at #velshiruhle and now we hand over to andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports." >> too little too late. protests around trump tower over the president's belated and many say half hearted denunciation of the white supremacist march in charlottesville. >> mr. president, can you explain why you did not condemn the hate groups by name over the weekend? >> they have been condemned. >> he did read a statement at the white house today that finally struck the right tone, but i'm sorry, pencils down on this subject was saturday evening. he only gets very partial credit. >> ripple effects across the south. statues honoring confederate icons fall and big business responds. four members of the white house manufacturing council are bowing out, but the president only makes one of them the target of an instant tweet. >> i was a bit miffed yesterday

when he attacked ken frazer. i know ken. he's from philadelphia. his father was a janitor. he went to penn state, i went to penn state. i met with him many times, a friend, they're doing great work at merck on cancer drugs like melano melanoma. a mother's pledge, the mother of the woman killed in charlottesville says she is not going to let the hate that took her daughter's life silence her voice. >> i'm going to advocate that let's make that a strong movement as my child was a strong child. and if it is going to mean i have to bear my soul in front of people, then i'm going to do that in a way that is not going to cause more anger, that is not going to cause retaliation, it is not about getting even.

and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. president trump is spending first full day of his new york home since being elected under fire for his delay and some felt a lukewarm denunciation of the ku klux klan, white supremacists and neo-nazi marchers in the violent charlottesville protest. today, setting off on a new round of criticism over his retweets, ranging from the far right conspiracy theorist responsible for the pizza gate conspiracy to a fox news report that he's about to pardon sheriff joe arpaio. he retweeted that. and a cartoon train running over a cnn reporter. the last one was quickly deleted. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent kristen welker and nbc's tom costello in charlottesville. kristen, how did they explain these tweets and retweets? the retweets most controversially. >> well, we're not getting anything on the record yet, andrea. let's start there.

so far the only retweet they have weighed in on is that retweet of a trump train crashing into a cnn reporter. one white house official who didn't want to be identified telling me it was inadvertently posted and as soon as it was noticed, it was immediately deleted. this official not explaining what was so inadvertent, who posted it initially and who decided to delete it. a lot of questions remain on the table at this hour. and it comes as there are some real world consequences to what a lot of people felt was president trump's inadequate response to the white supremacists behind the clashes in charlottesville over the weekend. three ceos dropping out of leaving his manufacturing council including the ceos of merck, under armour and intel and just this hour we're learning that scott paul, who is, of course, the president of the alliance for american manufacturing just tweeted that he is leaving as well. this is a president who ran as being a jobs president, and here

he is really losing the support of some key ceos. so, andrea, this is something that the president will have to answer for, that the white house has to answer for, and he's going to hold an infrastructure event later on today, he wants that to be a key policy focus, heading into the fall. but undoubtedly reporters are going to try to get some questions to him about all of this, which continues to overshadow his agenda, frankly, andrea. >> and what about this business council and the fact that these executives are leaving. this is the man who ran as a candidate as a businessman, he's not reflecting any anxiety over this, though. >> not only is he not reflecting anxiety, andrea, he's tweeting defiantly. effectively saying, look, these are grandstanders, let them leave the manufacturing council. he's not in any way apologizing and as you know yesterday, andrea, you and i on this show reported on the fact that he took direct aim at ken frazer,

the ceo of merck who is african-american, in the wake of his decision to leave the manufacturing council. so he is not apologizing, not bowing to them, he's showing defiance at this hour. again, it will make for a number of tough questions that he might get when he faces reporters later today, no indication about whether he will be answering those questions, andrea. >> and meanwhile, tom costello, charlottesville is becoming emblematic and kicking off a chain reaction, if you will, around the country, already, of course, had seen what happened in south carolina after mother emanuel church and the decision by then governor nikki haley in south carolina about what happened at the state capital. we have seen mitch landrieu, more on that later, what happened in new orleans. there is reaction throughout the south. >> yes, so let me just set the stage for you. this is the makeshift memorial here to heather heyer, the 32-year-old killed on saturday. and as you know, here in charlottesville, the epicenter

