hi, everybody. i'm thomas roberts at msnbc world headquarters in new york. presidential ambitions. the story that's making mike pence out to be laying ground work in 2021 has the vice president fighting back that story. tonight acting like a kid and caught with his hands in the cookie jar because he clearly knows this won't sit well with his boss and his twitchy twitter fingers. we have pence saying no. that's not happening. then we have the economic shots that were fired and the trump administration with a foreign policy victory, getting russia and china to go along with major sanctions against north korea, but how will the rogue regime react? next hour, our special report,

ferguson three later. has anything change when it comes to policing in america and specifically when we examine ferguson? all of that coming up at 6:00 p.m., but we do want to begin with the latest, the intrigue at the white house, disgraceful and offensive. that is how the vice president is describing the report from "the new york times," the article out today saying that some republican insider favor mike pence over trump in 2020 and that pence has done little, if anything, to dissuade his would-be supporters and is even making the types of moves a v.p. candidate would make. the v.p. shot back on twit tote with response, calling it absurd, and saying it was the media's attempt to divide the administration. a shadow campaign for the 2020 nomination, ohio governor and longtime thorn in the side of howard trump, john kasich,

preseefing prominent mentions perhaps too prominent for corey lewandowski. >> we beat him by 19 points and not exactly a close race in the state of new hampshire. in ohio we beat him by ten, 11 points. john didn't support president trump and if he thinks he'll run against president trump i'll take the opportunity to destroy john kasich's career. >> jeff sessions, the attorney general had been taking a presidential pounding from trump out of frustration over the russian investigation affair. you know, the a.g. having to recuse himself on this matter. on saturday, however, the beleaguered trump's word, that's what the attorney general was getting out of this, but donald trump had said after many leaks going on in washington it was great to see the a.g. taking action for national security. the tougher the better. meanwhile, the investigation into possible ties between the trump campaign and russia grind on. this week's biggest headline coming courtesy of robert

mueller. the special council has been asked of the white house for documents relating to the former national security adviser, michael flinn who failed to disclose his lobbying work for foreign governments. joining me now to delve into this is michael isikoff, john harwood, editor-at-large for cnbc, olivia newsy political correspondent for new york magazine and charles sykes and paul butler, an analyst for msnbc and former federal prosecutor. great to have you all with us. olivia, let me dive in with you. the big question of the night is about mike pence and pushing back on this "new york times" article about gearing up for 2020. he said it's disgraceful and absurd. what have you been hearing? >> well, look, mike pence basically acts as though he is vice president in some alternate universe and alternate administration that doesn't have much relevance to the trump administration, but there's no

way for him to respond to this story any other way. i don't think it's surprising that he responded how he did on twitter. obviously, he cannot give any indication that he's interested in running in 2020 or that he thinks there might be an opening in 2020. he has to continue to act as he did on the campaign, as he has for the last seven months as a loyal soldier, as somebody who supports the president without question. >> john, we know in "the new york times" piece, the report that mike pence created his own political fund-raising committee shrugging off warnings that it would create speculation about any future intentions, but there has been a lot of reporting that he and his wife at the naval observatory have been hosting a lot of dinners and collecting a lot of cash. is this normal? >> yeah. i think a lot of it is normal and it's not unusual for a vice president to make political rounds. they called it a shadow campaign for a reason because none of it is overt, either from mike pence or john kasich and others.

