influence across the region. >> and finally, taylor swift's single off her new album comes out today. there's no one more excited about this story than ayman mohyeldin. >> sad morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian along with louis burgdorf and ayman mohyeldin. >> believe me, we have plenty of anarchists. they don't want to talk about the anarchists. >> a wound inflicted upon a single member of our community. they've got clubs and everything. antifa. >> is a wound inflicted upon us all. >> it is time to heal the

wounds. >> it's a very dishonest media, right there. i really believe they don't like our country. >> when one part of mamerica hurt, we all. >> when one citizens suffers an injustice, we all suffer. >> i went to better schools than they did. i was a better student than they were. >> we are one home with one flag. >> i hit everything, the white supremacists and neo-nazi, i got them all. >> kkk, i got them all. >> there is no challenge too great for us to conquer. >> the on people giving a platform to these hate groups is

the media itself. >> wow. welcome to "morning joe." you know, for over a year now there have been people that have been saying you should not try to figure out the president's mental state and if he has any issues, don't try to be a pop psychiatrist or psychologist but i can say safely, willie that he at least has in its most advanced form plet call schizophrenia. that's just from three days. and the back and for the is insane. i think what we need to try to dig into today is, first of all, how much does it degrade his effectiveness because word do matter and at some point even his own followers may say enough. but, secondly, why did he do what he did yesterday? because he always now last tuesday's horrid press conference where he equated a

fascist with anti-fascists, the rest of the week everybody was rushing out going "we had nothing to do with that", the staff. right after the speech in phoenix, they all started immediately leaking, "we had nothing to do with this." i got the sense that general kelly i think at this point is pretty fed up with it. i wonder if general kelly and there's no way he will. >> even if general kelly got him in that nobody believes that the yesterday's version of donald trump is the real donald trump. the message of healing and unity is the one that he actually believes, because when he's not on the teleprompt when he

totally undid his words and talked about both sides. >> why does he keep going back and for the and back and forth, though? pick a side. it doesn't even mack sense for donald trump. pick a side. >> well, i think in the case of charlottesville, he didn't like that he was -- personally felt that he was railroaded into making the speech that he made so he came out at trump tower and said i got pushed these these word and apologies and the arrest of it, i think it personal grievance, which donny deutsch speaking. >> these are fraction times. >> you know, willie geist,

things must have prngs it's kind of sad when you have a veteran who has had a storied career in the field and that's not going to get you any dates these days. >> you called when i said the trump rhetoric in north korea was okay, be not with that morning. kprp and carol lee joining us in washington. of so why didn't he give a

contrite speech and gaver in part of this during the campaign. it just depends whether they can get her to be on the teleprompt b. from this show doesn't have very much teleprompter and you see the personalities of the people, like a willie geist, a donnie deutsche. >> there's no way the trump presidency will succeed unless he's himself and he's just not himself on teleprompter. so yesterday didn't solve a thing. it just creates people wondering why he can't be like that more often without the teleprompter.

>> so, donnie, you have obsessed, it been your job to obsess over brand management for corporations, public fings are and he's cutting against and you're going to continue narrow casting, which keeps you at 33, 34, 35%, i mean, he will not get re-elected. if he continues narrow casting, he will lose badly. there were a couple of polls out yesterday showing both biden and bernie sanders just absolutely destroying him like 51, 5 % to 35, 36%. but if you're going to narrow cast, nair other cast. if you're going do expand your audience, expand your audience and have the guts to do that knowing that your base is going to stay with you. but he's in a dead zone here. what do you you tell why are

client if i would tell my client they need help. you know, i watched the speech the other night and we've been at this for two years now. we all try as intellectuals to and no, no, no, donnie, owe we put out this ad that says we're sporty, we sexy and the new gm and the next day they put out an ad that said, hey, ear why father's frpgs that's what i'm

talking about. what would you say to that gm ceo that changed his image radically every day? >> would i say what any third grader would say to them, you stant for something. a brand is a set of you're going to stand for nothing. you within i would say people are going to turn you o flchlt nothing matters anymore. that's what happens. yours sffrpgs richard haas and

we've all seen this through the years. at what point does his grace pull on to this and at what point does the stop trying to ul f the media is evil, the media is bad, the take news, fake media, fake news. after a while there were reports that the crowd started to dipercent and fade away in the middle of this speech in phoenix and that it wasn't as big of a crowd. independe independent. for frmt nobody was listening by

in can be krk if you're going to feed the best, you have to keep it most and more and for me it impossible to sustain. >> and is this attempt from dies buyon ands will fchls it raises at least foreign policy concerns overseas because these things are heard around the world. it's not just an person echo came bers. it raises whether other countries can rely on her bus brngs whatever the domestic political upside, there's not easy to know it works against

anything you might want to accomplish in the world fwrmt 59% disapprove of the job he's doing. 61% feel president trump is doing more to unite the pack and. 60% said he's doing more to divide the country. and 30% feel trump is bringing the right type of change. 23% say there's been little change at all. voters are against the way that trump talks about the media by a nearly 2-1 margin. 40% approve of the media's coverage trump while disappoint ma. >> i think they care about the numbers for the base, that's

what i'm told. and they feel like the basis is holding steady. among republicans in a hole, you see some drop in raspberry but it's still pretty good. >> oo frrnlt sffrmt. >> that's some of the up and down. but if you hook it. he feels like from what. that's right. and we've talked about over and over again. he feels like what worked for him during the campaign would work for him -- frnl he had a

script at that rally and -- it takes him become to campaign and fmt it was military members where he's announcing a policy for afghanistan. they f they had n and in his private time mistaken. he's clearly someone who sits and and thinks about who's given him, in ands that when he feels free to unleash. >> marc n right now again, it

just the base. and it so interesting, we're talking about the white house and we're just focused about the base, we're just focused about the way, we've al about it prch has been so lowered, the expecks for drft. other than behavior and pen. i think we need to ask following for fshlg atlas and you a pollster bragging about a poll that show that 42% of republicans pr prrks only 42% of

the republican party sure they would vote for donald trump in a re-elect. f because of this steve bannon focus. >> the people in the white house think they've convinced the president that he needs to chang course. he switched chiefs of star, prks there's not a fundamental as soon as zprfrm academics, many people who work in the white

house, cabinet prnfrrjts would suggest he just want to do more of the same. >> i'm sofr, go ahead, sir. >> go ahead, donnie. >> sfchlt kol jis. we have to stop looking for lodge being,ly say that and start looking to federal budget instead i will use the word illogical. i was watching you yesterday morning and you looked tired. i'm not saying that just because -- you are a handsome man and always will be a handsome man. >> thank you very much. >> but it gets to a point where

you can't put your arms around it anymore. there are no chess move to go, ah. . . and a particular state of mine ands that ands thattin. >> chip: well, it may not be that he has predementia. it may just be that. i will go crazy and i will be so inappropriate and i will tay nusk i will be abusive to her. i don't know who else did or didn't, i didn't follow it that closely, if somebodies in fshl.

>> when people do work for me, instead of paying them, i will hire lawyers and i will make them drag me to court and i will show absolutely no class, i will show no dignity, i will try to take advantage of every person i can. and then you start running for president, you attack war heros, you attack meggin kelly. just go down the line. you call beauty queens fat. you attack mothers whose sons gave their lives in iraq, gold star mothers. >> please don't foe get the pope. >> you attack all of these people and you still -- >> you attack the hope and you win. >> they will never repeat themselves again, okay? that is neff, ever going to

happen again. you could have run the election a hundred times in a hundred defer so, donnie, the mistake his makes is -- by the way, he even said that. if the lebss were held a week before, i pro have sfwrernl that's why you guys beating him by 15, 20 points. that's why mitch mcconnell is going i don't need this guy. he's a loser. yeah, i may be at 18% kentucky but i can take care of kentucky, he can't. fix this. and tease what donald trump doesn't understand. so they continue narrow casting and that are riding it off a

cliff. kim jong un, now they'll boo hav haven. >> to me that's a about why were zbrrjs but our frmt that often would help him in the rough and tum p that's still his mindthis

the. >> he's a previous mine to change yet, it's foolish. let just say what we all know. tuesday night in phoenix was drft. yesterday night and yesterday. listening to general kelly or whoever the rizer was who got no f when you're president and go after mitch mcconnell and you call up tom tillis and i do all these things that politico is reporting this morning. those are the people you need to become a great president. he need all these people and he

shouldn't be firing indiscrip nantly at them. >> that's what we were talking about yesterday, what didn't make sense. and what i don't understand why trump supporters don't even get this is that everything he is doing is hurting his agenda. pass tax reform. >> to pass regulatory reform all of these people, he's just hooting himself in the foot politically. it makes absolutely no sense and yet he still keeps dpog it dlajt there's a famous story where but

eisenhower succeeded as prz because he apfrm won't help him uk sed n he had fail as president. >>. ffrm or have they given up on that snm this as the white house permanent come him really try to oug pufrpgs sure there's the paper flow.

in the idea he can control the president is just -- he can't. he knows that to a certain, tent. and so the focus seems to have been on the staff and how to create an apparatus around him that is at least functioning in a way that can try to move the president's agenda forward. the president is heading into this fall where there's a number of very serious legislative issues and funding the government in this rift with congress, see republican kind of tuning him out. how that plis out is going to depend on how he engages with them this fall. think think there is some hope, at least on the hill, johnson kelly will make that process go a parkmorningen yrn the tez

drengs contender joins us ped. also, testifying for ten hour on capitol hill hill. senator dick blume that winthal up. we'll be right back. uh... yes, erin, it is great time to score a deal. we need to make room for the 2018 models. relive the thrill of beating the clock. the volkswagen model year end event. hurry in for a $1,500 in available bonuses and 0% apr for 60 months on a new 2017 jetta or passat.