was that statue of robert e. lee. we saw last night in raleigh, north carolina, protesters coming together and tearing down the statue to confederate soldiers. it was just a generic confederate soldier statue, not to any one specific general. we have lexington, kentucky, voting this afternoon on whether to take down two confederacy type of statues or memorials at the state house itself. a mayor of baltimore talking about doing the same thing. we talked to the southern poverty law center for an update on numbers. they count 718 monuments, and 1500 symbols to the confederacy in the country nationwide, but the vast majority, of course, in the south. they also tell us that they have had 67 removed since dylann roof's massacre there at mother emanuel church. keep in mind, the numbers of -- had been growing over the last 50 years. 35 added in north carolina alone

just since 2000. i hope you don't mind, andrea, but, you know, i wanted to give you a couple of stats here. because i looked it up. you hear a lot of veterans angry about the fact that the protesters are using and flying the flags of the confederacy and nazi germany. during the civil war, 364,000 people died on the union side. about 300,000 or so on the confederate side. in 1860, there were 4 million slaves. more slaves lived here in this city than white people in 1860. let me give you another stat. 490,000 americans died in world war ii fighting the japanese and the germans. and now we are seeing white nationalists flying flags in the streets of america. back to you. >> tom costello, and joining me now is joy reed, our thanks to kristen welker there at trump tower. joy reed from "am joy" on weekend mornings on msnbc and national review senior writer david french joining us as well.

joy and david, you both have been so eloquent on this subject. i wanted to bring in some -- part of a speech that i thought said so much. it was mitch landrieu in may after a statue was going to be taken down and explaining to the people of new orleans why a statue, a confederate statue was taken down there. i want to play a little bit of that and come to you both. >> these monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city. and the ideals of the confederacy. it is self-evident that these men did not fight for the united states of america. they fought against it. these monuments were part of that terrorism. as much as burning a cross on someone's lawn. they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in the shadows about who was still in charge in this city. i knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough. would you have elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing. and this is what that looks

like. to literally put the confederacy on a pedestal, in prominent places, in honor is an inaccurate recitation of our past, an affront to our present and a bad prescription for our future. >> joy, we were wondering what leadership looks like. to my mind, that was leadership in the city of new orleans. >> yeah, absolutely. landrieus have a story history in louisiana. mitch landrieu's sister mary probably lost her senate seat in part for saying publicly there are still issues with race in the south. and, you know, mitch landrieu is exactly right on the history. you think about the aftermath of the civil war, the south was defeated, no one was putting up civil war stay chew statues. these people were treasonous against the united states. the statues went up in the redemption period, you had southern democrats, southern conservatives trying to sell the idea that the confederacy was

grand, rather than treasonous, and bloody. and they did it in part to terrorize black southerners into saying these people, nathan bedford forest and robert e. lee rule over you, they will physically preside over you, there was a movement to put up monuments, particularly in the early 1920s when lynching was reaching its peek in the united states. you had 30 years later in the 1950s after brown v. board, this big wave of confederate flags that went up across the south. these things weren't put up in the aftermath of the war. these were symbols of terrorism that were deliberately meant to frighten and remind black people of their quote/unquote, place. for people to defend them, to defend the flags of two entities that fought the united states, particularly nazis with living members of the heroic class that fought nazi germany, people still alive have their uniforms is bizarre. >> and david french, reading your piece in the national review about steve bannon, i

wanted to bring that up and ask you about steve bannon, and the fact, as joy reed pointed out, eloquently, on "meet the press" on sunday, the people in the white house are part of the issue. this is not some french group marching in charlottesville. there are people cheering that on who are in the highest -- surrounding the highest office in the land. talk to me about bannon. >> my problem with steve bannon is that he essentially -- under his leadership, breitbart, a highly trafficked, very popular conservative website, became in essence a gateway to the alt-right. he promoted as -- breitbart promoted as one of the premiere writers this man named mil milo yanopolus, casting them as a merry band of pranksters who are funny and trying to make the grandfathers angry. one of those meme lords or one

