>> good morning, it's thursday, september 21st, to say this is a busy news morning is an understatement. the devastation and destruction left by hurricane maria is extensive. the entire country of puerto rico is without power this morning. officials say it could take six months to restore electricity, we will show you where the hurricane is headed this morning. in mexico, rescue crews are working as we speak trying to find survivors in the rubble after tuesday's massive earthquake. children potentially still trapped under a collapsed school. we go live to the scene there. in politic, the republican's last gast attempt to repeal obamacare is set for a vote next week as the debate rages on over whether or not it actually protects people with pre-existing conditions and president obama is speaking out on that. there is news on the iran nuclear deal. president trump says he's decided if he'll pull out of the

deal, but he won't reveal his decision, apparently fought even to his own secretary of state and this morning, there are some major developments in this russia probe from both the "new york times" and the washington post. is the investigation getting closer and closer to the white house? we've got the reportert from both those papers who broke those stories and president trump has continually said he's done more in the first months of his presidency than practically any president in history. but a new poll out this morning shows people don't quite agree with that. i guess it depends on what you mean. we begin with the latest on hurricane maria, though, now, lashing the eastern dominican republic with its destructive category 3 winds. all yesterday, the storm pounded puerto rico throwing the entire island of 3.5 million people into darkness. the island is also without water and cell phone service t. monster hurricane smashed into the already struggling u.s.

territory as a category 4 storm, flooding homes and according to officials there, 70% of homes on the i'm had their rooves ripped off. joining us from san juan, puerto rico, nbc news correspondent tammy leitner. tammy. >> reporter: good morning. you know as the sun comes up here in san juan, residents will give some of them their first look at the devastation and it is heart breaking. we're standing outside of a bank and can you see that the doors just completely blew off the bank t. shutters are twisted, mangled messes here. from what we've seen, this is what it looks look, pleas after place, businesses with the rooves ripped off, streets that have become rivers. the freeways are completely flooded. many of them impassable because of the streets and the downed power lines. but one of the biggest problems is, they still don't know the extent of the damage. we spoke with the mayor, who was

very emotional. let's go ahead and listen to what she has to say. >> i'm 54-years-old, i've never seen devastation like this one. the puerto rico and san juan we knew yesterday is no longer there. so we have to reconstruct, rebuild, reinvent. we have to be resilient. and we have to push on. if not with our bodies, with our hearts and our souls. i am concerned we may not get to everybody in time. and that is -- >> reporter: obviously, she's very emotional. because at this point we really don't know the extent of the damage. not until officials are able fly over the island and check some of the more remote parts of puerto rico. places we visited in the days leading up to the storm, where there is very little running water still from irma, where people live in tin and wood houses. so there's still a lot to be seen of what type of damage

there is. back to you. >> thank you very much. let's go straight to meteorologist bill karins with a check on the storm's latest track. bill. >> good morning. typically, after huge storms like this it takes two-to-three days to get a proper assessment of how bad it was and the damage is. we are 24 hours after that. we will get more pictures today. it doesn't help the whole island doesn't have power a. 50 miles wide, lashing the dominican republic t. story overnight was the torrential rains would not stop over the island t. entire island, which is 100 miles west to east is under a flash flood warning. the weather service says catastrophic flooding continues on the island because of the heavy rain. we are starting to get a few images in, a few pictures of the hardest hit areas. this is down towards where the eye made landfall. this gentleman was trying to find if he had valuables left in the house. you see the concrete structure, the base, it was fine.

he obviously lost a wall off the roof. structures behind it, lost roof, roof damage. this is the issue we will deal with. people don't have anywhere to live. they can't stay in these structures, let alone the water and food issues in the days ahead. this is also in the same area, look at the trees, all the leaves stripped. more rooves damaged. this is in san juan, this is an apartment building with obvious structural damage. a lot of water was still in the streets in the areas. this will be recedeing today. today will be about clearing the streets. it will be about getting help to the people that need it the most and power lines and power problems will be the biggest issue. broken power poles, firefighters trying to clear the way for the rescue cruise. that's what today is about rescuing. no more damage in puerto rico from winds today, the wind damage is done. >> thank you very much now to the urgent scene in mexico, where crews race against the clock to try and find survivors intur u buried we

nieto the rubble in the wack of that 7.1 earth quack. officials say the death toll has been raised to at least 230 people, 100 of those deaths coming in mexico city alon. crews have been desperately searching for those trapped in collapsed buildings, listening in silence for signs of life. in the capital cities, rays of hope amany id the destruction after 52 people were rescued from the rubble of a building there yesterday. elsewhere in mexico city, a much more grim scene as teams have been working throughout the night to free a young girl trapped beneath the remnants of her school. officials say 21 children and four adults were killed when that building caved if, during the middle of classes on tuesday afternoon. joining us from mexico city, nbc news correspondent steve patterson who is at that school. steve. >> reporter: mika, the entire focus of this nation is right here.