do i expect mike pence to challenge president trump in a primary in 2020? of course not, but everyone knows in washington and everyone who is paying attention can see that donald trump is badly weakened. there are grave threats to the survival of his first term so mike pence may be president when 2020 comes around, and there maying challenges to donald trump, and donald trump might decide not to seek reelection. so the things that any candidate would do to position themselves in the event that the campaign presents itself are things that mike pence is doing and things that other people are doing and it is by no means, disgraceful or offensive for the new york times to do that. >> as charlie points out, that's just smart politics especially with what's going on in d.c. we had the sound bite of corey lewandowski level ij rent of

governor kasich of ohio. how do you think president trump would respond about pence doing this work or do you think he's in on it? he might know about all of this and might approve based on what's taking place inside the west wing. >> well, here is a president who value, total, unquestioning loyalty above almost anything else so he can't possibly be happy with it which, of course, explains why mike pence had issued that statement afterwards. everybody has been correct about this. mike pence is doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing as a politician, but he understands that with every passing week donald trump gets weaker. the threats again of his presidency get greater. he's keeping his options open, but he's also making it very clear to the audience of one, donald trump, don't worry about me. i'm the absolute loyalist which, of course, he is. >> michael isikoff, i know you've been on the front end of this investigation and have done your own interviews with general mike flynn especially moving

this forward story when it comes to r.t. and the payments that the general received from them now and we have bob mueller requesting documents about flynn from this white house. do you see from your reporting and your sourcing that flynn is the lynchpin to figuring out whether or not bob mueller might have charges against him and they give him some type of immunity or protection and then he'll talk about what he knows in regards to the rest of the team. >> right. the only real takeaway from this is that it shows just how long the mueller investigation is going to be around. flynn is a crucial witness. he was the national security adviser to trump during the campaign. he's the guy that met with ambassador kislyak during the transition, discussed the possible lifting of sanctions. he's somebody any special

counsel and congressional committees would want to get their story from. he said he's got a story and he's willing to tell it, but to get a fully truthful story, any prosecutor is going to try to get as much leverage as they can and that means building a case on aspects, on issues that may have nothing to do with russia such as his turkish lobbying in order to get that leverage. that's going to take time. they're going to try to build a case against flynn and they'll try to threaten him presumably with an indictment and a possible lengthy prison term ask that's when you have the leverage to get the full story. that's going to play out and that could be a year or more which to me says this mueller investigation is going to be around for quite some time. >> paul, as you know, these things are a marathon and not a sprint. we need to be in practice for how long this would be, but paul

manafort could be another lynchpin character in all of this about information that he knows and also the types of information that this special counsel has built in terms of a case against any wrongdoing that he may have done. when it comes to how this all boils down to fear of what bob mueller is doing for donald trump, is donald trump really on the hook for any of this especially if he has plausible deniablity of a manafort action, a flynn action. did they keep him out of it? >> we have months to find out because grand juries can be reempanelled. he will do a thorough and fair investigation and as a former corruption prosecutor, in this situation you think of a pyramid and you start relatively low with people like manafort and jared kushner and you work your way to the top and the top is -- >> one level below. you're already at the top of the pyramid if you're starting with

kushner and manafort. >> this is a rare case, but again, if you're starting there you're aiming as a prosecutor, your sights high, and it's not like bagging someone. you only want to the bring a case if there's evidence, but you know, we have these weird conversations between trump and his men asking for loyalty, threatening to fire mueller. it's like he's afraid about being investigated and that always raises a prosecutor's suspicions. >> is that really, paul, from the comey dinner and the president asking comey to back off flynn. you know, kind of look the other way on this. is that more of a charge of perverting the course of justice, obstruction of justice and then firing comey? >> these cliches are always true. so follow the money. that's what they're doing with jared kushner and paul manafort. it's always the cover-up. so trump says i didn't have anything to do with collusion. he sure sounds like he's concerned about an

investigation. obstruction of justice means attempting to impede an investigation. when you try to fire the special counsel and the attorney general, when you ask for a pledge of loyalty it looks a lot like you're trying to impede an investigation. >> you would think if there wasn't collusion there's nothing really to hide, and there's nothing to thwart if comey and the fiber looking into this, but that's all hindsight. we have this new quinnipiac and it talks about the numbers for the president with 28% under water in terms of approval with this. as we move forward, these are the types of numbers. this is so early on in his first four years if he moves on to the second part of an administration of having eight years in the white house, but how significant are these numbers so early on, olivia? >> very significant. if you look at nixon's numbers during watergate, trump is underperforming by those standards and we're at the beginning of this investigation and we're in the first seven months of this administration. i think probably it will only