of those meme brigades that milo was dismissing is one of the people who drove through a crowd of innocent people. so this was what breitbart became under bannon. and, in fact, bannon reportedly bragged during the republican national convention that breitbart was the platform for the alt-right. now, i don't think that breitbart is alt-right, it was a gateway to the alt-right in many ways. its comments section became taken over by alt-right voices and then to take that person, and to have him, within 100 miles of the oval office, much less the chief strategist to the president sends all of the wrong messages to the united states of america. he's got to go. the alt-right is, i believe, a small fringe movement that punches above its weight online and through, i believe, steve bannon, punches above its weight all the way into the oval office. >> and he may be on the ropes now, remains to be seen whether or not the president's reliance

upon him, identification with him in a lot of ways, is outweighed by the damage that they are doing with their attacks, you know, vicious attacks against mcmaster, three-star general who is the national security adviser to the president. so those are very clear choices. and we saw the way on "meet the press," mcmaster resisted three or four attempts by chuck todd to ask him whether they too -- these two people could work in the same white house. joy, take a look at richard spencer's press conference yesterday. what he had to say. this is the way richard spencer, one of these white supremacists who was at the march, along with, you know, the former head of the ku klux klan, the way they are interpreting the signals coming from the president of the united states. >> donald trump never talked about attacks or during the campaign, he never talked about tax cuts, he never talked about all these -- he was not -- all this just kind of conservative garbage that we have been

hearing for years. he talks about immigration first and foremost, he was a nationalist, he used phrases like america first. donald trump is not alt-right. donald trump is not an identify tarian. we were connected with donald trump on this psychic level where donald trump was a nationalist, the first true authentic nationalist in my lifetime. >> what does that tell you? >> it tells you first of all that, you know, i think he is right in the sense that donald trump never signed up to the alt-right. i don't think he's clever enough to be a meme lord. he has a lot of aligning views on immigration, on muslims and whether or not islam is compatible with being american, and he's not the only one. obviously steve bannon saw either profit in it or had an affinity with it. you have michael anton, also a strategist that steve bannon brought in, that said the ceaseless importation of third world foreigners is destroying the united states, its american character. you have people like steven

miller, a mentee of richard spencer at duke university who first came to prominence under the tutelage of richard spencer writing the speeches and helping to form the ideology in the white house. you have a number of people, the gorkas, not just sebastian, a blogger at breitbart, who now without a security clearance is advising on national security, claims to be an expert, but sebastian gorka's wife is the person revealed to have been prominent in removing the funding for attempting to counter white nationalist extremism. she removed a grant or at least pushed to remove a grant that could have countered this kind of extremism. the rot is indeed inside of the white house. >> and david french, when you look at sebastian gorka and some of the other players inside, what makes you think that anything will change despite all of the -- the trauma in charlottesville. >> i don't think all of these people are alt-right. i don't think steven miller is

alt-right in any way, shape or form. we have to be careful about not painting with too broad a brush. the reason why i identify steve bannon so clearly, bannon reportedly identified his own organization that he was running as providing a platform for the alt-right. i think a lot of good could be done. look, statements are one thing. the president's first statement on saturday was abysmal. his second statement was better, but then he went on twitter and basically undid a lot of the good he had done with the second statement. but actions speak louder than statements. and i think one of the key actions here would be getting rid of steve bannon, not only does that send a clear message to the alt-right that the administration isn't with him, it also sends a clear message to the rest of his administration that he's professionalizing it. what bannon has done to attack hr mcmaster in the last few days, i mean, he's open to the sewer of the internet in these attacks on mcmaster. and it is disgusting to see what

his springing forth, and this is something that surrounds bannon. what surrounds bannon is this notion that when he strikes, there is an awe ful lot of really, really, really bad actors that follow his lead. and that this is something that i think is deeply disturbing. not just from the standpoint of what happened in charlottesville, which is very, very serious, but also from the standpoint of effective governing going forward. you have a guy like general mcmaster saying he doesn't, you know, refusing to confirm that he can work with steve bannon to me, that sends a very loud message that something is very wrong here, and he needs -- bannon needs to go. >> david french, joy reed, to be continued. thank you, both, so much. thank you, joy, for coming in. and coming up, your move, kim jong-un says he will mack a decision on attacking guam, quote if the yankees persist. what does he mean by that? former defense secretary william perry joining me next here on "andrea mitchell reports."