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order the minutes released. >> i would like to know what they discovered in that meeting and i would like the transcript released. will you do that? >> the answer is it will take a vote of the committee to do it. >> but will you do that? >> of course we will put it to a vote of the committee. >> will you personally vote for the release of the transcripts? >> i don't know why i wouldn't. >> senator grassley also said simpson and his attorney would have to receive a copy of the transcript to look over before it was made public. an attorney for simpson said the transcript reveals all of the testimony based on the hours of staff. he said we appreciate the opportunity to review the

transcript. joining us, democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. senator, will these transcripts be made public? >> i believe they will be. i certainly will vote for them to be made public. glen simpson should testify in the committee in the open, under oath, and so should the others as well, donald trump jr. and the person -- anyone involved in that meeting in early june that involved apparently jared kushner and others. >> remind us why glen simpson is significant to the investigation here. >> because he compiled a dossier that implicated donald trump in the russian meddling and other potential wrong doing but also he is apparently a close

associate of those who attended, includi includi including paul manafort. we want to make sure whether it's the release of the transcript or anything else we in no way conflict with the special counsel's role. he should be protected by legislation that i've offered and others, that's bipartisan. >> was he a compelling witness? did he become more interesting to you after ten hours of testimony? >> every witness is going to be interesting to me.

every witness potentially has facts that are relevant to the investigation and those facts may be more interesting the more we learn. >> mark? >> senator, one of the issues that seems to be coming to a head are who are glen simpson's new customers? his firm seems to be claiming they're not a law firm, there's some sort of attorney or client privilege here. should the government be able to compel an investigative firm who its clients were? >> an investigative firm unless they are working for an attorney and somehow that kind of investigative result is an work product and certainly is unprotected. >> did he refuse to say who his clients were in his temperature?

>> i can't go into what the subject of the testimony was but my hope is there would be no objection to him testifying fully and frankly before our committee. >> you mentioned donald trump jr., you want to hear him testify. has he been cooperating with your investigation? when are you going to testify they have very important information about the substance of that meeting which directly implicates potentially the trump campaign. and the question is what did the president know and when did he know it. and protecting the special counsel through legislation what we've offered is more and more important. it's bipartisan legislation because the closer we come to those kinds of facts, the greatest the threat will be of political interference. >> it's always great to to you have on the show.

obviously a will the of distraction, so much attention has been turned from north korea, to that your committee's investigation is going? do you think there's still good, bipartisan cooperation? are you confident that you all are pew suing to give robert mueller the time and the space and the freedom that he needs to do his job without being fired by the president of the united states or people that the president of the united states orders to fire? >> i am pleased so far with the bipartisan approach to the

investigation and i'm satisfied that chairman grassley is committed to uncovering all of the truths surrounding potential obstruction of justice in the firing of jim comey and other actions and threats that the president has taken. this obstruction of justice goes directly to the oversight responsibility for the i think that the legislation we've offered to protect the special counsel against political interference has growing bipartisan support. it was introduced by myself and lindsey graham, along as with three democrats i think because of the apparent boom ranging

we're seeing veering and some f of. and at the end of the day, in our investigation, as well as in the special counsel's investigation, i they'll become the bulwarks of our kpascy. >> senator, thank you for coming in. >> politico has reporting on two frent front, inside the president's increasing effort o take down jeff flake and his clashes over russia. we'll have that and more reporting just ahead. ♪ ♪

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i think it's important that we all stay unified as republicans to complete our agenda. those go gentlemen are people i respect, know, like and are friends with.

we disagree on certain issues. i can think of a couple with those gentlemen, but nevertheless we have a very good working relationship. it's important for us to be unified and i think the president is employing a strategy that he thinks is effective for him. >> well, it's not of course effective for him and we all know it's not effective for him. it's a strategy that paul ryan has never ememployed ployed in s years. the apologizing for donald trump at some point has to stop, from paul ryan especially. paul ryan and mike pence both, the two guys that i know and like very much, but at some point you just have to call a spade a spade and say that is not helpful. it not only hurts the president's agenda, it hurts the country's agenda and -- that

needs to be said by the speaker of the house. >> the speaker of the house has mitch mcconnell and other people coming out and speaking out against some of the rhetoric from the president. mitch mcconnell came out in support of jeff flake really quickly when donald trump attacked him, rallying around his fellow republicans. for whatever reason, paul ryan seems to hem and haw. mike pence i understand a little more but you'd like to see aly mo -- a little more from the speaker. >> and say his name when david duke takes great comfort from the words of the president of the united states. paul ryan needs to step up and start doing that. not just for the take of this country but for his own sake. let's bring in the co-author of

"political playbook." if it's a strategy, it's the stupid strategy on capitol hill. you guys are reporting that he's called quite a few people and done quite a few destructive things, destructive for his own efforts in trying to build a governing coalition. >> yeah, it befuddling. eye find myself saying that more and more recently. there's simple math here. you need 50 votes to pass anything. so if he angers two people, he's not going to get it done. he called bob corker and complained about russia sanctions in an angry phone call, called thom tillis about legislation that senator blumenthal was just talking about, about protecting bob mueller. i want to touch on the paul ryan piece for one second.

this occupies an unhealthy mind set. the way ryan sees it, he's spent a lot of the campaign. i'm just trying to illuminate the thinking here. he spent a lot of campaign dumping on donald trump. he didn't endorse him initially, as you'll recall. he was disgusting by him in many ways and said so. i think he feels like the guy won the election, a lot of people argue he's taken it too far and given him too much rope and it is one of the continuing story lines on capitol hill, his unwillingness to really, really go after donald trump. but it's what everybody's talking about all the time on capitol hill. so it's an accurate reflection of kind of the conversation in d.c. >> paul ryan is seen by a lot of conservatives like me as a very gifted guy who may still have a

very bright future in the republican party. even beyond the speakership. and when he remains silent, when we're in the middle of national crises, when the president of the united states provides aid and comfort to white supremacists and neo-nazis and klansmen are coming out and thanking the president of the united states and white nationalists are coming out and thanking the president for the coverage he is providing them, it's what i said back in 2011 was calling barack obama a racist who hated all white people. if you want to assume the mantle for the head of your country, paul ryan has to stop worrying about his district in janesville. he has to stop worrying about

the next piece of legislation he wants to pass. he has to worry about something bigger and that is the health of our constitutional republic. at what point does he speak out? if you're not going to speak out when the president provides comfort to nazis and white supremacists, when the hell are you going to start speaking out and showing courage? >> there's two ways to look at it. one is he's been as outspoken as any national republican leader, save mitt romney, in criticizing the president and taking him to task in things like when he criticized a federal judge after "access hollywood," et cetera. on the other hand, he's been as big an enabler of donald trump because he is speaker and he has tried to compartmentalize and focus on the agenda. >> real quickly, ben sass has been more aggressive, bob corker has been more aggressive.

i can name ten republican senators who have been more aggressive in calling out what is clearly wrong. paul ryan hasn't. >> well, sass may rival what ryan has done. the other people you named i don't think have been as outspoken at times as paul ryan and paul ryan has done it as speaker of the house. in a couple of weeks what paul ryan is going to have to do is keep the government from defoughting on its debt and keep there from being a government shutdown. he still has things about the president that he doesn't like will not stand in the way of solving those. i have talked to the most powerful donors in the republican party and the top

exact adviseds. they're like we can't change him, we're just going to be quiet because he's not going to do what we tell him to do anyway. actually, the only thing donald trump respond to is blunt force rhetorically rhetorically or politically. that's all he responds to, and paul ryan since donald trump has won the nomination has been silent and meek. >> i completely agree with what mark said. i think the way ryan looks at it for better or worse is he leads 246 other house republicans, many of whom are not bothered by a lot of this stuff. for better or worse. i'm not passing judgment one way or the other, and it's kind of plit cll -- internal political survival in some sense. but i agree with mark. there's been really nobody as outspoken, and even mcconnell, mcconnell tried blunt force, and it didn't really work on the legislative front. so it's a really tricky position

for all these guys. i think they're grappling with it. what mcconnell said -- it's funny what mcconnell said about trump legislatively, he's inexperienced, too high expectations, those are facts. he's never been in government before and trump just laced into him. >> well, and willie, at some point they're either going to keep pushing back at him and get him to start bending a little bit to the will of what they need to get legislation passed or nothing will ever get done. but doing it the way they've been doing it is not going to work. as far as jake said he didn't want to pass judgment on a lot of the republicans that deal with what donald trump is doing, i'll be glad to. he's providing aid and comfort to neo-nazis. it will lead to the end of the

republican party, and paul ryan has a really difficult job, probably one of the toughest jobs in washington d.c., but he also is the third-ranking person of the united states of america. at some point, willie, you've not to worry about your country more than you worry about your home district or the next piece of legislation. >> what is your red line has been asked if you're a republican, the red line the president could step over at which you would confront him. for many people, unfortunately it wasn't charlottesville. people hanging in with him. jake, you have an extraordinary story about the president calling senators corker and tillis both on questions over russia and asked them to reverse the positions. they stood up to him and pushed ahead. ahead, we'll bring in bob costa with his latest reporting. we'll be right back on "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." donny yrvei want to ask you abo this robert lee situation that's going on with espn. what in the world? if -- we all make terrible mistakes. right? we all have somebody that says hey, that sounds like good idea. or we get a hair-brained idea ourselves. but at some point you realize that you screwed up and you're like i really need to walk this back. espn still not walking it back. will you please talk to them? >> yeah. >> and say this -- robert lee should be announcing at the -- we should apologize to him. we should apologize to our fans, and we should apologize to all the new trump converts because of our stupidity over the past