get worse. i mean, we have already had explosive leaks come out as this investigation has gotten started so it suggests that as it goes along we will learn more things that are equally troubling if not more so. you have to remember about president trump, he is someone who hates to be unpopular. he hates to be criticized and if you talk to anybody from his orbit, from his campaign and before then now in the administration. nothing makes him more unhappy than seeing numbers like that. i think his mood will only continue to sour. he will only continue to lash out publicly more as this goes on. >> with "the wall street journal" and the boy scout, they said it wasn't mixed. they loved it, and it was great. >> we had kellyanne conway making the rounds today talking about president trump's approval. take a look. >> his approval rating among republicans and conservative and trump voters is down slightly. it needs to go up. they are telling him just enact your program. don't worry about a congress that isn't supporting the

legislation to get big-ticket items done and don't worry about all of the distractions and diversions and discouragement that others who are still trying to throw logs in your path are throwing your way. focus on the agenda. >> all right. so, john harwood, when you have a problem the first problem is to recognize it, own it and wants republicans to approve of the president. can they turn it around or is this ship already sailing? >> the ship is in big trouble and the problem is that to use kellyanne's meta for, president trump is the one throwing the logs inside himself, not only is he down among republican, but he is now among the core groups who propelled his nomination and election moving in a negative direction. he is negative with white men. he is net negative among non-college whites and if you look at that group of non-college whites that's his

core constituencet and balance of intensity, who feels strongly, 29% of non-college whites strongly approve of his performance, 45% disapprove and that's a flashing sign. >> john, paul, charlie, michael. i want you all to stick around with me and we'll be back to talk more about politics, but first -- >> the sanctions will cut deep and in doing so we'll give the north dorikorean. >> on the heels of the u.n. and its unanimous vote approving the toughest sanctions against north korea in a decade, will this diplomatic victory be a turning point for foreign relations in the trump administration? stay with us. my 30-year marriage... ...my 3-month old business... plus...what if this happened again? i was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me? so i made a point to talk to my doctor. he told me about eliquis.

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president trump is applauding yesterday's u.n. vote imposing sanctions on the rogue nation of north korea. it banned several key exports from the country including coal,

iron and seafood. it also aims to slash the export revenue budget by about one-third or $1 billion in total. the commander in chief tweeting the u.n. security council just voted 15-0 to sanction north korea. china and russia voted with us. very big financial impact. so u.s. ambassador nikki haley said afterward that the nation led by kim jong-un has the next move. >> we're prepared to do everything we have to do to defend ourselves and to defend our allies and the ball is in north korea's court. we have tried to say multiple times that all options are on the table. we continue to give north korea an out. we continue to give north korea the ability to stop what they're doing and now they have to see what they do with that. >> meanwhile, secretary of state rex tillerson is in the philippines for a security forum with world leaders and that includes north korea's foreign minister. joining me now is the former u.s. ambassador to yemen.

national security analyst ned price and michael isikoff is back with us, investigative correspondent for yahoo news. gentlemen, great to have you here. ned, do you think the u.n.'s efforts will have a significant impact and get the attention of kim jong-un and his military defense program with balistic missiles. >> >> thomas, it's too early to say. i think if the past is prologged what we should expect of north korea in the coming days and even the coming hours, frankly, could be another missile test. it could be some artillery fire, a show of force to attempt to show that north korea, pyongyang, won't be resigned by these sanctions, but look, the real key here will be in enforcement. just how closely and strongly china specifically enforces these sanctions. there have been a number of u.n. security council sanctions resolutions passed including several during the obama administration and it is always enforcement and frankly china as