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and north korea has released these photos, it says showing kim jong-un reviewing plans to fire missiles toward guam. and in a statement saying that kim would change his mind, but only if president trump cancels upcoming military exercises suggesting also withdrawal missile defenses from south korea. those are reoccurring demands from north korea, demands the u.s. says are not on the table,

nonstarters. and an hour earlier, a strong message of deterrence from the defense secretary speaking to pentagon reporters. >> i think if they fire at the united states, it could escalate into war very quickly, yes. that's called war if they shoot at us. if they do that, then it's game on. >> game on. nbc's chief global correspondent bill neely is live in seoul, south korea. bill, a lot of different signals, certainly james dunnford, joseph dunnford, the chairman of the joint chiefs in beijing, following up on his visit to south korea, everywhere he goes sending a signal of diplomacy. deterrence, you heard, from mattis in answer to questions very, you know, provocative questions from the reporters who were pressing him hard, and from kim jong-un, sort of a mixed message. yes, i'll wait and see on guam, but only if those yankees pull back their military.

>> yeah. absolutely right, andrea. from both mattis and tillerson today, both of them stressing diplomacy. and that statement from kim jong-un and those photographs absolutely fascinating. remember, this is the first appearance of kim since president trump's fire and fury words. indeed, it is the first time kim has spoken. so far he has said not a word about what president trump has said. and let's look at the photographs. they are fascinating. this is what north korea wants the u.s. to see. and you can read them like a book. first of all, kim is not in military uniform. not yet. but he is surrounded by generals and they are the people in charge of his missile program. on the table in front of them, the map of guam. that attack is literally still on the table. a black line drawn between north korea and guam, even the location of the launch site is marked. and in the background, tantalizingly one of the photographs is what appears to be a satellite image of an air

base. now, we haven't yet confirmed that is anderson air force base in guam, but if it is, that's the north koreans saying we may not be attacking this base, but it is still in our sites. and kim saying i'm going to watch what the u.s. does for a bit longer. so he's pressing the pause button, but not the stop button. there is no sense that he is withdraw ing the explicit threat because the explicit threat is there. as you say, i will take the decision if the u.s. continues to behave recklessly. always the if, but the threat, andrea, always there. >> and those joint exercises with south korea, annual exercises, about to happen, and not going to be canceled. bill neely, thank you very much for the update. reading the tea leaves, if you will, in south korea, and joining me now is william perry, the former u.s. secretary of defense and the clinton administration, who served or advised nearly every administration since eisenhower and senior fellow at the hoover

institution. secretary perry, wonderful to see you again. what is your read on all of these mixed messages and importantly on the way that the president's rhetoric is being read in north korea. >> i think fundamentally, andrea, north korea has its objective, to keep the regime in power. given that objective, it is not going to conduct an unprovalked attack against the united states or against one of our allies because they know if they do that, the regime will be swept from power. the danger really is not that north korea is going to conduct an unprovoked attack on us, the danger is that we will blunder, we will blunder into some sort of war, a war that can be catastrophic. >> and the danger of blundering, i was talking to admiral stevrides yesterday, he's going to be speaking to me later today as well, the danger of

blundering becomes exaggerated when you have not only the diplomats and the politicians, but the military people listening to rhetoric that talks about fire and fury and, you know, some of the language, locked and loaded. the u.s. military is always locked and loaded. what is a tweet saying locked and loaded mean? >> well, the dangers indeed aggravated by those kind of statements because one way they might conduct an attack is if they believe that we are about to preempt them. and if they believe that, they may be tempted to preempt the pm, launch an attack before we preempt. that would be very dangerous. and another way is that north korea is known for reckless actions and suppose they take a reckless action, a minor reckless action against south korea, and south korea comes back with another action, so we have a little military conflict going. all too easy for little conflict to escalate into a big conflict and a big conflict, you might say, another conventional korean