this is the school where 21 young elementary school-age children were killed after that earthquake struck. i want to show you what's going on here. people right now are searching for some glimmer of hope. they have found it. but the operation right now is dire. it is a race against time. they believe that young girl is trapped somewhere back in that debris pile. you see crew members and rescue workers on top there. they are looking, they are focused. they are searching and pulling out piece by piece by hand, pieces of this debris that has crushed and crumbled when that school collapsed. it was a four-story building. it just folded on top of itself, trapping and killing those 21 young students and then four other teaches and administrators. they do believe that 12-year-old girl again is inside there and also because they've identified her location, she's given them some sign that she is alive. according to local officials, they believe there are other heat signatures inside there, meaning that there may be more

people trapped inside alive that they may be able to rescue. as we have been mentioning all morning long, it is entering 48 hours, there is a sign of hope. there is a lot more to be done here on scene. >> steve patterson, thank you, we will be following these natural disasters all morning long. with us now on the set of ""morning joe,"" we have ms nbc contributor mike barnacle, ms nbc news contributor mark halperin. capitol hill correspondent casey hunt in washington and a lot to get to this morning. >> a lot to get to. we've got the daily news, actually, this is quite an interesting headline. i want your papers, bob mueller is uncle sam. >> oh. >> there's that. a lot of stories on russia developing. presidential politics and polls

showing the president's numbers actually have been moving up over the past couple of weeks. and then i just got to say the inexplicable coming from republicans on capitol hill again. the donors, all i can say the donors must be extraordinarily persuasive because they have moved to put their lands on the burning stove again and there's just no reason, but they're doing it. what is it, the third time? fourth time? >> i've lost count. it's sad for the country. it's a big waste of time. >> it's sad for the republican, themselves. >> senate a ma jeter leader mitch mcconnell said the latest effort to repeal and replace obamacare will be on the floor again next week. republicans are fighting for the 50 votes needed to pass the budget reconciliation period that ends a week from saturday. after that 60 votes are required to aphiladelphia to a

filibuster. but critical republican senators, like alaska's lisa murkowski still if doubt. >> reporter: are you ready to support it? >> nope. >> reporter: why not? >> because i am doing the due diligence that i've committed to doing yesterday. what i have had an opportunity to do is to sit down with my team, who sat down with hhs, and we are fer eting out lots of numbers and we are continuing to do that. >> well, first of all you meet with hhs, you better be at your local aviation airport, to meet every plane that comes in, to see if hhs is on a private plane. we'll get to that late zpler they need their comfortable travel, those members of the administration. they're into luxury, unlike the rest of america. >> only four or five times a week. >> but they will make america great again. senator mccain continued to calm for a regular order to consider the health care bill

and president trump reacted on twitter to another republican opponent of the bill yesterday tweeting, rand paul is a friend of mine, but he is such a negative force when it comes to fixing health care. yesterday evening the president spoke about the bill from republican senators lindsey graham and bill cassidy and fended his producesstration with the process. >> i believe that graham cassidy really will do it the right way. there is tremendous support from republicans, certainly with 47 or 48 already senators and a lot of others think of it positively. mike pence has been working on it, our vice president has done such a great job for health care and knows health care so well. i thought one on one i would go to the oval office sit down on my desk and there would be a health care bill on my desk to be honest. it hasn't worked out that way. i think a lot of republicans are embarrassed by it. >> oh my god.

>> a couple days ago, first of all, he doesn't really know what's in the bill. he hasn't known what's been in any of these health care bills. he's just wanted anything to sign. and it makes you wonder, what would have happened if seven-and-a-half, eight months ago they had started with a process and they've had regular order and they had marshalled through the process regularly instead of drafting something quickly, having two or three people do it. shove it down everybody's vote -- throats and have the president say he leaks it and the president says it's a mean bill, et cetera, et cetera, if they had done at this time right way this reminds me, mika, one good thing she tells the women and the men who are these comptist itself, when it comes to success, there are no short cuts and you have a senate, mark

halperin, that has been taking one short cut after another short cut. they haven't gone 32 another order, they haven't had hearings. they said we have an idea, we will reorder one-sixth of the economy without going through the right committees, without really letting the members know what's inside the bills, without getting scoring from the congressional budget office and without knowing what the impact is of our reordering one-sixth of the economy from washington, d.c. now, that is something that head monday berke would have called radical, something russell kirk would have called radical, something in his time paul ryan would have called radical, something that mitch mcconnell would have called -- you can't reorder one-sixth of the united states economy without a committee hearing, without

regular order without a cbo score. without being a dangerous radical. and i don't understand how they think they will get away with that and how some of my friends and they are flendz friends, that's why it hurts so much, are getting on tv and lying every day to the american people. lying through their teeth about what's in that bill and what's not in this bill. >> they also don't have the support of any major segment of the health care industry. >> there you go. >> which is important of the grass roots of the country. on the politics of this, they're actually today closer to getting a senate vote, a successful senate vote and house bill than they were yesterday according to congressional people i talked to. so this could happen. but the substance of it is, is really problematic to the party. they're doing many of them, they're making many of the same mistakes president obama made in passing health care, first and

foremost in being honest and who will impact and that will pass and if it does pass, that will be a huge problem. >> isn't it over the course of a year? we were talking about health care hearings and health care committees and votes and we were talking about that for six, seven, ache, nine months, where they were actually going through a process. i hate it. the result. i didn't it to pass. i was upset it passed. but they went through a regular process. there is a hay, let's go from secret, write a bill as fast as we can. don't tell anybody what's in it. shove it down the american people's throat. >> i want to read you two tweets to your point right now from may 4th 2017. are you ready? i appreciate the apparent progress on health care reform in the house. i will admit i am concerned with a process. the bill has not been scored. three hours final debate should