north korea's largest trading partner and all of of this falls on beijing to ensure that they live up to the words written on the paper. >> ambassador, you heard nikki haley say that for north korea, it's their move, but as ned points out, do you think there might be some type of aggressive action where they might fly in the face of what the u.s. has done even though russia and china voted for those sanctions? >> i think that's certainly the idea and the way forward that ned laid out is possible. it's not only a matter of next steps being in north korea's ballpark, that, in fact, the sanctions are only one part of a larger strategy to address the north korean problem and what's lacking so far is a coordinated approach like we had with iran

and the jcpoa talks where all of the parties to the initiative agreed on a common strategy. so we have what is an important step and that is strengthening the sanctions and no getting away from that, but you need to go beyond that and actually come up with a plan that everybody can agree to. the u.s., china, russia, japan and south korea on how we're going to try to take this to the next level of working out an agreement with the north koreans. >> michael, as we know, as all presidents should, be listening to advisers with the bevy of knowledge and also kind of a difference of opinions when it comes to options here. obviously, the president is in favor of what we saw with the u.n., but considering the different factions in this west wing, michael, from a steve bannon that doesn't want us to be in afghanistan to other people who might be a little more hawkish about this, do you think that donald trump's first

option would be more of a military suggestion that he's going to follow through with when it comes to thwarting north korea? >> that's his first instinct, but whether that would translate into an actual policy move is really hard to say. look, i mean, north korea, there are very few options. there are no good options in north korea that we've gone back and forth between sanctions trying to negotiate threatening, some sort of vigorous military response, but nothing seems to have caused the north koreans to waiver. the only thing we can say is clearly, china is key and having china onboard these sanctions is a good step, but ned's right. we have to see about enforcement and also sanctions -- to the extent that sanctions are successful they are successful over time, and that was the case to some degree with iran where

the imposition of sanctions on the iranian government over time helped bring them to the negotiating table on the nuclear agreement. whether these will have the same sort of effect on north korea, i don't think given her hermetic nature of the regime, we'll have to wait and see. >> that's the one thing. time is not on the side of everyone that's working on this, with the forward motion we've seen out of north korea for their ballistic missiles, but is this a sign out of the u.n. that the administration's foreign policy team has its act together right now? >> well, look, this would be a much more impressive victory and it is the poz and it would be much more impressive if you ignore the context. number one, that the gutting of the state department and the bizarre alt-right attack over the weekend on general mcmaster. this is an administration that very much does not have its act

together and what everybody's been describing a very delicate, very complicated diplomatic valet to bring these players together to get this thing right. >> i'm not sure i'm seeinging that deft diplomatic phone calls. but this is, in fact, a significant win, but i wish we had other signs that this administration had its act together or had anything close to a coherent foreign policy. >> let's talk about what charlie referenced there and those leaked conversations from the president's phone call to the prime minister in australia and turnbull and pena nieto, talking about the wall and the fact that we would be taking in a deal from australia of immigrants that obama had promised to take here in this country because of rules in australia that they couldn't be granted access there, but the leaked

conversations that happened, how tough does this make foreign policy conversations, diplomatic policy conversations for tillerson right now in manila? >>. >> i think that once again, those conversations, those leaks as well as the other things that we've seen from the administration including from secretary tillerson re-emphasized the importance of preparation of not doing those kinds of calls and not going into a meeting without knowing exactly what you're going to say, without knowing exactly what the issues are, and as it was pointed out, the fact that you don't have any kind of a bench of experienced foreign service officers, other kinds of career personnel who can provide the kind of background who can flush out and give you a direction of what you want to accomplish in a meeting or in a

conversation, you're going to get, you're going to get flubs like we saw with pena nieto and trumbel. >> how big of an effect is this that it shows a naivety with trying to deal with other political leaders around the globe. is the bigger deal that they tried to lie about these calls and paint them in a different characterization and then be caught in the fact that the original reporting was true months later? >> yeah, thomas, i think there are a couple of things at play here. obviously the content and the substance of these calls as we can read the transcripts for ourselves was deeply disturbing. here ate thing. we didn't need these transcripts to know donald trump is a liar and a political phony. we've known that all along in some respects. i think the more important point is the release of these transcripts was beyond the pale in terms of what we have seen so far of national security leaks from this administration.