war, north korea would surely lose. and as they lost, and as they saw the regime about -- being swept from power, then they might launch the nuclear weapons and some sort of a korean armageddon. so that's what i would call blundering into war, two different ways that could happen, and in both of those cases, reckless statements, theatrical statements between the two countries creates an environment which is one of those is likely to happen. >> how does the u.s. get out of this de-escalated when you're playing against someone as unpredictable and as unknowable as kim jong-un. we don't have great intelligence about him. >> no, we don't. we have things we can do, we can, first of all, make sure that deterrence is unambiguous. we do that, i believe not by making theatrical statements, but by saying clearly and simply that if north korea were to

attack south korea or japan or the united states, we would reply quickly and unequivocally with overwhelming force. that's a statement of deterrence, we should be very clear on that. we should also bolster our defenses. many things we can do to bolster our defenses, keeping operational readiness as a force, not only in okinawa, but the forces in alaska, the forces of the fleet that supports should be kept in high levels of operational readiness. and we can do things to also bolster our defense by, for example, station aegis ships around guam or putting thadd missiles, we already put one in south korea, might consider another deployment of thadd, things to do to bolster our defenses. we should also be looking at diplomacy. and diplomacy in the past has been unsuccessful, but i think we can take a new look on it, diplomacy, diplomacy designed to

make south korea -- north korea confident that we're not going to attack them in an unprovoked way. that can be done by coercion diplomacy. it has to have china working with us. it is not enough for us to point to china and say you saw solve this problem, them to point us and say you solve this problem, we have to be working together because china provides important element of -- they can provide the sticks, the disincentives, where the united states and our allies can provide the incentives, the economic incentives and the security it ensures us. >> secretary william perry, very good to see you. thank you so much for your advice at this critical point in this crisis. thank you, sir. coming up, broad and inclusive. what is next for the republican party after charlottesville? a speech by bob dole may provide some answers. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ♪

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racism is evil. and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the kkk,

neo-nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as americans. >> he did read a statement at the white house today that finally struck the right tone, but i'm sorry, pencils down on this subject was saturday evening. he only gets very partial credit. you can stand for a nation, or you can stand for a hateful movement, you can't do both. >> seth meyers with a sharp take on the president's delayed response to the violence in charlottesville. joining me is george will, syndicated columnist and msnbc contributor and jennifer palmieri, former white house communications director for president obama and former communications director for hillary clinton's campaign. welcome, both. george, your response to the president's, what seemed like a halting and sort of forced concession that nazis and white supremacists and other hateful groups, the kkk, had been

involved. >> it was tardy and he was not reading the teleprompter as though he was reading something he was familiar with. or deeply invested in. all that aside. but we're watching this with the executives bailing out from various white house commissions, doubtless getting pressure from their customers, and from their boards of directors, larry summers writing today saying why are these people complicit with the president? that's a very interesting choice of words. what we're seeing, i think, and frankly those of us who think the inflated presidency has been destroying the equilibrium of our constitutional, constitutins entirely too much. we're seeing the incredible shrinking of the presidency. there was a book on presidential power in which he said presidential power is almost entirely the power to persuade. article ii is mostly about how to select presidents. basically what it says about the president's power is he has the

power to faithfully execute the laws of the united states, period. so when a president loses his ability to persuade, the office shrinks like a balloon and we're witnessing it right now. >> what is extraordinary in this context is that you've got both houses of congress in his hands, but these attacks against sessions and against mitch mcconnell have really destroyed the equilibrium where he could expect republican senators to come to his defense. >> yeah, and i think -- and i'm glad to see republican senators are not. i believe we know what this president is. he's someone throughout his campaign. gave white supremacists a platform. you know, richard spencer, the white supremacist leader said his -- their ideas didn't have anywhere to go until trump, so, and he has allowed that to happen and continues to allow that to happen. we know that. the question is, are we going to survive it. the fact that republican leaders and some democrats are not as welcoming as i feel about seeing

leaders make statements that are crate cal to the president and denounce the racism in certain and clear terms but that's the only hope that we have to survive this in a way that we come out of a post trump era whenever that is. >> a trial for the republican party as well as the democratic party, the nation. i think back to ronald reagan who i think made some missteps, launching the first campaign in philadelphia, mississippi, i thought that was a mistake. but look at what bob dole had to say in a convention speech. >> the republican party is broad and inclusive. it represents many streams of opinion and many points of view. but if there is anyone who has mistaken or attached himself to our party in the belief that we're not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the party of