be viewed with caution. whose tweets were those? senator lindsey graham of south carolina. >> wow. >> that was him talking about the process four-and-a-half months ago, now he's leading this process in the exactly the same way it was conducted in may. now wants a vote on it next week without all that regular ord you talked about. >> mike barnical, nobody knows what's in this bill. what's so stunning about this i'll just say this, what is so inhumane about this is, there are people who depend on ped cade on sort of health care that we are talking about, about the guarantees that have been given, that are going to be stripped away and have that process, have those hearings. let the senators, let the congressmen hear who is going to be hurt by the bill, instead of

seeing this in story six months after a bill passes and i promise you, republicans, here's once that will pay in the end. you think i'm being a son of a bitch right now? no you should listen to me, you will end up paying horribly in the end. i don't know what pressure you think you are under right now. wait until you go back to your voters supporting this bill. it is, it's inhuh pain? joe the mystifying thing about this is, we could have taken this block off and shown 134g when we were talking about the same issue in may or april or june as mark pointed out, into the single legitimate medical group, hospital association, doctor's association is behind this. we don't know what's in the bill t.cbo hasn't scored it. we have senator after senator after senator on this program. we ask questions about this bill. they really don't know what's contained in the bill. they go right to blocked grants.

if you take a look at the list of blocked france, what it does, it's astounding the number of states that voted for hillary clinton. >> they're talking points. >> i saw a republican senator last night say the same thing five times, i trust my people more than i trust a bureaucrat in washington, d.c. i trust the people in my state more than i trust the faceless bureaucrat in washington, d.c. great. awesome. we have been saying that since the ice age. i get it. it doesn't apply here. >> the bottom line is they will vote on something that will seriously disrupt the economy, one-sixth of the economy, more importantly will seriously disrupt hundreds of thousands of people in this country. multitudes of families in this country without knowing what they're voting for. >> and will create hurt the most. >> state by state chaos. you have to rebuild basically 50 marketplaces over a couple of

years. casey hunt, we saw you in that lisa murkowski sound pooit in hot pursuit getting answers from her. what is different from this bill than the last one for her? what's the selling point from senators cassidy and graham to someone like lisa murkowski or susan collins who said i can't vote for this because of the rollback of medicaid expansion and things inside. why would they change this too im? >> reporter: i'll tell you what this is about, guys, it's not about process. it's about politics. very pure and simple politics. it's pause all of these members of congress went home. they talked not just to people if their districts, but to their big donors, maybe they don't like the president. but they look at congress and they say, what the hell are you guys do something are you not doing anything and the money started to dry up a bit. it's scared a lot of people and it's kind of changed the fundamental mood on capitol hill around it. leadership didn't want to get back into this. they wanted to basically prove themselves to all of those contradiction on tax reform.

there was a lean of thinking that said, look, we can go, we can build a big tax reform bill and do what we want. they'll forget about what happened on health care, but the administration seized on the plan from lindsey graham and bill cassidy. one of the things i think we should make sure to focus on the substance, will you asked about the policy in this bill. they are working hard to try to cut deals for the alaska senators, for example to get them on board here. but there is something in this bill that would not interest some of the previous iterations. >> that is a pretty big loophole for people with pre-existing conditions. that's what jimmy kimmel has been talking about. he has gone back and forth over whether cassidy is a liar. this bill states to ask people not with pre-existing conditions to have to not layout their plan to cover those people. but there is no guarantees in there that the insurance that those people ends up would be affordable. it will be like trying to buy a

porsche. >> it would be available for them to buy for a lot of money if not affordable. >> let's be clear, casey, just to make sure, that everybody understands this debate that's going back and forth, there is no federal garp tee of affordable health care for people with pre-existing conditions and the cassidy bill. is that correct? >> reporter: states would initially have to do that. but any state could apply for a waiver to that requirement and in order to be granted the waiver, they have to ask the health and human services department, say, hey, we don't want to have to do this this is how we think we will cover those people that might lose it. but they don't have to follow through. >> all a state would have to do would be to call and get the secretary of hhs on a private jet. >> they have phones on them. >> his are probably, good, have the phones on there. and so they call him and let's

face it. he and his department are going to give a waiver to any state that wants a waiver. they are hostile. to those productions and have been hostile from the very beginning. >> there's a lot of risks for people here. i think that's why you've seen, jimmy kimmel has gone emotional and public about it. there is a reason why. it's very uncertain, because it would depend very much on the state in which you live. would california ask for an exemption to this? probably not. but it could create some serious problems for people that live if states that do want to get rid of these requirements and special health preventative care, maternity care, they can ask for a waiver from those kind of things. >> let's be clear, casey, there is, i know we have to go to brake. mike will say something real quick. but i get it. it's really important to say, there is a waiver and the

guarantee the protection it was a passed if 2009 for people with pre visiting conditions to be able to get affordable health care insurance will no longer exist. >> that guarantee will no longer exist if this bill passes. correct? >> that is my reading of this bill, joe, it will become a decision that is state by state and dependent on these waivers and depending on the states you go through. >> for senator bill cassidy's, to help him out here. it's not a personal attack to say that what you are saying is fought true. it's called the difference between telling the truth and telling people -- >> a lie. actually, you can call it a lie. >> it's not a personal attack. >> it's not personal. >> personal would be tweeting it to someone that they were bleeding from a facelift. >> okay. >> that would be personal. >> but lying to the american people about health care, people are so tired of you. and they're tired of washington. and they're tired of that? who would ever go -- casey.