week. >> robert lee is an asian announcer on espn. he was about to cover a virginia football game preseason game. and they pulled him off because they were concerned particularly because it was virginia, because his name was robert lee. i always believe that consumers are relatively intelligent and they would know that was not the deceased general calling games and talking. i would assume the consuming public could understand that. so to your point, that is an overreaction, and it actually, unfortunately, feeds donald trump red meat to say you see what's happening now? it's actually -- i would love to have been in the meeting with that brain trust when they said we got to put lee on the sidelines. let's bring in ulysses grant to cover this game. >> he calls a good game. >> they're saying they're doing this to help the guy, willie. now, to protect the guy. again, that is such an

overreaction. it's lunacy. it's political correctness just -- it's just stupid. i can't imagine why espn is still holding the line and not backing down and saying we really screwed up. he's going to be there. the guy can get a standing ovation at the beginning of the game, and espn would get higher ratings than for any virginia game for years? . >> the part of the initial statement that got me is at the end they said we're sorry this became an issue. it wasn't an issue. nobody knew about it. they made it an issue by creating this. the other side was they were worried about his safety, i guess. i don't know who was threatening robert lee. >> from whom? >> but the game and with all due respect to the two teams, uva against william and mary, i don't think a lot of people were going to be watching that. it wasn't going to become an international meme to have robert lee. if it was, someone would have put that out and people would

have laughed given the irony of it being in charlottesville. with due respect to my family and friends at espn, they stepped in it at this one. >> it shows what's happening with the president on down how the country is on edge to the point where you get this insane overreaction. >> yeah. >> i actually it was -- >> we're at the top of the hour. thanks so much for tuning in to "morning joe." willie, we have seen a tale of actually two presidents over three days. donald trump trying to be presidential in an afghanistan speech that i think most people were comforted by, even if they didn't agree with a policy. and then, of course, the next day in phoenix he did just what everybody thought he was going to do, and then yesterday it was peace and sunshine and the biggest little city in the world as you said in reno.

let's take a look. >> we cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other. >> believe me we have plenty of anarchists. a wound inflicked problem a singl single member of our community. a wound inflicted upon us all. it is time to heal the wounds that divide us. it's a very dishonest media, those people right up there. a new unity based on the common values that unite us. i really think they don't like our country. when one part of america hurts, we all hurt. these are sick people. when one citizen suffers an injustice, we all suffer together. i went to better schools than they did. i was a petter student than they were. we are one people with one home

and one great flag. i hit them with everything. i got the white supremacist, the neo-nazi. i got them all. we have no division too deep for us to heal. kkk. we have kkk. i got them all. there is no challenge too great for us to conquer. the only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself. loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another. one vote away. i will not mention any names. decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the oval office. very presidential. isn't it? love for america requires love for all of its people. how dishonest these people are. we are people who love. i didn't say i love you because you're black. we are people with heart. or i love you because you're

from japan. we are people who adore -- or you're from china or you're from kenya or you're from scotland or sweden. in america we never lose faith. this is me speaking. >> that's the same man over the course of three days this week. with us we have senior political analysts mark hallparen, donny deutsche, shannon petty piece, and mark lebovich, catty k, and robert costa. >> mark, it's dizzying. what's your take away from the past three days? >> i think one of the things we often think about is how to explain to future generations what happened during the trump

administration. and i think the last three days is going to be one of the hardest to explain because of not just the discrepancy but the stakes involved and the fact that at a time when everyone is looking at him, congress is away. north korea, the debt ceiling, what happened in charlottesville, under incredible scrutiny, this is the way the president performed. it's hard to explain now let alone 30 years from now. >> and the stakes that you speak of, of course, tasty trump steaks. let's go to bob in washington. bob, do you have any reporting of the last three days? is this general kelly versus donald trump or is this donald trump versus himself? >> general kelly when he came in always said he was going to be more focussed on managing the staff as chief of staff than managing the chief. my sources in the legislative office and around the legislative teams in congress say they're just trying to get the budget passed and the debt

ceiling done, trying to co-ral president trump is probably too tall an order, especially as he fumes about news coverage. >> yeah. catty k, what in the world was the world say about us after the last three days? charlottesville, obviously, was a shock to the system, but they see a president who is struggling to act presidential. and just ping-ponging back and forth. what in the world could our allies across europe and the world be saying right now? >> it's interesting listening to the two speeches back to back, every time it gets to the reno speech, i find myself nodding off because his cadence is flat and bored. this is not donald trump struggling with his better angels and his more evil angels. this is just trump is the person speaking in phoenix. the only person that was speaking in reno is the person who didn't believe in the way she was speaking and had been pushed into that by his advisors. the world looks at this as it

has done for the last six months and allies trying to figure out what can they work with america on now or not. and they don't trust what comes out of the president's mouth to reflect what's going to happen in a week's time. just as we don't. what he says on monday to germany or britain or france might not be what he says next wednesday to britain and france. that's the problem allies are dealing with. there no longevity in the message out of the white house. >> the substance monday night was deadly serious. sending more troops to afghanistan. north korea is still in the background. he threw out in phoenix just sort of an off the cuff remark, we'll probably terminate nafta. that sent a lot of people saying wait? whether or not he meant that or that was prepared is unclear. how do you manage if you're looking from the world and that's what the perspective you have, how do you manage this president? >> well, the answer is the rest

of the world goes about its business without us. the rest of the world also increasingly -- they all have files. it's called how we look after ourselves because we can no longer count on the united states. we're setting in motion a world where u.s. influence is down and countries take matters into their own hands. it's a more dangerous world. that's going to be the structural result. if this continues for another three and a half years. one thing about the speeches. the one good moment of the last three days was in the afghanistan speech. i thought the basic policy was right. we're going to stay there. our goal is not to change afghanistan. it's essentially not the lose, not to see it become a terrorist haven. what the president said i've changed my mind. unless i'm missing something, that was the first time as president where he's basically said i've learned something. i've now come to a position i wasn't comfortable with during the campaign. but here's where i am now and

here's why. if that became a template, i'm not saying it will. i know it probably won't, but if that became a template for his presidency, that would be the best news of my week. that was the first time i've seen him as president actually act presidential. >> and shannon, it appears in that case he went through the more conventional review process. deliberated, spoke to advisors before the speech. >> right. and that lasted about 24 hours, maybe less than 24 hours. when he was at the rally the next day and back to his old self. that afghan process, i was traveling last week with the vice president who was incredibly involved in this decision, spent the summer meeting with military leaders, national security leaders, reviewing data on the plane back from panama. before this camp david meeting he was continuing to review informati

information, that, a very thought out well-laid out process. but -- so to dr. jekl and mr. hide, you see it on one issue, and on another issue like transgender military service members, it comes out of nowhere on a tweet. >> there's a lot of grading on a curve when donald trump makes one decent speech on monday about afghanistan, you have people online and people on television saying well, that was presidential. that was a good speech. he kind of did what presidents are supposed to do and then dips back to who he is on tuesday night in phoenix. >> it's not unprecedented for presidents to have different speeds. there are presidents who have conversational speeds and teleprompter speeds. what's striking is how you don't know what you're going to get on a given day. it's a whirlwind. the other thing is just the volume of trump. we are in a recess period. congress is not back until next week. this is a time to sort of take

stock, especially after what's been a traumatic two weeks for the country. and yet he remains in our faces every single day, and this is what he sort of wants. he wants the attention. he wants to be talked about. at the same time this is a very sensitive as we talked about, time, and it's also coming on the heals of what's going on a very consequential month in which substantive things are going to be resolved. again, it's exhausting, first of all and confusing. you have to wonder how long this is sustainable for. >> bob costa, one group of people watching this closely are people at "the wall street journal" editorial board. a piece reads donald trump is sore at mitch mcconnell for saying the president has excessive expectations for congress sometimes. mr. trump told a rally in phoenix he's going to shut down the federal government this autumn to get funding for his

border wall with mexico. the crowd loved it, but this is the political equivalent of holding a gun to his own head and saying if congress doesn't do what he wants, mr. trump will shoot himself. don't expect chuck schumer to try to talk trump out of it. it's never true how much of the rhetoric is real or bluster. the shutdown over the wall is one threat he'd be wise to abandon. democrats are going to end up voting to help not shut the government down, give votes to avoid a debt default. how will conservatives react with nancy pelosi partners with president trump to deal with those two issues? >> as much as the president is recalibrating rhetoric on foreign policy for his afghanistan on capitol hill and in the financial community, there's rrn about this whole showdown over the budget and the

border wall proposal. there's a few things on capitol hill. the freedom caucus wants the border wall funded. at the same time you could see the budget push forward into december, have a short-term bill to keep the government funded and just push off the fight over the border wall. there's also talk of just trying to water down what it means to have a border wall. you have some kind of technology provision that would win some democratic votes because it wasn't an actual physical wall that was being funded. just as a way to kick the can down the road and try to keep president trump happy at least to some extent. >> i want to ask about the perception of the u.s. brand overseas right now. the average citizen in your country and the pundits, are they able to separate donald trump from the united states, or is it somehow getting, you know what? the u.s. has lost their way a little bit and maybe they're not what we think they stand for, or can they delineate between the two? >> there's an enormous amount of

