american action network, a separate group, are going to be launching a push that could eventually involve tens of millions of dollars to rally people around tax reform. now, i think that's all well and good. however, there are still a lot of differences in the republican party to bridge over exactly what that looks like, and if it can be true reform and not just a cut in the individual and corporate rate. i do know, mark, there's a palpable sense among republicans that they have one last shot to get a piece of conservative legislation, a major conservative reform through the congress and to president trump's desk.

tax reform is it. but i think it's a problem in more ways than one. not the least of which is the fact that tax reform isn't as mobilizing as gavel newsing an issue for the republican base. it may excite their corporate interests and their donors, but where's the villian in tax reform? the republicans always do best when, like with obama care, they had a very clear enemy. and someone they could go against. and that's just not the case with tax reform. i don't know where that ground swell of grass roots energy comes from on this issue. >> i don't know, mike, barnicle, that will will be a ground swell, for support on tax reform, but i do know that there are a lot of small business owners, mid-sized business owners, large business owners that believe that the corporate tax rate should be cut in america because it makes american businesses less competitive across the world.

and there are so many people in the business community, and including a lot of small business owners, that are still supporting donald trump despite the fact they don't like donald trump. despite the fact they didn't vote for donald trump in the primaries, despite the fact they think that donald trump's twitter habits are maddening, but they're still hoping that he will create a more -- along with the republicans, a more competitive tax environment for their businesses. i think failure there, actually, really hurts donald trump in a very significant way. they really need to pass tax reform. >> there's no doubt about that, but jeremy used the phrase palpable sense. i would pose this to you. that you get a palpable sense that everybody out there this morning gassing up their automobiles on their way to work or grocery shopping, they don't care that the republicans control the house, the senate, and the presidency. what they do care about, then

you get a palpable sense of this. is that the entire system is broken. and it poses a threat to people of both parties. any incumbent, i think, is in dire danger going up into the election year of next year because of the sense that the system is fractured and people on both sides of the aisle do very little to heal it. >> yep. might be worth reading joe's last column in washington post on that note. jeremy peters, thank you. and bill crystal, thank you as well. coming up on monday night as the health care plan fell apart, the president in front of a room full of republican senators, reportedly lashed out against one of their colleagues. quote, he told the lawmakers, how annoyed he was with one republican who was not there. senator rand paul of kentucky who had gone on television over the weekend to oppose the bill. senator paul joins us ahead this

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>> i'm pleased that more than 30 states have agreed to share the

information with the commission and the other states that information will be forthcoming. if any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what they're worried about, and i ask the vice president and the commission, what are they worried about? there's something. there always is. >> do you believe hillary clinton won the popular vote by 3 million to 5 million votes? >> we may never know the answer to that question. because even if you could prove a certain number of votes were cast by ineligible voters -- >> is that why this commission exists? because the president believes he would have won the popular vote? >> that's not the reason the commission exists. it's not the justify or validate with the president said about the election. >> are the votes for donald trump that led him to win the

election in doubt as well? >> absolutely. >> that was kris kobach. he's one of the leaders of the commission on electoral integrity. which yesterday got down to work. why does the commission exist, joe? >> well, the commission exists because donald trump had said early on that he was going to get a commission and the purpose of the commission regardless of anything else anybody else said was to justify his outrageous claims that hillary clinton stole 3 million votes, and that he actually was the winner of the popular vote. this, of course, is outrageous. nobody has ever suggested that was the case. i will give kris kobach who i have been critical of over the past several months, credit for si consiste consistency. he said perhaps hillary clinton didn't get as many votes as

reported and said the same thing about donald trump. kris kobach is saying it is quite possible that donald trump does not even deserve to be president of the united states. that perhaps those votes -- maybe donald trump had enough improper votes in wisconsin and michigan and ohio and pennsylvania, maybe he shouldn't even be president out united states. for his appointee, kris kobach to be saying that yesterday i found to be almost as extraordinary as donald trump's stam statement, somebody's always hiding something. and in talking about the commission, the states. i mean, very ironic. i mean, i think that could fit into a song. i'm not sure. but i do know this. the reason the states don't want to turn over their voter rolls to the federal government is they don't trust the federal

government. they shouldn't trust the feds. there's a reason why state governments should run elections and not the feds. in fact, this has the fact that it's decentralized that prevents foreign powers like the russians to be able to come in and just hack into one system and control the entire voting process for the united states of america. decentralization in this case makes the most sense. the fact that you have a guy who calls himself a republican that's not a conservative and never has been saying he wants to centralize all election operations, that's frightening. and most republicans that are running elections across the nation understand just how frightening that is. >> up next, a "time" exclusive. how president obama's cyber security team planned to push back against russian hacking. a first look at the previously undisclosed 15-page plan next on "morning joe."