lincoln, and the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as i stand this ground without compromise. >> now, dole, reagan in many instances, both bushes, certainly george herbert walker bush, all made statements saying they did not welcome the support of some of those who are self-identified racists. >> well, the party of lincoln is the party of the man who said we are a nation dedicated to a proposition. which is to say national identity in the united states is a creedal identity. you want to be an american, you come here, embrace the creed, you're an american. it is not blood and soil, continental european right wingry. that's why this challenge from bannon and the others like him goes right to national identity. you could not have a more fundamental argument about what the united states is. either it is a creedal nation devoted, dedicated to a proposition, all men are created equal, or it is, to use the

phrase this elocution, that someone developed an identitarian nation, in which case you're not american. >> i know you've been down there, i want to ask you about alabama and how this might be playing out in today's election there. >> you mentioned a moment ago the trump against mcconnell, there are three major candidates down there. all three pledging eternal -- to donald trump. all three running against mitch mcconnell as the emblem of the washington establishment and mr. mcconnell's pack alined with him heavily on behalf of the incumbent senator strange. the principle may be mr. mcconnell saying we support incumbent senators. if so, it will be interesting to see if he's similarly energetic on behalf of jeff flake. when mr. trump is trying to take mr. flake out of the senate. >> and these are problems that the democratic party, of course,

has experienced not immediately in any primaries, but the whole question of who is a democrat and how do -- how big is the tent. >> i think the tent has to be big and the tent has to not just include ultimately, not just include democrats. i think democrats have to expect that they're not just going to be able to unite the party. democrats have to run with the expectation that they can unite the country and that means looking at a very -- a very big tent and if in the alabama race, if, you know, strange is portrayed as the establishment as part of -- and trump is portrayed alongside with him as the establishment and not a changemaker, that could spend -- that could spell trouble for trump in 18 as well. >> jen palmieri, george will, as always, great to see you both. coming up, rex tillerson speaking out about north korea and former nato supreme allied commander james devrides joining

me next.

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with taco spice already in it? oh, thanks. bon appe-cheese! okay... secretary of state rex tillerson responding to questions today about kim jong-un. >> continue to be interested in finding a way to get to a dialogue, that's up to him. >> and that's up to him. joining me now is former nato supreme allied commander, dean

of the fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts university, retired admiral james stavridis, nbc's chief international security and diplomacy analyst. a lot of mixed signals, but basically kim jong-un saying maybe i'll wait on firing missiles toward guam, but only if the yankee, as he refers to the u.s., cancels its firepower, basically cancels the military exercises coming up and also pulls back on the missile defense. that's not going to happen. >> it is absolutely not going to happen. nor should it. the missile defense speaks for itself. that's basic defense 101. we need to be putting more missile defense in, not shutting it down. and secondly, these exercises, andrea, as you know, are big, muscular events, where we train, we practice with our south korean allies, our japanese friends are involved in these, this is how we prepare in the case of being attacked.

both defensive measures. we should not walk away from, they are crucial to maintaining deterrence. let's hope the young leader kim jong-un is smart enough to recognize the deterrence that is staring him in the face should he choose to launch those missiles at guam. >> so far there has been no sign of movements, ship movements or any other kinds of movements that indicate that we are about to do anything. >> that's correct, andrea. right now we're in what i would call a 48 to 72 to 96-hour posture. in other words, our long range bombers are on alert, our carrier strike groups are at a distance, our troops are ready, but not at peak state of alert. we want to reserve that distance between current level of readiness and highest degree of residence in case kim jong-un does make a move. the thing to watch, andrea, is the carriers. every president in crisis says

where are the carriers? watch those. that will tell you when we're really getting ready to unload. let's hope we don't get there. >> were you at all concerned about the president's seemingly off-handed threat to use military action in of all places venezuela where clearly you've got a dictator on the ropes, civil unrest, but the last thing you want to do is set up, you know, a scapegoat, which is the yankees are coming and the u.s. is going to take military action in latin america. a long history there. >> indeed there is. and before i was the supreme allied commander of nato, andrea, as you know, i spent three years as commander of southern command, everything south of the united states. i spent a lot of time looking at venezuela under chavez, looking at colombia, looking at counternarcotics. i know this region well. i'm from miami, florida. and let me tell you, the last thing in the world you want to do is saber rattle in latin america, in the caribbean.