>> please. stop lying. >> reporter: don't lie. casey, it your understanding that this bill is better for the insurance companies than what exists for them now? >> reporter: so that's an interesting question, mike. not necessarily. they, the blue cross association actually came out and said they warned people saying, hey, this could undermine coverage for pre existing conditions. one thing this bill does is get rid of the individual mandate to buy insurance and the employer mandate to provide it. so that to a certain extent is problematic for insurance company's business models. right? because that potentially examiners that they lose t. reality here too is we don't know everything about what's in this bill yet. it started out as about 140 pages. they're cutting deals behind the scenes. some people say it's getting as long as three pages. i haven't confirmed that yet. there is still very many up in

process. >> there is no reason why lisa murkowski voted for the last bill. no reason why susan collins voted for this bill. there is no reason that john mccain voted against the last bill, would vote for this bill. there is certainly no reason rand paul would. he's fought financial to. >> such a negative force. >> yeah, that's what the president said about him. but, yeah, it just, it makes absolutely no sense. we bought the to go to break a. quick wrap. >> one reason they vote for it. it's their last chance to fulfill the party's promises. it has reached the president's deck the president will then be faced with signing or vetoing a bill that will not fulfill the deals he made as a candidate. >> it would make am liar. >> it will make him look bad. >> whether he's focused top details or not. in that tweet he has, i think he will struggle to violate the things he said he would do? why wout would anybody trust him

-- >> at the beginning of the answer, casey reported the men went home to their districts and heard from dofors no not nurses, not doctors. not patients. >> and so now they're coming out and in lindsey graham's case doing something he didn't leak doing a couple months ago which is to rush this through and suggesting at the --? you see what lindsey graham is dock. sometimes if i ever got in trouble, i would get if trouble for what i say, i would get if trouble for saying things like this it's just so obvious that lindsey graham is feeling the heat at home for a thousand different reasons and so we have to come up with a bill that he can run around and say, oh, you know, i had this great idea to take all the power back to the states, repeople and replace obamacare. i almost, you know, i almost said a word i shouldn't say on air, it's such bs. it's such bs. and republicans you worry about

your donors, you're worried about special interest groups instead of listening to patients, instead of listening to voters, instead of listening to doctors, instead of listening to nurses, instead of listening to people who are on the front lines of keeping persons healthy. it is actually if this bill passes shameful and i'm quite confident that john mccain will not want to be remembered for doing something leak this, that blows up regular order, that says the hell to the marine people the hell to everybody, we're going to cower at the feet of ourselfish fat greedy donors. no -- >> on that note this morning, we will be joined by republican senators jeff flake and ron johnson. we'll ask them why they're supporting the latest plan to take down obamacare? plus, president trump is looking to tip the scales in alabama senate primary. he backs the sitting senator,

but steve bannon doesn't. the washington post bob costa has more reporting on that, the gop and what it may mean for the mid-term. first, we'll talk to two of the reporters who broke the latest round of the headlines surrounding the investigation into russia and the presidential election. we'll tell you where bob mueller is drilling down next on ""morning joe." ". >> he's going deep. [ music playing ] my experience with usaa has been excellent. they always refer to me as master sergeant. they really appreciate the military family, and it really shows. we've got auto insurance, homeowners insurance. had an accident with a vehicle, i actually called usaa before we called the police. usaa was there hands-on very quick very prompt. i feel like we're being handled as people that actually have a genuine need. we're the webber family and we are usaa members for life. usaa, get your insurance quote today. can we at least analyze can we push the offer online? legacy technology can handcuff any company.

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there are several new developments surrounding the russia investigation. according to "new york times," special counsel robert mueller has asked the white house for documents about some of president trump's most scrutinized actions since taking officer, including the firing of his national security adviser michael flynn and fbi director james comey. white house officials say mueller is interested in the oval office meeting with top

russia officials. documents describe to the "times" in may telling them he was not under investigation and quote i just fired the head of the fbi. he was crazy. a real nut job. i faced great pressure bus of russia. that's taken off. >> can you stop there, seriously, that is, you know, because, everybody used to love watching perimason, i watched the rerun, right? nobody really breaks down on the stand and says, oh my god, i did it, i did it? nobody does that. but donald trump mike barnical, it's the final scene in every perry mason tv show, except he did it in the oval office on his own when the russian foreign minister and the russian ambassador to the united states was there. he literally laid out the case for obstructing justice. >> to continue with the perry

mason analogy, hamilton berger who is the district attorney wouldn't even have to ask a question. >> right. >> just let the guy talk. he's talking himself -- >> special counsel's office made a request from the white house, donald trump jr. is meeting with russian lawyer in the summer of 2016 the washington post reports mueller asked the white house for any e-mail do you means that relates to paul manafort, according to two sources briefed open the q. the paper says less than two weeks before trump accepted the republican presidential nomination, his campaign chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to russian billionaire oleg deripaska, who is closely aligned with the kremlin. get this. go he's closely aligned. that's the first thing ronal reagan did.