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with speeds of 250 megabits per second across our entire network, to more companies, in more locations, than centurylink. we do business where you do business. ♪ ♪ . >> joining us now "time" magazine senior correspondent maximo calibrese. inside he details a previously undisclosed 15-page plan that lays out how the obama white house was preparing for a possible election day cyber incident, which he writes including on november 1st the white house went so far as to war games, an election day attack over the course of five hours. the national security council ran a fictionalized sequence of

events to rehearse how federal agencies would responds in a real attack. some dealt with vote meddling. others focused on efforts to undermine the elections. as the nightmare scenario unfolds at polling places, the team went over what actions each agency would take and what the legal constraints were on what they could do and i am wondering, does this plan, these 15 pages confirm or perhaps raise more questions about why the obama administration was so quiet about this let? >> what the plan shows are the extraordinary measures that they put in place to be reprepared for a russian attack. what that, inturn, shows is how successful putin has been in undermining american faith in the electoral process, which was

the first and vying goelg goal of the russian administration t. administration was prepared to send personnel to polling stations to mobilize our active or reserve pentagon forces and launch a counter-propaganda and shows how thoroughly the administration, political candidates and the country as a whole have been out maneuvered by putin's massive operation into our faith if democracy. >> for the benefit of those perhaps in the white house or otherwise who are reluctant to believe the depth and the scope of what happened during the election, could you talk about the cyber fingerprints that showed up and what led to that and what that meant? >> right. so in mid-july, illinois discovered that someone was trying to download the full file of voters from the state of

illinois. 15 million voter records. when the fbi sent out cyber action team to investigate in springfield, illinois, had kept a record of the attack. they found both ip addresses linked to russian intelligence and also tactics and procedures that were known to be used by a group of hackers that worked directly for russian intelligence and over the course of the summer, more and more states came forward to say that they had been attacked and in those attacks, the same fingerprints were found, until finally it was more than 20 states that had been successfully compromised by these russian hackers and ultimately the white house cyber security officials concluded there wasn't any state they hasn't tried to penetrate. they haven't seen evidence in some case. >> it's clear the president and a lot of his support eers are

unconvinced the russians were trying in the process, is there anybody raising doubt whatsoever about the russian campaign? >> no, i literally have forces, fbi intelligence, political appointees, both parties saying, loose, i will swear on my mother's gravy it was the russians. they can't talk about more specifically details and laid out in public testimony repeatedly on the hymn, because it go etc. the sources and methods and our ability to understand what russians are continuing to try and do against our faith in democracy. but there isn't any doubt with anybody who has done it for the majority of their lives that this was the russians. >> that is a much bigger pittsburgh here t. new issue of

"time" is out. still ahead, senator jeff sessions was one of the first people to give main stream credible to the trump campaign, now the president is turning on the attorney general in a widespread breath taking new ber view. plus, prayers intoed in for senator john mcdane diagnosed with geoblastoma the same that ted kennedy died from back in 2009. also in the heat of the bedate over the mech mech reform. "morning joe" is back after this. millies. trick or treat! we're so glad to have you here. ♪ what if we treated great female scientists like they were stars? ♪ yasss queen! what if millie dresselhaus,

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. good morning. welcome to "morning joe" on this thursday, july 20th. today is the six month mark of the trump presidency and in true trump fashion, he just gave an interview that is taking all the attention away from his agenda. with us, we have veteran columnist and ms nbc contributor mike barnical, co-founder and ceo of axios, jim vandehi and ms nbc mark halperin, columnist at the washington examiner, kristen anderson and one of the new york time's report worries conduct thad interview with the president michael schmidt. joe, we're going to get to that in just a moment. but first the news that for john mccain has been diagnosed with brain cancer.

the senator underwent a procedure yesterday, last friday actually to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. it reveals that he has geoblastoma, an aggressive malignant brain tumor. according to mayo clinic in phoenix the senator's family are reviewing their treatment options right now, which could include keep po therapy and radiation. his doctors say the senator is recovering from surgery well and his underlying health is said to be excellent. joe, your thoughts? >> well, john mccain, obviously, a giant in washington, d.c., but he's a giant in american life for a long time. he served his entire adult life for the united states people, of course, in vietnam and being a prisoner of war, someone who is allowed by the north vietnamese to leave because his father was a powerful admiral in the u.s. navy, but john mccain refused