fascination in donald trump and why america voted for him, what he does and what he says, people are intrigued by it and report on it endlessly. there is also i think for the first time, and i go back to the anti-americanism of 2003 and 200 will, now there's nothing else going on. it's in european countries, a dismissiveness. a feeling america has lost its global leadership. people are starting to look to other countries. angela merkel was speaking in berlin and make a point about america. she said america can't be great if it pulls back from the world and isn't interested in things beyond it own borders. she said you can't have a feeling for yourself to be big others have to be smaller. it was a criticism of donald trump. people are looking beyond the united states at a time of shifting power balances around the world, they're starting to

think maybe this is not going to be a century dominated by america and by american values. it's going to be dominated perhaps by china, perhaps by russia even. and we have to figure out how to deal with that. i've never come back to a united states that has seemed so dismissed by european allies as i did this summer. >> and, of course, america can't be great if america recedes, but america can't be great if america isn't good throughout the cold war the soviets would always when we would talk about their enslavement of hundreds of millions of people behind the iron curtain, they would talk about how badly we treated american indians and how badly we treated black americans and how badly our leaders were on race issues. well, the past week has actually played into all our enemy's hands with charlottesville. they can point to their people on donald trump providing aid

and comfort to white supremacists, and it really -- the moral standing of this country actually is one of the strengths of this country despite all the mistakes we've made. and despite all the criticisms that, well, we even heap upon ourselves. that really has been undermined over the past several weeks, and it's going to take more than a couple teleprompter speeches for donald trump to earn some of that credibility back for this country. >> and there are a lot of people in the government who feel exactly what you feel. that's why you saw separate statements from the branches of the military over which donald trump as commander in chief denouncing racism and bigotry and doing things donald trump didn't do. that's why republicans and democrats were coming out to remind the country who we are. the other side of this, i would suggest is that the world and americans have to be able to trust and to take the word of what the president says. when he says offhand to go back,

he says i think we'll end up terminating nafta. you believe it's going to happen or you say he says stuff like that all the time and start ignoring the united states of america and the president. >> it would be a tough day to be the american negotiator in the talks. there's a story in the wall street journal, the world now is growing at over 3.5%. the united states is not growing close to that. and again, it feeds into what we've been talking about. the world is learning to get along without us. we've opted out of tpp. we may opt out of nafta. i don't know if it's a bluff. if we don't set an example, we lose influence. if we don't start passing things like tax reform and infrastructure building, we're shutting down trade and immigration. we're losing the engines of economic growth. we're not going to have the resources to play the sort of role we've historically played. we're going to end up with the america -- not so much america first. we're going to end up with america only.

it's going to be a much diminished country. >> and you can see that also in our foreign policy, and with the funding cuts that we've had, the fact that the state department is completely gutted. it is just a crisis of the first order, and here we are in august, almost into september, and still nothing being done in rex tillerson's state department to fill vital roles. bob, as we go into september, obviously it's a final push for the republicans to try to get something done. is there any hope that with republicans on capitol hill that they're going to do anything other than avert major disaster by the government shutting down? i mean, any hope that they're going to pass health care reform? any hope that they'll pass some version of tax reform? or are they playing not to completely lose the legislative year by shutting down the

government? >> joe, i was calling some major republican donors and saying what are they telling you behind the scenes. they said republicans on capitol hill are promising some kind of tax cut plan by thanksgiving. by the end of the year they think they'll have a tax cut plan. they know and they're telling to their donors the american people in many respects don't want to go after a lot of these tax deductions, might as well try to lower the individual rates. i think there is a difference, the whole discussion we're having about american leadership abroad. republicans on capitol hill are very much separating the question of moral authority in charlottesville and the question of tpp and nafta and how the international community sees us. they always expected the international community to turn away from the nationalist outsider president. it's more of the moral authority question that concerns them, not just all that together in one pot. >> all right. bob, thank you very much.

mark, we're going to have you come on down the hall and join us at the grownup table after the break. still ahead on "morning joe," congressman tim ryan far from sherman-esque when it comes to running for president. in the words of the ohio democrat, we'll see. he joins us straight ahead. first a live report from the white house. how the military is sorting out a presidential directive issued on social media. those new details are next on "morning joe." during our made to move 2017 clearance event, you can do endless online research. or, you can take advantage of our best offer ever on an xt5. don't wait. our 2017 models will be moving fast. you can drive a car... or you can drive a cadillac. come in now before the end of our made to move 2017 clearance event and leave with the perfect cadillac xt5 for your next adventure. choose a low mileage lease on this xt5 for around $339 per month.

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>> welcome back to "morning joe." mark, i want to bring you in here. obviously you wrote this town, you did the follow up with a piece about the age of trump. that's dated now with all the firings and the people who have left. but is there still a sense,

because and i'm curious if you agree with me. i've always said washington always wins, and it always does. we have institutions that have been here for over two centuries, and they usually grind down would be tyrants. is there a quiet feeling in washington d.c. that, okay, this guy's chaotic. he's all over the place but at the end of the day, he's going to be run out of town like everybody else that thought they could do it their own way? >> yes and no. i think on one hand people are wondering if this is, in fact, sustainable. i think the larger question is people tend to frame this as a question of will washington win or will he be tamed or will the establishment win out over the populists? this increasingly is not what this is about. this is something that seems to be deeply troubling a lot of people. not just on a level of what can get done, especially at a time

when you are playing defense if you're the republicans. but also, what is the nature of the republican party going forward? who is going to get elected in the republican party going forward? who are they speaking to? and i think wee are going, especially on a republican side to a larger existential set of issues that i think will define the country going forward. and i think also will define the trump presidency to see when he crosses a line or lines that will incite some kind of collection action from within the republican party. those are bigger questions. >> the reason i was asking you the question i was is because mika, obviously, a product of washington d.c., has been around the white house since she was nine, ten years old. i've been there for a while. we have two completely different views. mika is extraordinarily

concerned and doesn't know what that this ends well at all. i have more confidence in the institutions, that they will hold, that the courts will hold, that the constitution will hold. we went to an event a few nights ago. you had people washington insiders who said this is ugly. it's horrifying. but at the end of the day, our founders gave us pretty strong institutions. it's interesting that even washington people right now are trying to figure out how this will end, and just aren't sure. i do think you bring up a great point about the republican party. i think it's the republican party and not the constitutional republic itself that faces the biggest post trump existential crisis. i don't know how they survive it. >> i think also the question is not so much about establishment of inside washington but also the nature of what the

republican party is if you consider what the president spoke to in phoenix two nights ago. this is a question of -- there's just a lot of disconnect between who -- still trying to understand who the trump voters are, what they're listening to, what they're hearing that in a large portion of the nation, it's not hearing, and, again, what is -- what is the template? what are they looking for and what is trump continuing to give them? >> and who are the trump voters? the trump voters are one out of every three americans. that's who the trump voters are. sometimes we have to remember that. donald trump is in power. the guy lost the popular vote by over 3 million votes. he ran against somebody that many people consider to be the least effective general election candidate in our lifetime. there were people that were warning as early as the convention. you had people like joe biden and ed rendell saying the

democrats could lose this election. i think sometimes we overstate the trump voters' impact on america because it's one out of three americans. we'll see that impact next year, but when you're outnumbered two to one, it's usually not a very good indication for how strong your political movement is. >> yeah. i mean, there was an analysis i retweeted. i sent it out again it's an interesting way to think about trump voters. they're willing to overlook so much of what donald trump says and does, because they voted not so much for that guy but for a vessel to push forward their frustrations with us in the prez and the popular culture putting them into corners and calling then big

them bigots. we have to be careful, the backlash is probably greater than a lot of us maybe anticipated among trump voters. let's go to tim ryan of ohio. congressman, good to see you this morning. you made a comment over the weekend in new hampshire that had some people talking. you were asked if you'd pursue the presidency in 2020. you said i have no idea at this point but we'll see. i like being out in the country. you said maybe the country needs somebody from a place like youngstown, ohio. are you considering a run for president based on everything you've seen over not just the last seven months but the last couple of years in this country? >> i think a lot of people woke up after november, willie, asking can i do more, and that led to originally the race against the leader pelosi. right now i am and i think a lot of other people are solely focussed on 2018. we have a lot of opportunities to win the house of

representatives back. but i do want to be a part of that national dialogue that's happening out there of what democrats should stand for, why we're against what president trump is doing, but how we get our arms around everything that's going on with the economy to get the trump voters back. >> you were out before november talking about why people in places where you come from, the states that flipped and went to donald trump, why they might be leaning away from a democratic like hillary clinton. do you feel -- we're going on ten months since the election. do you feel that the democratic party has learned the lessons of november? >> i feel like we're taking steps in the right direction. i think having a major push on the jobs focus is really important, and i think that's a good first step. but we've got to really come strong with saying we're the party to be able to handle the

economy in the 21st century. we have the convergence of so many elements happening right now. globalization, automation, artificial intelligence. >> right now i don't think either political party has gotten their hands around it. what i want the democratic party to be is a party that can set an agenda to deal with issues that drive up wages and help people be able to afford college and health care. i don't think we can be hostile to business. i think while we can be for a progressive tax code and increase in dividends and corporate -- other kind of business taxes, i think we need to simplify the tax code. i think we need to lower the corporate tax rate. we can't just be the party of redistribution of wealth. we have to be the party of creation of wealth, and not just in silicon valley in wall street. in youngstown and the south, we

have to create new wealth in this economy. i want the democrats to be the party that's going to get their arms around this big issue. >> congressman, i'm going to sneak in a yes, no question. when you look in the mirror, do you see a president? >> not right now i don't, no. >> okay. >> do you talk to yourself? when you look in the mirror and you're talking to yourself, does anything else pop into your head? >> he does a stuart smally thing. >> quarterback of the cleveland browns was good for me. what price would you ask the president and paul ryan to pay to get your vote to raise the debt ceiling? what should the white house and the republicans give the democrats in negotiations to provide a vote to raise the debt ceiling? >> well, i think if they're