the release of these transcripts will make every leader in his or her conversations with president trump going forward, moderate his or her message wondering if that leader says will end up the next day on "the washington post." presidential phone calls with foreign counterparts discuss issues like war and peace, of national security and some of the most sensitive issues of our time and if foreign counterparts are moderating their message and not given their full, unvarnished account, that is to our detriment. >> just really fast, the one thing i've been freaking out about is that folks are upset about these leaks and then everybody says the fact that donald trump had the one-off with vladimir putin and we didn't have an american translator there, why is that a big deal the fact that we didn't have anyone there from america moderating for the president? >> it certainly breaks protocol and it is certainly not something -- not a wise move

with someone like vladimir putin a former kgb operative and has manipulated presidents from george w. bush to include president trump himself. so it's very dangerous. it's very risky. it's not something that you would want to do. there are ways to ensure the privacy of these conversations without giving the other side a tactical advantage and not bringing your side to the table. >> ned price, i appreciate how you broke that down. >> michael isikoff, thank you, and charlie sykes stick with us because we'll talk to you coming up. we have an effort taking place in baltimore to go 72 hours without a homicide in charm city. we'll talk to one of the organizers to slow down the murder rate in that city from reaching record highs for 2017. but it didn't make it through the weekend without two murders. stick with us. a pilot like you shouldn't be flying buses. welcome to miami. you should be serving your country.

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it was a cease-fire dubbed nobody kill anybody in baltimore, but now police there are investigating these two shooting deaths. the city has been no stranger to violence, but this year has seen an uptick. it was, though, in 2015 after the death of freddie gray at the hands of police it sparked days of racially charged riots in that city and it's currently on a track record to record its highest annual homicide rate for baltimore this year. through the end of july, there's been a record number of 204 murders. joining me now, the organizer of the grassroots effort for the cease-fire there in baltimore, erica bridgefort. great to have you on today, and i know this is very close to your heart because of the efforts that you put behind this and also because of your own confession, because i watched this video and you're talking about this, feeling desensitized because of the crimes and people being shot and killed in baltimore now year after year.

with two people that were lost over this weekend, do you feel your effort saved any lives because of the fact that you drew so much attention to your effort? >> oh, absolutely. we know that it did. there was a lot of grassroots, street outreach done. baltimore has a lot of open-air drug markets, and so we were in the streets having conversations with people asking people what resources do you need? what kind of things are you going through in your life that would keep you from even being involved in violence and so people were getting the resources they need and making promises that they would keep their three or six-block radius safe -- radius safe. gang leaders were calling us saying, well, i don't know where a shooting may come from this weekend, but i can tell you where it's not going to come from, so i know a lot of them purposely were honoring the cease-fire and seeing it as a sacred time. so because we know, we purposely raised our vibration in the city and people were unified, we have been talking about the air was

mr literally different in baltimore and people were waking up thankful that they did not hear gunshots all night long and so to go 41 hours in baltimore, it means that, data wise, we reached 57% of our goal before there were murders in baltimore and we know the 41 hours is not as important as the two lives that were lost because those families won't have any more hours with their people. >> right. >> and we also know that some people did not die who would have this weekend. >> erica, when we have the police response to this, and i know when you point out the grassroots effort and the chief t.j. smith tweeted earlier, yes, was there a homicide, but the work doesn't stop. organizers called and are in the area continuing to spread love. explain what's next for the movement. >> so, we're going to continue doing the work we've always been doing. baltimore is no stranger to doing hard work, and to addressing any injustices done in our city.