while he was being beaten, refused to leave and said he wasn't going to go until all of his men can woman home with him. he did come home physically broken, i tell you what, mentally and spiritually as tough as ever. he was a fighter when he worked in the reagan administration, when he was a house member, when he was a for, when le ran for president and especially now and mike barnacle, i'm not so sure of all of the great work john mccain has done for this country. i'm not so sure that the most important work he's done hasn't been over the last six months when he's been fighting to uphold the basic tenets of u.s. democracy, championing checks and balances and making sure that americans and senators remind every day who our friends were and our enemies were. when i went to talk to him if february, he showed pe pictures

of dissidence that had been assassinated by vladimir putin and said we needed to remain vigilant in this country now more than ever. he is a voice that we desperately need in the senate and this country now more than ever. you've spent a lot of time talking to john mccain. tell us your thoughts this morning. mike. >> joe, we're referring to a disorder, it's called character. there is a lot less of character tan there used to be in the united states senate, john mccain has always symbolized character and honor. and i have been fortunate enough to have spent a lot of time with them over the course of the years, i have been to the hanoi hilton and stood in the small sheltered six by six area where he spent seven years as a prisoner of war that you just eluded to. my memories of covering politics and political campaign stretches a long ways back, but it would be hard to top the late fall/early winter of 1999 of

2000 in new hampshire when john mccain was running a president, crime up there. he electrified audiences. he became a cult figure. it was the most open and honest campaign in terms of access to the candidate i have ever encountered. today as you said and mika indicated. all of us, our thoughts and prayers are with him. he is an american nobleman. he is unlike anybody we have on the political scene. >> and mark halperin, of course, a lot of miami are retweeting the same same video right here. that's a video that reminds us of john mccain's character, as a public figure. when somebody started to question barack obama's patriotism and his faith in the 2008 campaign, john mccain went over and politely said barack

obama is a good man, he is a good husband. she a good father. we just have different views of governing and that's why i'm running. my god what we would do to have a leader like that in the white house today. >> all of us thinking about his family. it's pretty simple for me. anyone that knows john mccain, who had the privilege of spending time with him. i always found it to be the most enjoyable experience you could have. he's a patriot a. great figure, a charismatic man. he's given his life to public service. i have to say, as i suggested and as mike suggested, that campaign he waged in '99 and 2000 and fell short was really one of the most remarkable times i spent covering anybody and he has been a life force throughout his career in showing americans, what it's like to be a patriot and cares about the country and

works hard. agb we are all confident if anyone can beat this disease, he is as tough as anyone i've ever met. >> we are all praying. now to that interview the president gave to the "new york times" and the maevenlg he's sending to the department of justice, trump expressed disappointment with his attorney general jeff sessions who decided in early march to recuse himself from the justice department probe into the potential ties between the trump campaign and the russian government, after it was revealed he had russian contacts with sergei kislyak. >> sexes gets the job, right after he gets the job, he recuses himself. whats that a a mistake? >> well, sexes should have never recuse himself and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else.

>> michael schmidt. give us some context to this conversation. it seems like he regrets hiring sessions. >> the president realizes the shadow that the russian investigation has cast over him, the problem that he has with mueller staring him down and he looks back to sessions, one of his earliest supporters as one of the big problems here and one of the things that really bothers him. he's very upset about this. he's very upset about the mueller investigation. and he thinks that a lot of things could have been done to have prevented this. he's certainly you know he's trying to express his frustration as much as possible. he believes he's his best spokesman on this. he was really pushing this issue. he's also i think very upset with rod rosenstein, he comes in, he's the one that appoints mueller, trump is saying, look,

i don't even know rosenstein, from baltimore, there is not a lot of republicans from baltimore. so he's clearly frustrated by this, the interesting thing what does this mean for sessions here? sessions will now have to go out and act with the attorney general knowing the president basically doesn't want him there. >> and jim vandehi, you look at the case of rod rosenstein and more specifically the case of jeff sessions, here is a guy that donald trump and the entire trump campaign will tell you every day, this is the smartest guy we've ever met. this is a guy, they'd go on and on. the praise was absolutely effusive. but they don't, obviously, donald trump doesn't understand the concept of conflicts of interest. i guess his pier is life is testimony to that. but he doesn't understand what

is so bake to everybody else that's been in the law or in government before, if you have a conflict, if your integrity may be called into investigation there is one thing to do, recuse yourself, yet, donald trump sees yourself that act of character as a disqualification. >> he sees it as weakness, it's the worst kept secret. he thought sexes was weak. he thought he recused. bowed to political correctness to political pressure it puts him in a jam. this is one of the few people authentically close to donald trump in the minute he felt he was disloyal, he did want him out. he made it clear he's dissatisfied with his performance. he nes he's under investigation. mueller is not just digging into obstruction of russia. in that interview with "new york times," he knows he will dig