going to be talking about taxes, that's what the republicans are talking about. i would ask for a trillion dollar expansion of the earned income tax credit. that would put about $6,000 per family in their pockets. so something like that that's really big, really bold, going to help working class families, but we need -- as you said, have big issues that we want them to agree with for our vote on something that's really going to help save the economy that clearly i don't think they're going to have the votes on their side. let's get something big out of it and put $5,000 in the working class family's pocketbook would be big and bold. >> congressman, your district split pretty evanly between trump and clinton. that used to be a solid blue county. given your demographic, are their issues you feel like you could work with the president on? have you reached out to the president? are there areas where you think you, other democrats and the

sort of trump country districts could work together on? >> that's a good question. when i was on the show after november, i said absolutely. i want to try to solve problems, but this problem with his deep insecurities makes it to difficult. he doesn't keep his word. he's not a look you in the eye shake your hand and you can take that deal and move on with it. he's not that kind of guy, i hate to say. any deal you make with him, you're not sure if it's going to end up being what you originally agreed to. that makes it very tough. we have to lay broad band and get a new energy grid and have a big infrastructure bill to get people back to work and drive up wages. right now it's hard to deal with this president. he's chaotic. you're not sitting in a room. you don't know when he's going to turn on you. ask john mccain and jeff flake, the guys who are tried to work

with him. jeff flake even votes with the guy, and he's embarrassing him in his home state. he makes it very tough. >> you mentioned jeff flake, republicans in the house, do you feel them drifting from donald trump even if they supported him publicly? are they frustrated with the way he's conducted himself? >> well, i think they're very frustrated, and from our vantage point, it's embarrassing that no one will stand up to the guy. but i think the republican party right now, and joe has articulate third down many mornings on the show. they really have the tiger by the ears here. they're screw first down they let go and screwed if they hold on. i'm not sure if the tiger is the tea party, and now it's donald trump. if he gets out and he supports other candidates in primaries against republicans, that's going to be a very expensive, bloody, costly civil war within

the republican party. and so i think they're all hesitant to take them on, so they kind of soft step him and try to work with them to the best they can, even though i think not to be too judgmental about it, they're embarrassing themselves when they try to deal with this guy because he can't be dealt with. >> do you think the speaker of the house should speak out more forcefully against donald trump? >> no question about it. the speaker, mitch mcconnell, they're silent on some of the deepest moral issues that are facing our country. the president is consistently demeaning the office of the presidency of the united states. and i think that blowback is going to effect the republicans. i mean, president trump pretty much won as an independent candidate. he was a republican in name, but he was an independent candidate which is why he drew so many democrats who were willing to take a risk on donald trump. but having said that, the republican party is deeply troubled right now.

they have a lot of big fishers to try to deal with or just move on. i think winter is coming for the republican party. >> all right. congressman tim ryan of ohio. don't give up on that dream of being the cleveland browns quarterback. they could do a lot worse and they have. >> i got a bad back and a bad knee that's telling me it ain't going to happen. >> all right. well you played a little ball in college, so they might want you still. congressman, thank you. let's go to peter alexander standing by for us at the white house in the middle of a construction zone, it appears. peter, the white house expected to outline the president's transgender military ban in the coming days, the one he announced on twitter. >>. >> reporter: the white house is preparing to give jim mattis marching orders to enforce the transgender ban beginning within the next six months that would include giving them the authority to kick transgender

groups out. a memo seen by u.s. officials says mattis would be allowed to remove current service members based on their, quote, deemployability, deemployability being defined here as the ability to serve in a war zone, participate in exercises or live on a ship. notably, it would bar the pentagon from recruiting transgender payments and cut off payments for sexual reassignment surgeries for those already serving. the journal says the memo is expected to be sent to the pentagon in the next several days. we reached out to sarah huckabee sanders. she said they'll share an announcement when they have one. this came to be with a series of tweets in late july announcing the ban -- well, they proved to be pretty divisive drawing condemnation from leaders on both sides. the president saying he consulted with generals and military leaders but it was

later revealed he surprised much of the military brass with his decision. we'll let the men at work get back to what they're doing here and toss it back to you. >> how sad we have human beings willing to put their life on the line but the commander in chief says they're not fit because of their sexual identity choices. >> and there are purple heart winners who are transgender who are in the military currently. what happens? it's up to the defense secretary. what's the line? who can stay and who can go? this is a volunteer army, and you have people willing to give their life to the country. >> and a president who got six deferments and says a war hero like john mccain isn't a hero. senate republicans speaking out against president trump after he attacks a few of their own. plus is mike pence one of the most important vice presidents in modern history? we'll get the new reporting from

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>> wac back. shannon, you write in business

week about mike pence's role in the administration. quote, amid the back fighting tum you would and controversy that defines trump's presidency, pence remains a rare pillar of calm professionalism. he's avoided west wing knife fights, managing not to make enemies. he's also staeered clear of making public contradictions of the president and wisely avoided the gravest sin in trump world, overshadowing the boss, and yet a quiet tension looms over his role as questions swirl about trump's future and what may come after. attention has returned to pence and his future. he's shot down allegations of a shadow presidency. how tortured is mike pence when he has to go out and answer for everything donald trump says and does. we saw this week with matt lauer in the white house talking act

charlottesville and saying well, he came out strongly. he condemned it. does he believe everything he says or is he being a loyal side kick? i think he's embraced his role. he feels -- i think he feels comfortable in what he's doing. like i mentioned earlier, he's comfortable being in the position of smoothing over the rough edges of the president's foreign policy. before he went on the latin america trip, trump threatened a military action in venezuela with sirens going off there. and cooley would go in and say no, no, that's not what we mean. that's not what's happening. all this nafta talk. he's just able to seamlessly go in like nothing is going on and say we're renegotiating nafta for the 21st century and present an alternate reality of everything happening. >> does he believe it or is he

playing the part he believes he's supposed to play? >> he's probably the only one who can answer that. i probably talked to two dozen people about mike pence over the past two months. no one has suggested there's some sinister plot going on here. he knows that if mike pence was president, mike pence would do things differently, but he knows mike pence is not president. mike pence would not have beat donald trump. he is the vice president and trump is the president who was elected, and he is comfortable in that role. but certainly if he was president, he would be doing a lot of things differently. >> president trump obviously has put the vice president in difficult situations time and time again answering for what trump said. but mike pence knew what he was signing up for when he accepted the job. >> yeah, and the time he seemed most disquieted by the role was after the access hollywood tapes when he said he didn't think it

was appropriate. ever since then in tweets like when he returned from the g-7 meetings, he's kind of gushing tweets about how great the president is and how america is so lucky to have him. and it doesn't seem to ring false. it doesn't seem like he's playing a role. he seems happy to be the person who is constantly the president's champion when it comes to tough issues. one thing i think has been interesting and we should probably watch over the next few months is what mike pence says on the russia investigation, because he's been remarkably quiet about that, and there was some speculation around that time when people were talking a lot about bob mueller about why was mike pence being so quiet? was he protecting his own reputation? was he talking to fundraisers? and was there this secret ambition to take over should something happen to donald trump? >> and he shot down the reports of secret ambition. we'll see. let's bring in michael share.

one of the pieces inside the new issue is titled "trump tries presidential before reverting to old habits". michael, it's something we've been talking about this morning. we played clips at the beginning of the show showing the speeches from monday on afghanistan and then to phoenix and then to reno. different tone. one was a campaign style rally. but how can you be both if you're the president of the united states? how do you pull that off? >> i think that's something that the white house is trying to figure out. we had a similar situation in the late summer of 2016 when the president -- when the then candidate trump began to start giving policy addresses reading more off a teleprompter. at one point he apologized for things he'd said before. similarly at the urging of his staff saying to get back on track you're going to have to do that. i think what's happening here is that the white house, the people around the president, even the president himself realizes things are not going well, and they're trying to graft on a sort of presidential layer on top of the part of the

presidency that donald trump feels most comfortable with. and doesn't want to let go of which is his gut connection to his base and his sort of wrestling narrative he's created for the country of us against them. >> michael, when you say the west wing knows things aren't going well. what does that mean? do they, for example, talk to the president when he attacks jeff flake or when he harasses bob corker about a russia sanctions bill. going after members of his own party he needs to work with, do they recognize it as a problem or is there still the philosophy of let trump be trump? >> i think there's always been a misunderstanding that no one is standing up to trump or talking to him? from early in the administration trump has been getting advice contrary to what he does. reince priebus often telling him he didn't think this was a good idea. here's why.