the residents of baltimore are about the work and we always have been, and so this effort just allowed a lot of us to come together in one common goal to do the work so we will continue that. so baltimore 365, there is a meeting already scheduled for tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. and people will continue to raise the vibration even higher and our new motto is don't be numb. we realize that we must have been numb because yesterday losing those two people, trey and dante known as e.a., made us really hurt as if we lost one of our loved ones. >> eric a when it comes to the changes in baltimore, so much attention after the loss of freddie gray and we have the justice department concluding a year ago a report which said that the baltimore police department had allowed behavior violating the constitutional and federal law of so many people that have lived in the city that really hasn't recovered after the riots in the late '60s after the death of martin luther king. >> what's the relationship?

how is community reacting to police building bridges of trust. is it better? >> so what i'm not going to do is have a conversation about baltimore as if it is something that's not a result of america. america is one of the most violent places in the world. it teaches that violence is power, and so if you have a structure that can only survive if you keep people at the bottom of it, then those people at the bottom when they feel disempowered they'll use the same strategies as the people at the top. and so community police relations all over this country can be improved. violence can be improved all over this country because america has a violent culture. and so in baltimore, we respond to our pain by doing exactly what you're seeing us do right now and figure out what can we do to make it better and that's what we'll continue to do. >> you have my full support.

i grew up in baltimore just outside in townsend. >> hey! >> charm city. erica, we'd love to have you back as much as you can to talk about the efforts. >> i would be happy to be back. >> i think, we believe bringing this attention you did save lives this weekend. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> absolutely. thank you. >> coming up in the next hour, a special report on ferguson, three years later. after that city really changed and the events after michael brown's death. the violence that followed and the riots that happened and specifically there and a change in political figureheads, too and we'll dive into that in the next hour and we have thousands that are now cleaning up tonight after severe storms pummeled part of the country including a tornado hitting tulsa, oklahoma with dozens of injuries and very serious damage. we get on the ground there next. ? olay regenersit shatters the competition big hype. big price. big deal. olay regenerist hydrates skin

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search and rescue crews and the efforts there in australia

have been called off after three marines have been missing since a military mishap took down their osprey. the service members lost were in an mv-22 osprey crashing in the ocean off the eastern coast of australia on sunday. 23 of the 26 personnel aboard that aircraft were rescued and this morning military officials launcheded a recovery operation for those missing marines. we'll keep you posted on that. then vice president mike pence blasting reports suggesting he's laying groundwork for a presidential run in 2020. the veep releasing a statement in response to a new york times story detailing efforts by several republicans to run a shadow campaign for the gop nomination. in his statement pence calls the reports disgraceful and offensive. the vice president insists his team is focused on president trump's agenda and reelection for the trump-pence ticket. an immigration proposal endorsed by the president that could drastically change who can enter the country legally. what the merit-based approach could mean for our country's population today and tomorrow.

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"i've been part of the creation of over 27,000 units of housing," and to replicate this across the entire african continent. all right. so we've been learning more about this tornado that ripped through tulsa, oklahoma. it happened in the early morning hours injuring dozens of people. ian smith from our nbc affiliate kfor is in tulsa for us. explain the extent of the damage and what more do we know of the injured? >> reporter: well, thomas, right now we know several dozen people were taken to the hospital. many of them from these businesses behind me. this t.g.i. friday's partially collapsed trapping several people inside of the building. authorities are telling me the

good thing is this hit mostly through a commercial area, but the path of destruction here is extremely clear. take a look over here. we have another shopping center that was heavily damaged during this tornado as it went right through this area. a lot of people told me they did not have any warning and officials were saying this happened in the middle of the night and they did not have time to activate their sirens. right now we don't have any confirmed fatalities, but this has been confirmed by the national weather service to be an ef-2 tornado, winds in excess of 100 miles an hour which tore through here which is an odd time of the year for us. we usually don't see these types of things in august, but fortunately, things could have been a lot worse and they weren't. for now, ian smith, live in tulsa. >> with your experience in working and covering different continues for tulsa, typically they have a type of trajectory and certain areas are more prone than others. is this an area within the city that is more prone or less prone