into his business dealings. he talked about it specifically. he sees sexes as being weak if putting him in this position. it's astonishingly this morning. other than ivanka, there is not a single person i can think of he has not said publicly or privately he's dissatisfied with. there is nobody around him that he feels close to, that he feels has his back, le feels understands him. so he's getting tighter and tighter and more claustrophobic for him in the white house. >> wow. in the "new york times" interview the president had a warning for special counsel robert mueller saying there are areas that should be off limits to the former fbi director's investigations

the president said he has not done business in russia, other than the miss universe pageant but asked again if he would fire mueller if he went outside of what his charge is, trump responded, i can't answer that question, because i don't think it's going to happen. joe. >> i mean, donald trump is saying the only business ties he has with russia are the miss universe pageant. yet his sons prove him to be dishonest, who don jr. said back in 2008 that the overwhelming majority of money they get is from russia. eric trump in an interview, talking about investment in golf courses said russians love investing in their golf courses. it's crazy he is saying the miss universe pageant is the only connection he's had, michael schmidt, donald trump not only does he know how washington works but hasn't been looking at

history for the 71 years that he's been on this planet. spiroagnew wasn't sent to jail and indicted and basically run out of the white house because of watergate. they started investigating. and they found out he actually hadn't been paying the taxes he was supposed to pay. we don't even have to talk about bill clinton. we know where that investigation ended up, based on where it started and right here, bob mueller is not going to put chinese walls up between all of these different areas of inquiry. he's looking at everything, isn't he? >> yet, you raise a good point. what happens with these special counsels, they turn over every rock and look at everything. what they don't want to happen is they close up shop eventually, then it comes out there is something they miss. so they end up looking at everything and applying the laws in ways that sometimes they aren't normally applied in

normal situations. what became clear yesterday from our interview with trump was that he's watching mueller very closely. trump believes mueller's purview is russia, russia's election in the election. if mueller steps outside those lanes, that is what trump calls a violation. he would not define what that would mean. he did not say he'd fire him, he called it a violation and it was a red line. so if you are trump, you are closely watching mueller, you are seeing what he is doing, but at the same time you see mueller hiring folks trump thinks have expertise in areas that are outside of the russian meddling and he's very, very skeptical of that. so he looks at mueller, he's concerned about mueller, he looks back to sessions and says, this is your fault. >> still ahead on ""morning joe,"" president trump reportedly railed about senator rand paul during a white house dinner with republicans. the kentucky senator wasn't in the room.

so he'll respond here. just ahead. but first, president trump delivers his take on european history. his stream of consciousness thoughts about napoleon world war ii and russia is next. but first, here's bill kieran with a check on the forecast. bill. >> good morning to you, i want to show you the new pictures from the detweilerway fire if california. 5,000 people evacuated. 29 structure versus burned. they say there is 5,000 more potentially threatened by that plays that's growing. last night a lot of nasty storms came through administration mince and wisconsin, two-hour delays right now flying into o'hare because of these thunderstorms, that will last for at least another half hour. expect a lot of ripple effect. they make their way through buffalo and pittsburgh. wind damage and lightning are

the biggest threat. although we could get minor flash flooding. if you are not getting the forms, it is hot. it is the peak of our heat season almost all of the middle of the countries country. from washington, d.c. to philadelphia included. probably feeling like 102 with the heat index. today and tomorrow are the peak of this heat wave. we cool off a little bit. new york city included. under a heat advisory. it will feel like 100 degrees in the big apple. that's in the shade. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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vladimir putin at the g20 dinner. it came too light earlier this week the two leaders met and the president was not sassed by any american personnel. so take a listen to what the president said they talked about, it might ring a bell.

>> umm. >> i don't know really where to start right there. i think all the people tarp in the meeting mike schmidt should be asked whether they really told donald trump that they would have taken meetings with russian intelligence officers and with two russian interpreters in the room. that's remarkable, which is going to lead and should lead to a flurry of follow-up questions to see whether donald trump was telling the truth or not there. also this adoption issue, how fascinating as a meeting with vladimir putin. this meeting that he says is 15 minutes, others suggest it might have lasted close to up to an hour. they said they talked about adoption, that was actually the day before donald trump signed

off on a, something that later was disproven. that was a statement suggesting don jr.'s meeting was about adoption as well. what do you make of thattancer? >> the adoption issue was interesting because it wasn't clear like if whether this was a coincidence or how did they make sense of it? we sort of tried to press him as much as he could about what he talked to putin about. that was all he said, acknowledging, oh, this was the thing that had come up with don jr. in the conversation as it often goes with him, starts veering in different direction, all of a sudden we tried to move it back. there is only so much we can do there. so we sort of left there, not having a full total understanding of what the meeting with putin was about. that was a bit frustrating. we went from there the conversation went in different directions. what he is clearly irritated about are the stories about don jr. he was trying to use his