>> manafort who wrote to a go-between, if he needs private briefings, we can accommodate a. spokesman for manafort confirmed to nbc news the authenticity and said they had been turned over to a congressional committee. but as the paper notices. >> isn't that something james baker did when he was running a campaign for britiezhnev, if he wants a briefing on what we're doing in western iowa. >> it's a tradition, bob straus withining johnson's campaign in 19 skating, he had ho chi minh on the phone all the time. >> these were pro active e-mails, reaching out, saying, hay, if you want to know what's going on, we'll accommodate you, why would you do such a thing? that's what bob mueller will be interested in. >> who in the world would think there was collusion between the trump campaign and russia if you are saying, hey, you want to get

sla vlad or the phone. >> there is no information that briefings took place and a spokes woman for deripaska dismissed it as a culting scheming -- consulting scheming. >> he was at the campaign at the xhig. so not a consultant but actually chairman of presidential campaign. >> all right. let's get to richmond, virginia. "new york times" reporter michael schmidt who broke the mueller probe story and staff where irfor the washington post carol lennoc who had bilines for the trump investigations on her paper. >> let's start with paul manafort. just a consultant, just a lonely consultant, this is just scheming, so they say. tell us what in the world, what was the prelude to this

extraordinary offer? >>. >> reporter: so, are you right, it's a startling offer. it is fought a typical thing for the chairman of the presidential candidate for the republican party to say, hey, be i the way, i'm trying to figure out a way to use my prominent role in this presidential race to make some money. and that is essentially what paul manafort's e-mails suggest. paul manafort was in a lot of debt. he appeared to be a person who is looking to be repaid several outstanding bills from various foreign nationals, including this very prominent russian billionaire, one of the most el withthy men in russia and a person who was very much angling to find a way to get into the united states. he's been denied visas to do. that he's been trying every way he can, political consulting pressure, pr, to physical out how to fet a visa so he can travel into the u.s. and.

>> can't he just invest in one of those buildings that jerry's sister is talking ab? that might be a good way in. >> i think he found a pretty prominent advocate if paul manafort who said we cannot accommodate you. i'd like to help you. it's a very strange place to be as a leader oafter this campaign where your interests appear to be and how to get some money from a russian billionaire while are you running this office. >> michael schmidt. you got the front page piece in the "new york times" today about the mueller's inquiry into seeking do you mean itself on the trump firings. what does it tell you what bob mueller is up to? we suspect this is going to be a wide and deep investigation. but what more did you learn from that request? >> you are right. we did suspect that mueller was looking at things related to trump's time in office. we really didn't know details about it and what we learned here was sort of the scope of

bit at least the breath at least of what he is looking at. it's stuff of trump's handling of flynn, handling of comey, how the white house responded to these questions about the meeting their company officials had in 2016 with russians promises derogatory information about hillary. it struck us so many things the president was directly involved in, that turned out to be pivotal in his presidency are things that mueller is, indeed, interested in. and we had some details about that. we thought that was significant. >> so what do we expect to find inside those, to the extent you know and can share? what specifically is bob mueller looking at? >> that's the thing we don't know. what mueller is looking for is e-mails between white house officials in the lead-up to the comey firing. sort of talking about, well, what was the president thinking. he's trying to understand one giant answer, why did the

president fire comey? why did he fire flynn? there are notes that officials have that talk about that reveal what the president was thinking. why the president was doing what he did. so what the white house has had to do, it's had to go through it's males, its notes, everything, to come up with documents to give to muller. there are questions whether there is privilege issue, whether the white house will hand over all these things, ty cobb the lawyer the president hired to hand him these things that sort of leaned forward on this and wants to hand over as many things as possible. he thinks the more he gives to mueller the more likely they are to quickly clear themselves. >> lots of incredible detail, legal detail in your story today. i want to take you up to 30,000 feet, to the point that people have long suspected but fleshed out today in their reporting, which is, does the independent counsel have reason to believe that flynn or manafort have things to say about the president that they would trade in exchange for leniency?

>> reporter: well, clearly bob mueller think there is is a reason to lean on both of them. you can see in our reporting and the "time's" reporting the pressure being brought to bear on both men, indeed, there are people that believe the special count sell has learned quite a bit from the former national security adviser michael flynn. whether or not either of those men have great inappropriate sight into the president's possible knowledge about russian interests in his campaign is still to be seen. i have heard lots of our sources say that they believe flynn had a lot more personal one-on-one contact with the president and also with his son-in-law, jared kushner and was much more connected with both of them in terms of their discussions about meetings with foreign officials and a transition and even in the campaign. but the striking thing is i like that you want to focus on the

30,000 feet t. striking thing about flynn and manafort is we now see evidence that both of them were figuring out how to use this campaign to make some money and that again makes you feel leak both of them were vulnerable to doing things for someone besides the u.s. government or u.s. candidate. >> absolutely. >> michael, thanks to the "post" and the "time's" we know a lot of content. what does this latest round tell you about the pace of bob mueller's investigation? >> it seems like he's moving very quickly. i think whether or not mueller would admit this there is a fair amount of pressure on himle to resolve the as soon as possible. this has cast a big cloud over the white house. there are significant questions. this is certainly dogging the president. if there is nothing there, i believe people believe the president is due to sort of be cleared. but if there is something there, i this mueller feels that i have

to move with a fast pace. we had a story by my colleagues a few days ago how aggressive mueller is. he executed this search warrant on manafort's apart in july. they were taking pictures of mueller's suits. they picked a lock. it's a very aggressive move and shows that they're moving at a strong clip and a fast pace. >> all right. washington post and the "new york times" michael schmidt. thank you for your reporting. just a side note. willie geist and i do not judge anybody who are trying to get money from russian billionaires and ole gar accounts, we'd like to own a soccer team. >> coming up on "morning joe" -- >> you can't do it, though, in the middle of a presidential campaign when are you running a presidential campaign, can you? >> unless you thought you were

going to lose. >> you don't think this gold man sax job has come in? you keep saying that, at some point, russian billionaires. >> okay. so let's move on now. okay. coming up on ""morning joe,"" secretary of state rex tillerson weighs in on the iran nuclear deal. but he doesn't have much to add. that's ahead on "morning joe."