to seeing violent weather? >> reporter: well -- well, severe weather in oklahoma you're kind of in the bull's-eye no matter what when it comes to oklahoma. tulsa sees more tornadoes and tulsa is no exception. we are southwest from joplin. as you know, a few years ago a terrible tornado went through there. so it's only a mraert of time and these things kind of happen, but like i said, theis time of year, we normally don't see this. ian smith from kfor our tulsa affiliate. thank you, sir. i appreciate it. >> now this -- this whole notion of well, they have to learn english before they get to the united states, are we just going to bring in people from great britain and australia? >> i can honestly say i am shocked at your statement that you'd think that only people from great britain and australia would know english.

it reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind -- no, this is an amazing moment. >> you're trying to engineer a racial and ethnic flow of people into this country. >> that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant and foolish things you've ever said and for you, that's still the -- the notion that you think this is a racist bill is so wrong and so insulting. >> nothing says cosmopolitan bias like french cuffs, but anyway, white house senior approximately see adviser, stephen miller and the explosive exchange he had at the white house press briefing talking about the r.a.i.s.e. act endorsing a hard line immigration, this time going after legal immigration and it would cut the number of legal immigrants in the country by half. the so-called r.a.i.s.e. act

would raise it, merit-based system. people would get higher billing if they know english and they have higher education, and also have some money. these would be factors that would be considered as why you would get ranking over somebody else. the merit-based system here. with me now is democratic congressman pete aguilar, and cnbc's john harwood and msnbc contributor charlie sykes. congressman, let me start with you because stephen miller did not grow up too far away from where you grew up in california. he's from santa monica and he's talking about the cosmopolitan bias of this question for, you know, the challenge from jim acosta there based on what we know immigration policy to be and i think what jim acosta was trying to say are we only going to give favor to nations where english is a national language.

what is your district saying about the proposal of the r.a.i.s.e. act? >> what they're saying about the r.a.i.s.e. act is this is a thinly-veiled attempt to score political >> this is an attempt by the administration to score points. it is tough to listen to someone from santa monica who went to duke university call someone a cosmopolitan. so this is really just a thinly veiled attempt to score political points by the administration. >> we know with california, just like wisconsin, certainly agriculture is a big issue for your state. we have your republican colleague in the senate, ron johnson, saying the industry really relies on immigrants in his state but he's open to this idea from trump and senator cotton and senator perdue. take a listen. >> you take a look at the facts, on average we've been admitting about 1 million people with legal residencies. in 2015 where we have the best

data, 65% were based on family relationships. 21% were diversity, refugees and others. only 14% have anything to do with work. there are literally hundreds of millions of people that want to come into america to seek the opportunity that only really america offers. we should be selective. we should target those individuals that can come here on a merit-based system and add to our xheconomy. >> when we think about what many of our ancestors came here for, it was to flee for a better life because they were either religiously persecuted or didn't have the opportunity to advance in home countries. food would be an issue. many people were not trained in high skills before coming to this country. how do you respond to what the senator said? >> well, again, there are concerns with the immigration system. i would welcome the senator joining his peers, senator durbin and graham, to look at the dream act where we would allow individuals who were here through no fault of their own,

legal status, making sure that we clear up the dhaka program. those are the issues we should be focusing on. right now this attempt to cut legal immigration is really just a political step where the president's trying to shore up folks in his conservative base. >> we know that the message here is that immigrants come and if they're legal they're coming in to take your jobs. but we have a declining workforce when it comes to boomers retiring. we need younger folks coming in. we find workers through legal immigration. how do you think this is going to play in wisconsin, your home state? >> well, it is interesting what senator johnson mentioned. by the way, the dairy industry relies on immigrants to a rather remarkable extent. i've talked to a lot of dairy farmers who said we could not be in business if it was not for immigrants. look, maybe i'm biased here because my great grandfather came here without any money,