meeting with the republican senators that afternoon to show that it wasn't a big deal that this was just simply an information-gathering meet tag any politician would have taken, including his colleagues that he had had lunch with, the senators and that this is just politics as normal and anyone would have taken it. just if he had known, he said he did not know at the time which he said before, he did not know about the meeting, but that if he had known, he probably would have said, go ahead and do it. >> you know, mike barnacle, they get caught in a lie, the white house, don jr. what that meeting was about when they talked to the "new york times" on a saturday. so that was a lie. it wasn't about adoption. and what donald trump would stumble back into that minefield and say, oh, yeah, they talk bd about adoption the same thing don jr.'s meeting is talked about. it's already been proven.

the e-mails, by everybody in a meeting, that's not what the meeting was about. so donald trump stumbles back into another lie and mike now he requires us to ask of everybody that was at that meeting with him all those members of the united states senate whether they told the president of the united states it was a good idea in the middle of the campaign to get dirt from russian intelligence officers, former russian intelligence officers and other people who claim to be age agents of vladimir putin's government. >> a couple points there, joe, one, michael, peter and maggie from the "new york times" are skilled reporters. there is no doubt about that. the interview is incredible. i don't think i've ever read an interview with a sitting president of the united states as incredible as this has given the tentacles of what he said. but despite their great abilities, they are not prosecutors and the president was not under oath.

if he was ever under oath with a skilled prosecutor, he would have real difficulty because of just what you said, the winding road of his answers and the other thing that comes out during this interview, jim vandehi is listening to the president in the context of everything that's going on in this white house and has been for six months now, it seems as if the president of the united states is almost a man alone without any real friendships other than his family. >> not just friendships, he's a man alone without lawyers. there is a reason he has tension with the white house counsel. there is a reason he has tension with his personal attorney. he does interviews like this. there is no lawyer in america that would co-consult their client to go out and freelance on a topic, on a sprawling investigation, which is why he ends up in friction with his legal team. it's why when you talk to anyone in the white house the reason he does the things in the interview, they do think something will happen, there is

nobody around donald trump today, other than maybe his daughter who doesn't think this results in charges against people close to donald trump. and he knows that. he's worried about that. and he thinks he can talk his way out of anything. and he does have this ability. you talk to people around him. to believe his own reality. he thinks the russians did not interfere in the election. he does think that is at least partially fake news, he thinks he did nothing wrong before the mueller investigation or after the mueller investigation. and it doesn't matter what his advisers tell him. it doesn't matter what his lawyers tell him, it's what he thinks and he believes his gut in negotiations in the situation is better than anyone else's. we'll see. >> coming up on ""morning joe,"" just months before joining the trump campaign, palm manafort was reportedly in the hole as much as 17 million dollars and according to "new york times," he owed that money to pro-russia interests. how manafor is the responding next on "morning joe."

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speak about their recently discovered meeting with the russians, who promised damaging information on hillary clinton. the president's son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner will be interviewed by staff with the senate intelligence committee in a closed session on pond. donald trump jr. and excampaign chairman paul manafort are also scheduled to speak at an open hearing of the senate judiciary committee on wednesday. both trump jr. and manafort have yet to pub learn their appearances and the financial records filed in cypress reporting to show paul manafort in debt to pro-russia interests by as much as $17 million. >> woe. >> the records were certified as accurate by an accounting firm as of december 2015. just a few months before mania fort joined the trump campaign.

responding to the report, a panafort spokesman did not address whether the debts might have existed at one time. he maintained his cypress records were steal and do not purport to reflect any current financial arrangements. jim, i mean, so much could be revealed with disclose years of financial documents and tax returns. >> right. >> correct? >> they could. let's talk about the meeting in an interview, right. donald trump is saying anybody would have taken this meeting. it's politics as usual. there's lots of trump supporters who watch your show. there is nothing normal about. that if a motley crue of russians e-mails you, says we have the goods on your political opponent, i can't think of anyone i have known in politics that will say, you know, what i will get the gang towing, our top three official was are running our campaign we're going to meet with you and see what you have. then if you are robert mueller.

you have to believe they took the meeting, haed the meeting, didn't bo itself to tell dad, they didn't bother to tell the boss, someone the russians they will meet on a busy day on a busy part of the campaign, they have the goods, we're not going to tell the big guy, that's really hard to believe. so the testimony next week is going to be something else. they're going to have to explain why the hell did you take that meet something what was discussed? what came from it and how when you had to fill out those discomposure forms. when the whole world is talking about one topic and it's russia, you couldn't remember a meeting put the pick of those four people up. you wouldn't remember meeting with that group of people? that's ludicrous. that's why robert mueller's team is going to be all over that meeting in addition to the other meetings, jared kushner, it's not one meeting, it wasn't two meeting, it was three different meetings he somehow forgot with top russian officials when the world is watching, when everyone thinks the russians just tipped

your election, ha, i don't remember that. if that doesn't happen that's why these hearings are important and that's why donald trump's nervous. that's why donald trump did the interview. >> coming up on "morning joe" senator rand paul supported obamacare now and fixed out the replacement later. we will see where that stands today. the kentucky republican joins us ahead on "morning joe." there's nothing more important to me than my vacation.