' other people saying the same thing. trump listens broadly inside the white house. he doesn't agree with them and doesn't always go along with them. but i think that advice is continuing to go to him. saw th dramatization to this, he gave a gut response to charlottesville, on monday, he has to deliver a different speech an hours later, he tweets, basically, see, i told you so it doesn't matter, the press doesn't give me any credit for it. the next day, he's back to old form. >> that is a conversation happening, dramatized in front of the cameras. i think you have something similar happening now t. truce that's been held here is that the president is willing on policy to move. on afghanistan, he moved away where he was in the campaign. he gave a speech praising the troops, praising patriotism,

talking about the importance of diversity in the military, and then the next day, we saw what happened in arizona, so i think the operating theory rate now from the president is he can do both and he can begin to moderate some part of it, of his performance, without losing the part that he likes the best. >> it's tough to be credible, though wednesday, you give such a divisive speech in phoenix and the next day in reno call for unity in the country. >> that understand so much. the new issue of "time" is out tomorrow t. cover story is on how kids sports turn pro. thanks so much. still ahead, could president trump's business empire be in trouble? a slew of charities cut ties with what the president likes to call the winter white house. >> that story is ahead on ""morning joe"

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. >> we're having a fascinating conversation off camera. >> he's chickening out. >> no, he's not. >> if you give me 30 minutes

less than 30 seconds, it's unfair. all i can say is nothing, there is no public loss to mr. lee doing another game. nothing. no one is hurt. >> it's silly. >> i can give you the eight seconds, no one was going to notice anyway. >> it might. they were trying to be sensitive to people in a community still recovering. >> we can talk about it next hour. still ahead on "morning joe." >> 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. ? dean heller is another republican senator there facing a tough re-election, getting no help from the president. president trump was in heller's state yesterday. we will bring in political reporter jon ralston from that emwith theled state "morning

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>> wow. welcome to "morning joe." you know, for over a year now, there have been people that say you should not try to figure out the president's mental state and if he has any issues, don't try to be a pop psychiatrist or psychologist, but i can say safely, willie that he at least has in its most advanced form political schizophrenia. >> that is -- that's just from three days and the back and forth is insane. i think what we need to try to dig into today, first of all, how much does it degrade his effectiveness? because words do matter and at some pont even his own followers may say enough. but secondly, why did he do what he did yesterday? because he always, last tuesday's hard press conference

equated a fascist with anti-fascists. the rest of the week everybody was rushing up, we had nothing to do with that the staff. right after his speech if phoenix, the same thing happened, they all started immediately leaking, we had nothing to do with this. i just got the sense the second i saw this speech unfurl yesterday, willie, general kelly i think at this point is pretty fed up with it. i wonder whether he had a talk with the president or somebody else had a talk saying this is, general kelly will not stick around if this keeps up. >> i think the problem is, nobody believes that yesterday's version of donald trump is the real donald trump, the message of healing and the message of unity is the one he actually believes. when he's not on the teleprompter we see what we saw tuesday night in feejs or last

tuesday night when he totally undid his words and talked about many sides and both side, that's who he really is. >> why is he going back and forth, and back and forth, though. pick a side. he doesn't make sense for donald trump. pick a side. >> well, i think in the case of charlottesville he didn't like he was felt, personally felt, he was rail roaded into making a speech he made. so he came out at trump tower and said you at the what, i got pushed into these words, the apology the rest of it. i think it's a personal fwreevance which is what we saw on the stage in phoenix as well. let's spread it around here, we have political analyst mark halperin, donny deutsche with the bow tie. >> oh my lord. >> we will ask him why, generally speaking, why. >> these are fractious times. sometimes a little splinter can calm things a bit. >> willie geist things must have

really really slowed down in the hamptons for donny deutsche. his game, he's pushed against the wall, it's kind of sad within you have a veteran that's had a storied career in a field, is losing it, only to achieve gimmicks. >> that will not give you any. >> you called a couple weeks ago, i said the trump rhetoric about north korea was okay. it stopped in the hamptons, it just stopped. i'm working my way back. >> shuf him up and down main street. very sad. >> not with that betie you are not. >> also with us white house correspondent for plume berg news, and national political reporter for nbc news joining us in washington, carol lee. joe. >> yeah, let's go around the table quickly, mark halperin, why the back and forth? why does he give contrite speech one day, goes crazy the next and the next day gives another

contrite speech. >> i know you saw part of this during campaign, it depends on whether they can get him to be on the teleprompter. there was in the white house yesterday, a lot of anxiety and anxiousness over what happened in phoenix. not just because of the news coverage of it. what it said the kelly era will be defined be i the president behaving in a different way. they got him to read the teleprompter speech. the show doesn't have very much teleprompter. you see the personalities of people like a willie geist for example, like a donny deutsche. >> because there is no teleprompter, unfortunately. >> you're just fought gentleman to get, there is no way the trump presidency will succeed unless he's himself and as willie said, he's not himself on the teleprompter. so yesterday doesn't solve a thing. people wonder why he can't be more like that without the teleprompter.

>> donny, you have obsessed. it's been your job to obsess over brand management for corporations for public figures. around he's cutting against his -- it seems to me, you either go all in you go full on crazy, because that's what your base wants, you will continue casting, which keeps you at 33, 34, 35%. i mean he will not get re-elected. mark it down, if he continues nar ro casting, he will lose badly. there were a couple polls out showing biden and bernie sanders absolutely destroying him like 51, 52% to 35/36%. here's narrow casted. if you narrow cast, narrow cast, if you expand your audience, expand your audience, have the guts knowing your base is going to stay with us. he's in a dead zone here. what do you tell your client if

your client is like trump, bouncing back and forth with image, different images every day? >> i'm going to give you the honest answer to that when you are in the branding business, it's a personal business. i would tell my client they need help. i watched the speech the other night. we have been at this two years now. we all try as intellectuals to analyze and get our arms around it. i happened to stumble across the symptoms of a sociopath, i'm not at all -- >> no, no, donny, examine, if gm came to you and one day they said, hey, we just put out this ad and said worry sporting, sexy and the next, hold on a second and the next day they put on ad a said, hey, we're your fats's general motors, trusted us then. can you trust us now t. next day they said, sporty, sexy, a new kind of gm.

that's what i'm talking about. we don't need a pop psychiatry here him i'm saying as a branding expert, what would you sa toy that gm ceo that changed his image draft:i? >> i would say what any 3rd grader would say, you have to stand for something a. strand a set of values, this is our platform, these are the values you stand for. what i would also say to them, if you keep changing every single day, will you have no credibility, stand for nothing. you can't say one day, we will get you cleaner three times faster, the next day, we're going to soak your clothes this way. i would say people are going to turn you off. that's what's starting to happen. even on the extreme side of either side of the equakes, he goes, we're almost at the numbesque now. nothing matters anymore and that's what happens, your voice becomes irrelevant. >> and here is the question, richard haase, we've all seen

this through the years, at what point does his base go under this, at what point does the sprooek freak show stop pulling all the people in, how about if i go to the event, who is he going to insult? it's like if are you a dj, you are playing the same song. the media is bad the media is evil, fake news, fake news, fake media, after a while the crowds start to disburse, there were reports the crowds started to sort of fade away in the middle of this speech in phoenix and that it warn as big of a crowd and that's only natural. i remember and i'm sure you remember, too, reagan in 1985, '86, '87 was trying to get aid for any communist rebels in central america. nobody was listening by his sixth year in. this is so much more intense.

i wonder if donald trump loses his effectiveness that much earlier with his base? >> what you are getting at, if you have to feed the beast. you have to feed it more and more. it's impossible to sustain. joe, for me to question is whether this is impulse oracle calculation. is it something you can't discipline or is this an attempt and likely to fail of saying different things to different constituencies at different moments? you used the phrase narrow casting. sometimes you narrow cast to your buys or another constituency. i don't think it's sustainable and i also think it raises, at least in foreign policy concerns overseas, these things are we heard around the world. there is not an american echo chamber that raises questions because they don't know what us is anymore. it raises fundamentalal questions, who we are, what we are prepared to do. i don't think anyone is going to the president saying whatever is the political upside, though, it is not obvious there are any,

you might want to accomplish in the world. >> still ahead, more on the president's speech, from jon ralston from the biggest little city in the world. first the president's polling drops again, we'll talk about why he's still solid with the people who matter the most. as we go to break, here's bill kierans with a major storm. >> it's brooke, as we went through the overnight hour, our storm harvey went from a depression to a tropical storm, we call this rapid intensification. this is not what you want when we are 36 hours away from a landfall anywhere. now we are looking at the possibility of south texas as the actual area to get hit the wor worst. it looks like a hurricane all of a sudden. as far as the storm surge, the higher it goes, it was four-to-six. we're up to five-to-seven feet. another storm surge warning. mansfield all the way up into the galveston area.

these numbers will go up. evacuations will take place today. today and portions of tomorrow. that's it. people have to get out of the way of the storm. here's the latest. the new update, winds up to 16 miles per hour. we only have to get 15 more to make this a hurricane. the forecast has it at winds, a category 1 heading into landfall, midnight or saturday. this number will go up. now i wouldn't be surprised if they have it up at a category 2 and a category 3 is still in the cards. this looks like a little kid drew this map. this storm is going to sit here for about four days. we have a real big concern of a possible flooding. it will linger here. look at these squiggly lines. when you get a forecast like this, the first thing you have to deal with is a storm surge

and wind damage. then this will be a huge prolific rain maker. this is 15 inches of rain, through san antonio, into houston, southern louisiana, through wednesday of next week. we haven't had a storm like this in a long time. this is a dangerous situation. again, 36 hours left to make their house press, storm press, evacuate, especially around that corpus christi area, it looks like you are the target zone for what will be hurricane harvey later on today. we have more throughout the day on ms nbc. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. (vo) a lifetime of your dog's nutritional needs... all in one. purina one. healthy energy, all in one. strong muscles, all in one. highly digestible, and a taste he loves, all in one.