all right. casey hunt, a lot going on. what are you looking at on the hill today? >> so one thing i just want to put on your radar that i think we should keep an eye on going forward is i think the pressure is ramping up on a lot of these republicans to not get too far away from president trump ahead of the mid-term elections. you are seeing a little of it in the health care debate. i am hearing it more and more behind the scenes, bob corker coming out, doing, not a -- certainly a public making up with the president and going over, meeting with him at the white house. i don't think he will be the only person who will be making those kind of efforts and i think what you are seeing with

health care and donors putting more pressure on republican, not necessarily to be in the president. but to be seen as doing something and having a functioning government where they control the white house and congress, i think that's actually going to push congressional republicans and the president closer together and that we may see more of that for the next six months than we've seen of these divisions so far. >> all right. what's happening in alabama can be very interesting, too, the president all the way in for luther strange, if he wins down there. it certainly sends a message to other republicans to be closer to the president of the united states. so, you know, we have a lot to talk about. did you see the first lady's speech on bullying? she's against, she's into this cyberbullying thing as far as wanting to stop people from cyber bullying. apparently not a lot of -- in the white house. still ahead the "morning joe"

this. >> africa has tremendous business potential. i have so many friends going to your countries trying to get rich. i quality you, they're spending a congratulates africa on helping a lot of his friends go there and get rich. >> stop. >> believe me. we're not going to stop. we're going to play that for you. we're also going to tell you the name of a few of the new african countries -- >> this is real. all of this. >> it happens. i mean, i don't know. seriously? >> the republican marley, bob marl marley. he has his own republic, right? ♪

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there was an unbelievably scary moment in the bronx yesterday where the yankees were playing the twins. play stopped in the fifth inning

after a young fan, a little girl in the stands was struck in the head by a 105 miles per hour line drive off todd frazier. frazier had tears in his eyes during the incident. the toddler was attending the game with her grandparents. her father and grandfather told reporters last night it was too early to tell if she would need surgery, but she's doing all right and asked that we keep her in our thoughts. the netting is the question. it ends at the home plate side of each dugout. they were extending the netting after a similar incident occurred. i suspect this will go up around all ballparks. the good news is she is going to be okay according to her dad and grant parents. >> you know what's scary? we go to fenway. i'm always worried about my kids on the third and first baseline. they've extended the netting to the dugouts, but there was that

horrific story last year where the bat went and struck the woman. it can be dangerous down there. aren't they going to get to a point where they put the netting up all the way? >> i think the biggest factor is the number of people staring at their cell phones while they're sitting there, not paying attention. one other note on that horrific incident yesterday, you're not going to meet a better human being playing baseball than todd frazier. >> and the mets have the netting all the way down. i think all these teams are going to follow suit. it doesn't stop from a foul ball with a popup. >> the balls are going 105 miles per hour. >> she is going to be -- >> they say she's going to be okay. coming up -- >> and on a much lighter note, the pennant race as good as it's been. the yankees and red sox just

keep winning. it's so funny. we'll be talking about nonstop, and it's like the yankees won't lose and the red sox won't. >> we'll win the game, i'll go to bed before the red sox game, and you've won 8 out of 10. nobody wants to lose. >> okay. we're going to go to break now. coming up, senators jeff flake and ron johnson. we'll go back to the two major disasters, the search for survivors in the deadly earthquake in mexico. plus the hurricane that plunged the entire island of puerto rico into darkness. "morning joe" is coming right back. i count on my dell small business advisor

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a horrifying e bowly outbroke. >> hey, there. joe scarborough here along with mika brzezinski. >> i think he meant zanbia. >> mark halperin with us, and also jonathan lameri, and robert costa. >> great table. >> you were at the rex tillerson briefing yesterday where his response was i don't know. >> right. >> didn't exactly now what was going on. >> what's going on? >> the president yesterday unplanned announced during his meeting one of his earlier on the sidelines, he reached a decision on the iran deal. we asked. he said i'll tell you later. we know the president likes to

build suspense. it's his reality tv show background. later in the day we then see secretary tillerson who gives us a briefing, telegraphs that the president, again, made up his mind but has not shared it with him. he did not realize this was going to be an announcement yesterday. he said theresa may asked whether he would tell her what he decided, and his answer was no. >> coming up, the talks with the democrats, president trump seeing some improvement in the latest round of polling. a new poll shows the approval rating at 43%. that's three points higher than august. 52% of americans disapprove with the president's job rating. the numbers identical to politico morning consult poll finds the president with a net negative rating in single digits, 40% approve, 49% disapprove.