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>> my message today is really simple. we have to stay here him we shouldn't leave town. we should hammer this out and get it done t. people of this country need more than a repeal. they need a repeal and a replace. and we were very, very close and then little things happened but now we're very close again. we are have to get it. we never sale e sell our plan, if we're weak on anything, it's

letting people know how good it was. >> all right. that was president trump speaking yesterday at a luncheon at the white house with republican senators. >> that statement appeared to be an about face from what he said on tuesday when his message was let obamacare fail. in the interview, we have been talking about with the fork times, president trump said, quote, one of my ideas was repeal. but i certainly rather would get repeal and replace, because the next last thing i want to do is start working tomorrow morning on replace. also at yesterday's luncheon the president singled out for dean heller, who was seated next to the president. who has voiced opposition to the senate's bill repeal and replace obamacare and who is considered to be one of the gop's most endangered incumbents in 2018. >> this was the one we were worried about. you weren't there, but you will be, you are going to be. look. he wants to remain a for,

doesn't he? okay. and i think the people of your state, which i know very well, i think they're going to appreciate what you hopefully will do. >> meanwhile, the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says a health care vote will still take place next week. last fight a key group of senate republicans worked late into the night to revive their stalled health care bill. one more thing, according to a few report by the congressional budget office, 32 million americans would lose health insurance if the senate votes to repeal obamacare without an immediate replacement. joining us now, political writer for the "new york times" nicholas condesorri and walk post reporter kel see snell. mike barnacle with with us as well. joe, take it away. >> physical, dean heller is looking at headlines constituents will be seeing in 30-second commercials a lot more than he is worried about donald

trump. i think 32 million people losing coverage with they just repeal it. 20 to 24 million if they repeal and replace. again the way the debate has been framed. that's why people like dean heller have to worry about. that's what senators from maine and pennsylvania and ohio and wisconsin have to worry about more than the president's wrath. right? >> absolutely, joe. i think what we are seeing sheer that the republican polanco lapsed under its own weighing, its own problems, it's not because the president didn't sell it hard enough, although he certainly didn't. it's because of the consequence of passing this bill and they hadn't actually figured out their own version of a plan for health care. i keep coming back to this, republicans have seven or eight years on this, they have run against this over and over again. they can't force something and the error here for all the republicans i think was to not realize that they had to have a real replacement plan and to sell it and run on it and get people behind it and they didn't do that. and so for a deep heller,

there's only consequence, only down side. the bad things that would happen if obamacare is repealed, he's got his home state governor saying, look, it's a bad idea t. home state governor by the way is more popular than he is, so what will you do with your home state? stick with the popular guy or popular president? >> his own state guy sandeval also knows exactly what he wants when it comes to health care. he has a clear stated position passing this is a bad idea, voting for it is a bad yrksd on the other side, donald trump was for repeal and replace, then he was for repeal only, then he was for letting obamacare die. now he's back to repealing and replacing. he literally has had a different position for every day of the week. somebody whose political future is on the line, how do they follow that type of president

when that type of president just as likely can call his bill mean spirited six months from now like he did with a house plan. >> that's right. first he voted for the house plan, a few weeks later he said it was mute. can you go back a few weeks finding him praising the australian single payer system and the start of the presidential campaign and find him praising the canadians, so you sometimes begin to wonder if the president deep down isn't a single payer guy, which kind of undermines the whole thing. now he's staying which will stay in washington and pass this. we should take a bet the president will be in the white house all weekend or if he see him on a golf course the weekend. i'd be surprised to see him in the white house all weekend. >> so, kel see, where does this lead members of congress and the senate? how do they keep up with the president? is there a different task tore them? >> reporter: you know, that's a really great question. i think they were trying to

figure out out last night. they met for three hours, about two dozen republican senators met three hours with the health and human servicesing is tom price. and they came out from that meeting not really having an answer as to where they go next. i know in talking to people close in the circle of majority mitch mcconnell that the plan is to vote on tuesday no matter what. they don't know what they will be voting exactly on. they know they have to vote on the house bill. they know they have to start there. but they don't know what exactly comes next s. it just respeel? is it repeal and some few version of replace? is the senate bill they already put out there? nobody seems to know what the answer because there doesn't seem to be the 50 votes necessary for those options, complicateing matters, with senator mccain gone, they can only stand to lose one person and they willer have senator paul and senator conlynn saying they don't support any of the options on the table. they're kind of in a bind they have no way out of. nobody is offering a clear