without being able to speak english. i think that legal immigration in fact is kind of a life blood of this country. but that's not our problem. i think that especially in states like wisconsin, which have severe labor shortages, people are going to wonder, okay, how do we make that switch from illegal immigration to legal immigration? now by the way, this argument about merit-based immigration is not extreme. it is not a wacky idea. it is what they do in canada. it is what they do in australia. unfortunately, i agree what stephen miller is doing is trying to throw out the red meat to the base here and it is unfortunate that you have such a creepy messenger for what ought to be something to talk about. we ought to talk about the dream act. we ought to talk about kinds ever things like can we actually help grow the economy. because economic growth is dependent on immigration. let's have that discussion but i don't sense that that's what stephen miller or donald trump is, frankly, interested in. >> olivia, i guess the bigger

thing here where republicans are pushing back like a lindsey graham or a tim scott in south carolina saying that this would be devastating for their states, we know jeb bush has said that -- suggested some of these changes, though he didn't call for kurting the overall number of immigrants coming in to the country. but if they're going to be intellectually honest about this, shouldn't they take it from the fact that if we need to update our system and we want to be more like canada or australia which is not the american way to be like any other country, we need to go shake ourselves down to the core values of what it means to be an american and update it. >> i don't think this is really about the policy. i think charlie made a good point. we should be having this debate right now but this is really i think about this audience of one theory that prevails with the president where people are talking from his staff to him directly and they're trying to put on a performance for him. i think that's what we saw with stephen miller. they don't really want to talk about the specifics of the policy, they want to kind of throw red meat to their base, they want to improve their approval numbers which as we

talked about earlier are not doing well right now. i think that this is really just about putting on a show and making it look like they're trying to make america great again. but if you really scratch the surface of what they're proposing here, it is just not something that is feasible. two negatively affect the economy. two make the other things that they're trying to accomplish in terms of growth impossible. i think this is really about looks more than it is about the actual policy to this administration. >> the other thing, olivia, to your point, let me ask john harwood about this. john, what you're hearing from different sources, would stephen miller be up for the communications job that the mooch left? are we go to go from mooch to miller? >> i think there is a very good chance of that happening, thomas. he was communications director for jeff sessions before when jeff sessions was in the senate. i do want to defend stephen miller on one point though, thomas. there is no game in the country that says american heartland more than college basketball, and there is no college in the country that says college

basketball more than duke university where i, too, went to school in durham, north carolina. so that does not discredit anybody's point of view on immigration or any other issue. >> it just shows your cosmopolitan bias for basketball, john harwood. do you have french cuffs on right now? >> i do not. i do not. >> okay. very good. thank you all very much, congressman pete aguilar, thank you. olivia, thanks for stiscking around. john, as always, thanks. we explore ferguson three years later. what's changed since the death of michael brown and the chaos that followed. but also the updates that have happened in a positive way for this city. after this. how your clothes smell can say at lot about you. that's why new downy protect and refresh

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. good day. i'm thomas roberts here at msnbc headquarters in new york. we are now examining ferguson three years later. it was this week where a deadly police shooting shook america in

america's heartland and the eventual country had to stand up. but it sparked days of unrest and renewed a national conversation on race and policing. but specifically in the city of ferguson. so we want to go back in time and take a look at ferguson, missouri, three years later. an unarmed young man was shot and killed by police in ferguson. as police investigated, brown's body was left outside under the boiling sun for hours, a situation that led to a growing concern and a pretty angry crowd. that anger only grew in the days ahead fueled by a suspicion of the actions of the ferguson police department and the family of michael brown was outraged that even on the day officials finally released the name of the officer involved in the shooting, darren wilson, they also released surveillance video of a robbery that brown was accused of just minutes before his