"the wall street journal" poll found 70% of americans support the recent deal with democratic leaders to provide hurricane relief and keep the government open for 90 days. mark halperin -- >> it's phenomenal. >> we knew it was going to be a big number. but 71%. >> it's a 70/30 proposition. you have all these people on the far, far, far right basically doing what steve bannon did forever. and it matches up with exactly what we've been saying around this set for eseven and a half months, that the president is playing to 30% and working to engage 70%. guess what. he reversed that when he stopped listening to the most extreme voices on the far right on talk radio who make money by whipping up their base and so what's happening? his poll numbers are going up? >> we knew the president was

enthused by the news coverage of the deal. that 71% number will get in front of him. he'll see it as reinforcement that that's the mood of the country. it's hard to get 71% yes on anything given how polarized things are. the other thing that relates is all the congressional leaders, pelosi and the democratic republican leaders have low approval numbers. although the president is low by historic standards, he is the king of the hill. he is the most popular of the leaders in washington. and this number, i think will reinforce that he has the leverage and the freedom to make more deals. >> you remember the tweet from congressman steve king after the deal where he said the base is gone. there's another poll that came out yesterday, the monmouth poll. this is trump voters asked how they feel about him working with democrats. only 8% said they disapproved of him working with democrats.

75% in the poll said he was working the right amount with democrats or he should work more with him. in total, it was 85% that thought he was doing the right thing by getting something done. he's in good standing with them. >> steve king tweets out he's going to lose his base. ann coulter says he should be killed. he should be impeached. mike pence should be president of the united states. sean hannity declared it's over, exclamation point because he was working in a bipartisan way. of course, we said on the show, as we've said forever, only because we're right, that he should work with democrats. that this -- americans are sick and tired of washington being seen not working, and they will move to somebody that can make republicans and democrats work together. the president has been playing the lowest common denominator, playing to his lowest 30%, just 30 %, mika.

he's reversed the equation. >> he has. >> mika, let's go through the numbers. people are driving. >> all right. >> and pretty good. >> still voters don't seem to agree -- >> hold on. the screen, 83% of republicans are approving of the president from eighty. independents have jumped to 41% now. democrats up 2 %. >> okay. voters don't seem to agree when the president says he's accomplished more. >> he hasn't. >> well, you have to look at it from a different perspective. perhaps he's created more divisiveness than any other president, and just 33% think he's accomplished either a great deal or a fair amount. 66 % believe he's accomplished only some or very little as president. and on issues, 41 % approve the president's handling of the economy. 36% back his approach to north

korea. 27% support his stand on health care and some of his weakest approval marks surround his use of twitter and his response to the deadly events in charlottesville where only one in five approve. >> let's keep the numbers up. if you're listening to the radio, you will be, i think, like me, heartened by these numbers. his lowest approval is his response to charlottesville. race relations 25%. health care 27%. changing d.c., 35%. border security immigration 39%. those are pretty low numbers. again, high marks for working across the aisle. for a bipartisan deal, and you wonder whether republicans in the senate are going to see this and get this and actually come up with a health care plan that

all americans can embrace. >> right. it's a testament to the power of trying to do things bipartisan. it's also showing that the trump base is the trump base, not the republican base. these are people who are going to stay with him. who it's the coulter personality. they feel like he's the leader. they'll go with him. the idea of his famous line i'd go into fifth avenue and shoot someone and my base would be with me. working across the aisle is not -- far from shooting someone j but for some republican base voters, the idea of working with nancy pelosi is horrifying. for them, they'll trust him and say with him when he does something like that. >> think about that. just think about that. >> the same republicans that mocked the mainstream media for not getting trump space didn't get trump space. >> right. >> they said it's over. he's finished. i mean, themp ty were the ones were clueless. i wrote about it in the

washington post. it's not about policy. it's about his personality. and if he can get republicans and democrats working together, he will have done something that nobody has done well this century. >> 8 % of trump voters object to him working with democrats. that leaves 92% who have no problem with what he's doing in terms of working with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. bob costa, let me ask you. no we know president trump responds to positive affirmation from his voters or from a poll. we remember his campaign speeches where he carried around the polls in his front pocket and read through them on a stage. what's this portend for the future? does he look at the numbers? does he look at the results and say this is the way to do business? i'm going to reach across the aisle and invite schumer and pelosi to the oval office more often? >> another part of this story that we have to put into our calculation as we answer the question is the president's work

with the republican establishment and whether the base will tolerate that as well. you think about his efforts in the upcoming alabama senate primary runoff. he supported the establishment favorites, luther strange, the election is on tuesday. if that goes in a different way, there's some rconcern inside th white house, will it tilt the president away from his current work with democrats, his allegiance with the current establishment. and there's the unpredictability factor. that's why no one is making a sure fire bet into the approach will continue. >> that's what i don't continue. the president has this big bump, and now they're reverting back to what got him 35% approval ratings. this health care bill will have about 18% approval across america. once again, he's playing a game of sub trux instead of addition. if he blew this up tomorrow and said you know what? we're not going to do it this

way anymore. this is how barack obama did it. only had democrats voting for all his bills. i'm not that kind of president. we're going to bring republicans and democrats in and do it the right way. we're going to get a health care reform plan for all americans. can you even begin to imagine the numbers for that proposition? that would be 80/20. >> there was specific legislation in the senate he could have gotten on board with that was bipartisan. the problem -- >> he has to stop listening to the republican senators who say i got a good idea. it only has 17% approval rating. how many times can you fall for the republican politicians tricks in washington? >> because the inside game is there's a moment in the next few months when paul ryan will have to turn the floor over to pelosi and let the democrats provide the votes for something, whether it's tax reform or whatever it is. when that moment comes, it will