solution for what that fits, because to be honest, we're on choice number three by now. >> yeah and senator paul is our guest in just a few moments, speaking all over the place in that interview with the fork sometimes, president trump also touch u touched on the now ininto mi infamous cane don jr. released weeks ago. trump replied well, i never saw the e-mail until, you know, then later in the interview the president was asked what he thought of them after he saw them and he stated -- well, i thought originally it might have had to do with payment by russia of the dfc. somewhere i we heard that like it was an illegal act done by the dnc or democrats. now i don't know where i we heard it. i we heard it had something to do with illegal act itself with respect to the dnc. when asked if the e-mail chain concerned him that the russian deposit was attempting to

compromise the u.s. elections, trump replied, i didn't look into it very closely, to be honest with you. i just we heard there was an e-mail requesting a meeting or something, yeah, requesting a peting that they have information on hillary clinton, irsaid i mean, this was standard political stuff. when asked if he knew at the time that they had the meeting, trump replied, no, i didn't know anything about the meeting. the "time's" then pressed trump, reminding him of a speech he give about hillary clinton's corrupt dealings with russia three hours after the don jr. meeting. trump replied that he routinely made speeches hitting clinton on this issue and even referenced the book "clinton cash" that had come out earlier in the year. he noted there wasn't much i could say about hillary clinton than what was worse than i was already saying. he added quote unless somebody said she shot somebody in the back, there wasn't much i could add to my repertoire.

joe. i don't even know what to say. this is the president of the united states. >> luwhat do you say about that rambling stream of consciouses? ? it's like william faulkner on acid. the senate should keep going on, they're garbled and make absolutely no sense. mike barnacle, i think i felt sorriest at this point for donald trump's attorneys as somebody that was an attorney once, not a good one, but an attorney all the same. i feel so sorry for those attorneys because this is a guy that damages himself every time he does a major interview. what you want, what you usually have to do within are you investigating somebody is you have to compel them to speak through discovery, through interrogtories or through

depositions. and you have to drag them in, their attorney fights them to say as little as humanly possible. here is donald trump every day just doing a brain dump. saying this is what's up here. i want everybody to know everything and i'm going to say it in long convoluted sentences. >> well, first of all the faulkners are on the phone, they will sue you for linking william faulkner to trump's transcript. look the president of the united states happens to be a lawyer's nightmare and a prosecutor's dream. i mean given the rambling anecdotal wave of winding response, nick, you've read the transcript. he goes from the e-mails to napoleon to russian winters, to world war ii. >> back to napoleon. >> to macron holding his hand, he never saw the ema ills to begin. >> if you read that carefully,

it is garbled. so i can't maid make conclusion of the order of events, but he's talking about the dnc corruption or the issue of money or contributions to the dnc, which we now know of course which the russians were proffering in that meeting. it begs the question whether or not he was briefed on that meeting as soon as it happened. he may not have known about it beforehand but quickly garnered the details of what the russians were offering, you saw them talking about it nit speech that night. >> we know the campaign was run entirely by donald trump. everything about that campaign was centered around him. >> everything in trump world is. >> yeah. >> so kassie , i think it's best if everybody takes a step back. there is obviously an investigation going on and mueller is incredibly competent. having said that, this rambling

and, it doesn't seem like the president is thinking much about the ramifications of any statement he makes. and i wonder how that turns into any type of legislative accomplishment ever. >> yeah, that's one of the things that people will say, republican senators and house members will say is incredibly frustrating for them. they were hoping beyond hope when they got a republican president in office that they would have some sort of guiding light, somebody they could look to who will say i will sign these four and also message for you. i will be the kind of president that can take a message out there like barack obama did for the democrats and sell it and make the rest of the country believe in this idea this agenda, this page. that's just not happening. in fact, they can barely count on him on the message of the day. as we saw for healthcare, he was for repeal and repeal and replace and repeal again. we don't know where he will be. they can't count on him. >> that is terrifying if are you trying to pass an again da.

they're attempting to reset and take ownership of the message again themselves. it's really difficult when are you a single congressman or a single senator, you don't have the bully pulpit or the microphone the president has. they're afraid afraid he might throw them under the bus on twitter so they're kind of trapped between wanting to do this big agenda they've talked about for seven, eight years and a president who doesn't seem to be on the same page as them. >> "the washington post's" kelsey snell, thanks for being on. nick, stay with us with if you can. nbc news just launched a twice-daily news show on snapchat called "stay tuned." it will quickly catch you up on the day's top story. go to snapchat's discover tab to check it all out. and still ahead this morning, president trump reportedly wasn't a fan of rand paul's appearances on tv over the weekend, but senator can rest assured the president insists he does not watch "morning joe" so you're good!