they remember the multiple times we have invited mexico, nicaragua, the dominican republic. we have a long and not pretty history of using our military in latin america. so for the president to use that kind of rhetoric simply walks us away from the solution we need to achieve, which is working together with our allies in latin america, to get a handle on the situation in venezuela. >> has anyone given you insight into why he said it? >> no, no one has given me any insight. i cannot imagine what is going through his head. the best possible interpretation is that what he meant was hu huemanitarian response. but when you use those words of military option, normally that conveys hard power, wrong message in latin america and the caribbean. >> and thank you very much. thanks so much for your experience on all parts of the

globe. and coming up, we have the inside scoop, stay with us right here on "andrea mitchell reports." we'll be right back. boost. it's about moving forward, not back.

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said mr. manafort's swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign, any invitation by russia directly or indirectly would be rejkted outright. we know one that wasn't but that's another story. the inside scoop from a national security supporter and an msnbc contributor. what did you learn from your reporting on this? what does it tell us about the campaign? >> so, andrea, the take-away from this little sliver of e-mails in a treasure trove of 20,000 that have been turned over from the trump campaign to congressional investigators is this in a nutshell -- that there were constant offers and invitations presented by this foreign policy aide to the trump campaign from russians, allegedly from the putin government, from russian organizations that were closed to the kremlin, offering to meet with trump, to meet with trump's team, and my personal favorite is putin has been waiting to meet with the trump team for quite a while.

these were almost every other week kinds of offers made by this low-level campaign aide and adviser named george papadopoulos. now, some of them were rebuffed by senior campaign officials, but at the same time that these offers and invitations were presented, again, by the aide, there were actual top campaign officials in the trump team who were taking meetings with russian officials. jeff sessions, the head of the foreign policy advisory team to the trump campaign at the time, carter page, a foreign policy aide and a colleague of mr. papadopoulos' went to moscow soon after one of these invitation, and obviously paul manafort, the campaign chairman, did this as well and met at trump tower. >> what we now can see through carol's reporting is where the

congressional committees are going. we don't have as much insight into where mueller is going except we know within the last week his request to the west wing for documents and interviews. >> the congressional committee's investigations are counterintelligence investigations which dovetails with what kind of meetings were happening, back channels were happening, where bob mueller seems to be digging more on the financials, perhaps civil/criminal stuff. i was struck by the piece. on the one hand, there is some exculpatory information there, paul manafort saying no, but on the other hand it's real affirmation russia said of the trump campaign, a vehicle for disruption and continues to press them for meet which is happened outside of these channels but it's just a mixed bag little bit. >> what we can see, carol, from your reporting is just how persistent this was, that russia was always, as sam was saying, russia was always player at the table, trying to get to the table. >> it does seem like an

amazingly frequent topic of conversations, even in just this little sliver, right, and we did reach out to the clinton campaign to talk to the former officials and that team and they said that these groups had never come to them, they have no record of any outreach from them. as we quoted, you know, a former cia agent with a lot of familiarity in this, this is a classic soft approach that russia tried and in this case it looked like it was gaining some traction. >> carol, thanks so much for bringing your reporting to us today and sam stein as well and we'll be right back. i kept on top of things. then the chronic, widespread pain slowed me down. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. he also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. woman: for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions

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madeleine albright joins us tomorrow at "mitchell reports." chris jansing is next on msnbc. >> you always get the big gets, mitch mandrea mitchell. thank you so much. i'm chris jansing at msnbc headquarters in new york. donald trump under pressure. the president takes a swipe at ceos and the media as fallout from his delayed condemnation of white supremacists continues. in the next couple of hours he'll attempt to turn his attention back to the agenda, but can he get anything done? naming and shaming. social media users are outing people who marched with white nationalists in charlottesville, but is it vigilante justice? can it go too far? game on. that's the promise from the defense secretary if north korea makes good on the threat to bomb guam. even as kim jong-un may be