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day! welcome back now to the latest polling. according to quinnipiac university the president's approval rating dropped four points since last week down to

35%. 59% disapprove of the job he's doing. 31% of voters feel president trump is doing more to unite the country, down five points from after his first 100 days in april. 62% say he's doing more to divide the country. 45% say trump is bringing the wrong type of change, up two points in april. 30% feel he's down four points. 23% say there has been little change at all. voters are against the way trump talks about the media from a nearly 2:1 margin. at the same time, 40% approve of the media coverage, 50% disapproves. does donald trump care about those numbers? >> no. >> he doesn't appear about it. >> i think they care about the numbers for the base. they feel the base is holding steady, along the republicans as a whole, you see some drop, it's still pretty good around that

75% mark. so if you are looking at 2018, a primary and you are trying to primary someone like jeff flake, is the base solid? is it going after our establishment opponents in congress? that's what they care about at this point. a lot can happen between now an 3.5 years from now. >> carol, let's go to you on this question, the president, obviously, has been back and forth with rhetoric all week, if you look at the poll number, as s shannon said, 75% of the republicans are with him. he feels he's got his people with him. >> that's right. we talked about this over and over again. he feels like what worked for him during the campaign would work for him now. i think if you look at some of this has to do with the different audiences that the president is in front of. he had a script at that rally and he chose to veer from it. part of that is because he's in this rally.

he feeds off the crowd. it energizes him, takes him back to the campaign. he feels much freer to air these grievance, when you contrast the audience on pond, military members, he's announcing a policy for afghanistan, that's very different and yesterday it was the american legion, veterans, it's a very different audience. anyone who thinks this is a president who sits around and thinks about unity and moles over those issues in his private time is mistaken. he's clearly someone who sits around and thinks about who is against him, who is doing things that are unfair to him. when he gets into that arena, very campaign like, that's when he feels free to unleash. >> and you know he also obsessed with polls, he's obsessed with bringing people to his side, right now, again, it's just a base. and it's so interesting.

you know, we're talking about the white house. we're focused about the base, focused about the base. you know, we've all talked about it. everybody has been talking about how the bar has been so lowered for donald trump the expectations for donald trump. i really think, other than behavior and temperament and well being, i think we need to add polling to. that everybody looks at the polls and say the base is with him, the trump people do. he's at 35% right now and you had his own pollster going out yesterday bragging about a poll that showed that 42% of republicans would vote for him for re-election. it's astoupding, seven months in, only 42%, only 42 percent of the republicans party is sure they would vote for donald trump in a re-elect.

it's never been that low for any incumbent president ever. yet, mark, they were out yesterday bragging ability that, which shows you how pa thetic their narrow standing has become. because of this steve bannon focus and donald trump focus on narrow casting and the bays. >> the thing that i don't have my arms around, i have been trying is, the people in the white house think they've convinced the president he needs to change course, he switched chiefs of staff, he switched pressing is. she looking for a full time communications director. if you look at the speech yesterday with the different tone, there's not a fundamental change sense that the president has accepted the notion that things are bad, that things need to change. if you ask lobbyistssh members of congress, academics, many people who work in the white house, other cabinet members, they say things need to change. we can't no into september with the same battle plan we have for the last sempl seven months.

yet people doubt the president accepted that when you have citing polls and having the rally in phoenix, which suggests he wants to do more of the same. >> coming up on "morning joe" the infamous trump dossier was never supposed to see the light of day. the member of the firm that made it told congress what he knows behind closed doors t. question is, will whatever he said make it into the public domain? we'll have senator richard blumenthal on that committee ahead on "morning joe." electric light orchestra ] ♪ sailin' away on the crest of a wave, it's like magic ♪ ♪ rollin' and ridin' and slippin' and slidin' ♪ ♪ it's magic introducing the all new volkswagen tiguan.

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>> welcome back to "morning joe" glen simpson compiled the infamous unverified 35-page dossier about president trump's alleged ties to russia, spent more than ten hours being questioned by the senate judiciary committee this week. chairman grassley said yesterday he will release the testimony from that hearing and he presumes they will be released. >> judiciary, staff member, ten

hours, we'd like to know what they discovered in that meeting and i would like a transcript released. will you do that? >> the answer is i take ahold of the committee to do that. >> will do you that? >> of course, we'll put it to a vote of the committee. >> will you personally vote for the release of the transcripts? >> i don't know why i wouldn't? >> senator grassley said simpson's attorney would have to receive a copy to look over before it was made public. they said, quote the transcript revolleys all of mr. timpson's testimony based on staff. the committee can release the transcript if it so chooses, we will do so at the end of the day that transcript is the committee's, it is not ours. joining us here in new york city, democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. senator, good to see you, will these transcripts you made

public? >> i will vet to make them public. even more important, simpson should testify before the committee in the open under oath so should the others as well, donald trump, jr. and the person whoian one involved in that meeting in early june that involved apparently jared kushner and others. >> remind people, if you can, why glen simpson's significant to the investigation here? >> he's significant because he compiled a dossier that implicated donald trump in the russian meddling and other potential things. he is a close associate of a member involved in that early june meeting where others attended, including the

president's then campaign manager, paul manafort as well as donald trump, jr. and jared kushner. he has knowledge about matters relating to conclusion with the russian meddling as well as possible obstruction of justice and we're going to proceed with our investigation. but as you well know the special counsel is proceeding as well. we wanted to make sure, whether it's the release of the transcript or anything else, we in no way conflict with the special count sell's rule, in fact, he should be protected by legislation i offered and others, that's bipart zap that would make sure there is no political interference. >> can you offer insight, was he a compelling witness? did he become more interesting to you after ten hours of testimony? >> every witness is going to be interesting to me and every witness potentially has facts that are relevant to the investigation and those facts may be more interesting, what we

learned. >> look, one of the issues that seems to be coming to a head is who were glen simpson's customers, the people that hired his firm to look at the president's background, one was a public, one was a trat t. claim is there is an attorney or client privilege here. should the government be able to compel an investigative firm to reveal who its clients were? >> an investigative firm unless they are working for an attorney and somehow that kind of of investigative result is a attorney have been client work product, certainly is unprotected. so the committee ought to be able to -- >> did he, in fact, refuse to say who his clients were in the testimony? >> i can't go into the substance of the testimony was. again, my hope is there will be no objection to his testifying fully and frankly before our

committee. >> senior richard blumenthal, we appreciate you stopping if. thank you very much. coming up on ""morning joe,"" charities that take them to mar a la go for years, prepare to abandon the property. "morning i don't" is coming right back knowing where you stand. it's never been easier. except when it comes to your retirement plan. but at fidelity, we're making retirement planning clearer.

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. nobodyments me to talk act your other senator who is weak on borders? imagine what he will be able accomplish when he has america first house members and senators who are backing him up. >> dean heller is here, some place or will shortly be here. he's caught the first flight out. >> what's right for a country is embracing president trump's america first policies. >> welcome back to "morning joe" they are touting the president's america first language as they challenge incumbent republican senators with help from the

president. he was in nevada and arizona, joining us from reno, nevada the editor of the nevada independent and the dean, jon ralston and ms nbc news mark halperin, chief national correspondent for "new york times" magazine mark leabee oviz and catty kay. a hop skip and a jump from monday's speech, he was tempered and mellow to phoenix on tuesday, he was his old campaign self and yesterday a bit more tempered. what is the temperature on donald trump right now on this day in nevada? >> well, it's not good. it's pretty low. his approval numbers are about the same as in a lot of other places right now t. only person who has worst numbers in nevada

as donald trump is dean heller, they are now engaged in an incredible contest of one upsmanship who loves trump more attacking dean heller yesterday for being against the joe or payio proposed pardon somplt this is already starting right now in august of 2017, it's financial to be relentless, deep heller could easily lose that primary. >> it's a love-hate roller coaster with president trump and dean heller, president trump sort of mildly threatening him at times. is that the wise political move to hug president trump close? >> well, again, it's pretty early. here's the problem for heller. you mentioned that he's had kind of a hot and cold relationship. he was not exactly a member of the never trumpers, although, danny said so. he dead a lot of negative things

about trump. he only admitted to one of my reporters a week ago, he actually voted for trump. he would never talk about it. he knows danny tar canian has lost five election, he's won four primaries, why? the june primary has a very, very low turnout. who will turn out in june. the trump voters will turn out. tar canian is gambling he uses the same language that trump does, he defended trump on the many sides comment on charl charlottesville and some people were marching with the nazis and white supremacists. he is running so far to the right. establishment republicans in washington are fearful he will win that primary and lose on that senate seat. >> interesting there, too, the governor of nevada, a critic of president trump rode with him over to the american legion

event. the president tweeted this. quote, i requested that mitch m and paul r, ryan, tie the debt ceiling legislation into the bill that passed. they didn't do it so now we have a big deal with democrats holding emup as usual on debt ceiling approval. could have been so easy, now a mess says the president of the united states. mark halperin. >> look, they need a strategy to deal with the debt ceiling. i don't know when the president made that offer and why it was considered. they will have to figure everything out. because you cannot do this as republican votes. there is no easy model for when donald trump wins democratic votes, using the model calling out republicans to push them into doing something he wants done. >> in this case, keep in mind, he referred to them as mitch m and paul r.