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lock it in. tripadvisor. this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ with us from capitol hill, republican senator rand paul of kentucky. rand, i'm going to throw you a softball question since the president's being so mean to you. you actually i think could do republicans a service here. one of the complaints, chief complaints i've heard from

republicans and conservatives since this entire health care debate has begun is when we flash up headline where is the cbo says 32 million people will lose their health care coverage if there's just a repeal, can you explain why that description concerns conservatives who don't believe that's actually an accurate description, it's more choice than just dumping 32 million people off the rolls? >> trying to predict the future is a very uncertain sort of guessing game. i think in the past the cbo tried to guess how many people would get health insurance through obamacare and they were wildly off to the tune of millions off. now they've said like, you know, 32 million, 23 million, various permutations of millions of people will lose it. interestingly, one of the big premises of why people lose it is they say if you no longer have the individual mandate, if you don't have to pay a tax to buy your insurance, if you're

not bullied by government, 15 million people wouldn't buy insurance for that one fact. maybe. it's complete guesswork. i think we can put too much stock in guesswork. it's modeling and future predictions, like astrology, a lot of guesswork. >> senator, just to pull back a little bit, i wonder if you think that the republican party has made a grave error in getting into the business of promising to expand coverage. this was not always part of the conservative bible. what we see here is an effort by the party to build a health care plan that will keep that promise but do it through conservative means. is it the job of the government to help insure that coverage is expanded in the first place? >> i think overpromising is a big problem and promising stuff we didn't really promise during the election. we promised to repeal and get the federal government out of it. doesn't mean there's not a role for government. we thought nationalizing it in washington was too busy for the

people and not destined to work. i think overpromising is another problem. i've had this conversation with the president and others in the white house. if you claim you'll fix health care, you have a mistaken notion. health care was broken before obamacare. i think it got worse under obamacare and next year it will be bad. main thing is the fundamental flaw of obamacare is going to remain. the fundamental flaw is you have mandates on insurance that chase young, healthy people out of the market because it makes insurance expensive, then you tell them, hey, but if you get sick, you can buy it after you're sick. this adverse selection continues. the only difference wean the republican and the democrat plan is the democrat plan tried to get you to buy insurance through a mandate, government force. the republican plan is going to dump the money in on the tail end to subsidize insurance companies. i object to both. in some ways it's actually more morally reprehensible for the government or the taxpayer to be asked to subsidize insurance companies that double their profit under obamacare and now make $15 billion a year. i just think it's a terrible and

a very un-republican idea to give a major corporation taxpayer money. >> senator, sort of a threshold question here. do you favor the government providing an avenue to every american to have affordable and accessible health care? >> i accept the goal that will everybody should get health care and it should be less expensive. i don't think the government does a good job at distributing anything. look at the soviet union trying to deliver bread. the government is not good at things. do i want everybody to have insurance at low cost? yes. the main problem we have in our health insurance market is in the individual market. if you work for it to tashgs you work for general motors or ford you're pretty well protected. if your spouse gets sick, you don't lose your insurance or your job, your rates don't go up. i want everybody in america to have group insurance. nerve that individual market, i would let them join an association. my hope is the vast majority if

not all the people flee the individual market and you no longer have it. you should be able to join the restaurant association, the retailers association, the chamber, the nfib. all kinds of associations could be buyers and purchasesers of insurance and we would defeat the problem of adverse selection by getting the people the hell out of the individual market. >> senator rand paul, thanks for coming on. greatly appreciate it. today is the anniversary of neil armstrong walking on the moon. i can't remember a time when my father was more proud to be an american than the morning he showed me the headline of that. our government used to be able to work together and get things done. >> yeah, joe. on that july night, people around the world watching neil armstrong take that first step on the moon. i'll tell you who didn't see him take that step, john mccain.

he was in a prison camp in hanoi and the staggering courage and character of that man is something that every american ought to be thinking about today as well. >> amen. >> totally agree. amen to that. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now, and she has a big interview this morning with elizabeth warren. >> thanks, mika. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. guess what we're talking about? the president lashing out. president trump in a wild new interview hitting james comey, robert mueller and his own attorney general for doing the right thing, recusing himself. >> if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. >> jared kushner, donald trump jr., and paul manafort now officially scheduled to be questioned by the senate next week. and the fighter, senator john mccain diagnosed with brain cancer. the nation, the world rallying