it might be a self help thing. what's interesting ability this, it's retroactive. he is saying, this went on, now we have a mess. right? it's unclear how constructive it is. what is the president's strategy? i don't think he has a strategy here. there is no way a tweet like that or a series of tweets like that is going to buy any good will whatsoever with the kind of leadership in the house and the senate ha he needs. >> how we're in the midst of the a multi-part three. stand by for more. >> have you the dreaded elip sis. cat ki kay, president trump says the fake news is now complaining about my different types of back-to-back speeches. apparently, he has been watching this morning. while there was afghanistan, somber the ramally in phoenix, he will explain why it went back and forth that way. more here about the previous tweet with paul ryan and mitch mcconnell, the way president trump views his position in the artie and the a oval office as picking up the phone, berating

mimp mcconnell or calling bob corker, asking him not to vote for the rungs sanctions bill and his frustration that he's co-sponsoring legislation to protect bob mueller from being fired by president trump. this is the way he does business within his own party. >> it's the way he diz business in real estate. i think he calls bulling them, it's been seven month, it doesn't work so far. when he will learn this isn't the quite tacking the, particularly with senators, john, when we have been looking at the discussion of what would take for donald trump sport ertz to feel he isn't doing the job that they eelection day him to do. let's talk about that debt ceiling debate. if the government were to shut down as he suggested it might do, what impact do you think it has on nevadaens who voted for trump? >> well, it's very, very

difficult to tell. it's all speculative, especially in august what people will be feeling, look in june the primaries or november. but the support for trump is mostly concentrated in the 19 non-urban counties, rural nevada went for trump in huge numbers, for people worn conservative in the state, like the attorney general, those folks, if they turn out in great numbers, if they stick with trump, can still be a factor. i think those are the kind of people who will attend a rally such as the ones in phoenix. they are mindly loyal to trump. they don't care about the debt ceiling. they like the fact he takes on the news media. it's much more of a personal loyalty than policy loyalty. those folks out there in rural nevada, do not like democrats or the establishment.

i'm afraid many don't like the news media. mr. jon ralston in nevada, a place that there always seems to be something going on. it's great to have your voice in the conversation. let's go to sarah eisen. she is live, good morning, for the first time in a decade the world's major economies are growing in sync. >> reporter: good morning, willie, this is quite a milestone, actually quite rare to see across the globe over the last 50 years, it's only happened a couple times t. "wall street journal" did peck up since the first time since the financial crisis back in 2007, all 45 countries that are tracked by the big think tanks the eocd are on track for droet this year. most of them are set to accelerate growth from last year. the last two have been defined by pumps by the europe pen debt crisis. japan, worries about china and the emerging markets. it's all coming together this

year. >> that helps the markets reach new highs. it's good for the multi-national companies, coca-cola, general electric and the "wall street journal" is crediting central bankers for keeping policies super easy and letting the economies grow. we'll see what happens when they move into a new phase of tightening policy post-crisis. they will mention a bump in the housing market in this country. so the housing market has been pretty healthy. we did get a read on new home sales, which is about 10% of the market, showing a slide of 9% in the month of july, seven-month low home sales, two problems, this is widespread, got a little bump up in the mid-west, sales falling in the rest of the country. low inventory, high prices. in some markets, you are seeing shortages of new homes on the mark. that's squeezing prices very high. those housing prices rising

faster than wages, we will watch this so far housing has been pretty decent. we will get an existing read later on and we'll see how healthy that looks. >> sarah, thanks, so much. >> thank you. >> coming up next, senator mitch mcconnell is making remarks right now, we will keep listening, let you know if he breaks news, plus, more companies are taking a pass on the most beautiful chocolate cake you have ever seen, suddenly they have vacancies, we'll explain why next on "morning joe." what powers the digital world. communication. that's why a cutting edge university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble.

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charities that have long flocked to one of president trump's properties are increasingly backing out. gabe gutierrez explains why many are choosing a new venue instead of mar-a-lago. >> reporter: long known as the epitome of high society and glitzy palm beach, mar-a-lago is facing an exodus. >> they don't want to be associated with the president's remarks and many other actions that he's taken to be quite honest. >> reporter: at least 17 charities have pulled their annual fund-raising events from the so-called southern white house. many after the president's controversial comments about the violence in charlottesville. >> very fine people on beith sides. >> reporter: among the late toast leave the palm beach zoo and conservation society. others include the red cross,

the american cancer society and the salvation army. >> the decision was made because the whole conversation had become a distraction to the mission of the salvation army. >> reporter: tax records show rental fees at mar-a-lago run up to $276,000 per event, so the departures could cost the trump organization more than a million dollars. profits from mar-a-lago are placed in a trust for the duration of mr. trump's presidency while his sons manage the estate. the trump organization and mar-a-lago did not return a quest for comment. at least two organizations have not yet gailed, a police foundation and palm beach county gop. tammy donnelly is the group's vice chair. >> i think it's a shame that organizations that are supposed to be nonpartson and not involved in politics have made a very political decision by pulling out of mar-a-lago. >> reporter: the board of another organization is set to vote this week on whethermar-a- joining a growing list of groups for which politics and charity no longer mix. >> gabe gutierrez reporting for

us. joining us former director of the office of government ethics, senior director for ethics at the campaign legal center, walter schaub and the ranking mek of the house ethic committee, ted dor itch of florida. congressman, 17th charity has chance eled an event at mar-a-la mar-a-lago. the cleveland clinic, the american red cross, the gateway for cancer research among them. do you see a problem with the president still not divesting from even if it's in a trust for now, not divesting from his properties? >> of course i do. and the president's going to hurt by these decisions personally, but what's sad about this, willie, is that the president of the united states has become a pariah to these groups in his own home, in his own southern white house. the refusal to absolutely condemn without equivocation what happened in charlottesville continues to plague this white house. that's why these groups are pulling out.

it's not about politics. it's about morality and the lack of moral leadership coming out of the white house. >> so mar-a-lago sits just outside your district, adjacent to the district you serve. >> right. >> what is the impact of losing events to mar-a-lago? does it affect people who live in your district, people who may work there? >> well, fortunately, a lot of these event have already -- a lot of these group have already announced they beal moving to other venues in the area so they ol continue to make the contributions. but remember, these are the groups, these charities are the groups that by their nature help to make our xhoont and our country what it is. and the message that they send, like the message from the business leaders who pulled out of the advisory councils, like the message from the military leader who is felt compelled to respond, the message is that when we looked at what happened in charlottesville we didn't see any fine people. the only group who hasn't acted who must act to reassert moral authority is the united states

congress, willie. >> walter, let me go to you as an expert on this subject of government ethics. is there a problem? is there a conflict of interest? the money is in a trust for president trump. does that mean anything? is that a distinction without a difference? >> the trust is simply saying -- a scam. it's nothing more than a smokescreen to make you shi he's doing something, but it's a revocable trust, first of all, and second of all he's its direct beneficiary. it's no better than if he didn't simply create the trust. we're only in this situation because he decided not to divest his financial interest as every president since the enactment of the ethics in government act has done. so even the very fact that we're in this situation is the product of a conflict of interest that he decided to retain. and it's no surprise that charities are canceling because they're even more vulnerable to public perception pause they need to raise donations from the

sort of people who care about causes. this is happening in the context where business leaders are resigning from his advisory committees. they're even less sense ti tif than charities so of course it's happening. >> congressman, sometimes this happens, the withdrawal business lasts as long as the story is front and center. do you suspect that now that charlottesville has somewhat retreated from the front pages that mar-a-lago will get its business back? >> no. and, mark, i know we have a tendency to move on quickly in this country, but i watched the video again yesterday and the other group that's down here not in our district is a large number of holocaust survivors. and when you watch the nazis marching in charlottesville screaming jews will not replace e us and you realize that the president looked at that and saw

fine people, you also understand that this is not an issue that's just going the retroot aeat and into the background. this will be an issue when congress returns to washington next week and it needs to be an issue because congress needs to go on record just like nies charities, just like the business leaders, just like so many others expect for the republicans of congress and condemn what this moral equivalency has done to the white house and the moral authority of our country. >> walter, another topic on tuesday night in phoenix, ben carson introduced president trump at that campaign-style rally, carson, of course, the secretary of housing and urban development. there was some question about whether or not that was a political event, whether or not it was appropriate for a member of the cabinet to be there participating in it. what's your view? >> so there's no question it was a political event and cabinet officials are allowed to be at those. the problem is that they announced him using his official title, secretary of housing and urban development. and there's just simply

prohibited by the hatch act. a complaint has been filed with the office of special counsel which investigates these, and i'm hoping they'll take that seriously. we're at the beginning of a very long campaign, because who's ever heard of a president launching a re-election campaign in the first six months of his first term? so if they're making these kind of very fundamental mistakes at the beginning of that, we've got a long road a head of us and if the office of special counsel or somebody doesn't do something to deter this, it will only get worse as time goes on. >> walter shaub, thank you. ted deutsch, thank you for your time as well. catty kay, the president has finished that tweet. the first part, he says the fake news is complaining about my different types of back-to-back speeches. well, there was afghanistan, somber, the big rally,dynamic, and the american legion va,

respectful and strong. too bad the democrats have no one who can change tones. there was the tone but what we were focused on earlier in the show was the substance of what he was saying, which is that yesterday in reno he was talking about unity and bringing the country together and what we have to d to achieve that here, something far different from what he was saying on tuesday in phoenix. >> yeah. i think the question is, you know, do viewers and supporters and americans believe the authentic donald trump is what they saw in phoenix or what they saw in reno or can he will be all three of those thing, including the afghanistan speech. it's striking that the energy, the enthusiasm, the authenticity seemed to be in the phoenix speech far more than it did in the reno speech. if you listen to the reno speech, it's flat, he seems bored, he doesn't seem engaged in it, and i think that's what most viewers take away from that. it's -- the real donald trump was in phoenix. >> he gives himself his own reviews of one speech,

enthusiastic, die namfammic and fun. >> not to be self-referential, he might have been reon could h that. he could have been moving in circles p. >> stephanie ruhle picks up our coverage. >> thanks, willie. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to hit this morning starting with a shutdown. threats to screaming matches. that's where we're going. the relationship between republicans and the president seems to be disintegrating. >> the republicans will never get anything passed. you're wasting your time. >> 17 and counting. charities pull out of commitments to hold their big events at the mar-a-lago club. >> they don't want to be associated with the president's remarks and many other actions that he's taken, to be quite honest. >> and that dossier about trump and russia is back after testimony by the founder of the firm tt