be a crisis within the republican party. donald trump can say all he wants that that's the way he would like to do things, but it doesn't mean you can pass something out of the pass. that's the issue. you can pass anything out of the senate that way, but not the house. >> if it's a bipartisan plan, you'll find democrats doing what's in their best interest and vote for it. >> except paul ryan will have turned the floor over the nancy pelosi. >> say what you want, but it happens. that's what's happened for 240 years. it just stopped happening like five or ten years ago. >> yeah. >> this whole idea, and it is pure insanity, that we only pass bills that our party votes for? that's crazy. like, that -- that's a new phenomenon. and an idea that there's not bipartisan. democrats ran around screaming

contract on america, contract on america. guess what. they didn't want to vote for that stuff. but so much of it was so popular. a lot of times you get 50% of the democrats voting on a plan that they claim to hate, but they couldn't say no. you give them a dill, willie, an offer, that's too good to refuse. >> but now we're in an era of reconciliation. we're not even talking about 60 votes. you're lucky if you can scrape out 50 votes and have the vice president break a tie. that's not overwhelming for a measure that has 17% or whatever it is. the president cast his lot with graham cassidy. he said he's pushing senators to vote for it. if this bill does not become a law or clear the senate, where does it leave the president as he's gone in again and again with republicans on health care? >> it leaves the president in a difficult position, because the

clock is ticking. i won't get into the details but on september 30th, that's the deadline for passing this kind of health care legislation with a simple majority. october on, 60 votes to stop a filibuster from happening. what the president is trying to do is show the effort. that's what my sources tell me. same with the republicans in congress. they're trying to show the effort to the base. they're trying up to the last minute to get some kind of legislation through. but behind the scenes, there is a lot of concern about the politics of all this. and there's a thought that maybe leader mcconnell brings this bill to the floor, lets it take a vote. if it fails, it fails. the party moves on. but they want to show the party that they care enough to move forward one more time. >> bob, if they do that, that's, again, a 33% -- it's not even a 33% prop tiosition. this will have a 17% approval rating. the president will buy something with a 70% disapproval rating with the american people.

you know him. we know him. he looks at these polls. can we not expect just for his own self-interest that he's going to be moving more toward a bipartisan approach because his poll numbers are finally going up? >> they are. and when it comes to the senate bill, he's not deeply engaged. he's encouraging the bill on twitter. but it's really the senate gop, senator graham and others calling up senator murkowski saying will you be the vote on this. there are deep reservations on part. they could be more of a factor on this than president trump. president trump is the person who said he wanted universal coverage. he wanted universal health insurance for people not really getting into the details of what that meant. but he really continues to give the ball over to congress when it comes to how to handle and carry this forward. >> all right. robert costa, thank you. >> thank you, bob.

by the way, willie and i tomorrow night, is beckham coming? >> he can't come. >> we got a carton of cigarettes. >> thank you bob. >> who you going to have on tomorrow night? >> we're working out the panel, but stay tuned. we'll talk about health care. >> always keeps everyone guessing. >> bob is that your way of asking us? >> no, i don't think so. >> come on any time. glad to have you. >> so cute. >> that's a no. >> okay. >> now to the latest with hurricane maria which is lashing the eastern dominican republic now. it's a destructive category 3 winds. all yesterday the storm pounded puerto rico throwing the entire island of 3.5 million people into darkness. the island is also without water and no cell phone service. the monster hurricane smashed into the struggling u.s.

territory as a category 4 storm flooding homes and according to officials there, 70% of homes on the island had their roofs ripped off. >> that is such -- >> joining us from san juan, puerto rico, tammy lightener tammy. >> reporter: good morning. i want to give you an idea of what 155 miles per hour winds can do. it rips trees out by their roots. it peels roofs off buildings. shattering glass, and this is only in this one black area that we're looking at. we've seen roads that have turned to rivers. freeways that are impassable because of water and trees and downed power lines. there is no power across the entire island of puerto rico. there's no water in a lot of places. today the coast guard is coming in to help. they're bringing supplies. they're bringing personnel. the military is bringing in helicopters. there is weeks and weeks if not

months and months of work ahead. and the amount of damage is still unknown. >> tammy, thank you. >> that's really a terrible scene. i don't think we can even begin to imagine it. i remember after katrina, driving supplies over to mississippi and louisiana, and there's no power. it was extraordinarily hot. there wasn't hot. people from our church would come up with bolttles of water. people would run out and you'd hand them water as quickly as you could. we were coming from florida. we'd go to the local store, in into publix, buy all the water we could, they'd have crates. we'd do that every day, and every day we went over there, there were always people there that were in desperate need of supplies. you can't -- >> this is devastating? . >> you can't do that with puerto

rico. you can't drive over with puerto rico. 70% of the homes have had their roofs ripped off. no power. it's going to be sweltering heat. and t even the small -- it's even the small things you don't think about. young babies. we saw young babies three days in in the united states of america walking around in three-day old diapers because nothing was getting in, nothing was getting out. all the super markets were shut down. i mean, the scale of devastation in puerto rico, we saw it with haiti. i know puerto rico is more developed than haiti, but this is just a terrible crisis. >> we'll be following the response and also looking at what happened -- >> of course it's a terrible crisis, but the recovery from the crisis is going to be so, so challenging. >> let's go to mexico where a rescue crews are racing against the clock following the deadly magnitude 7.1 earthquake. officials say the death toll has

climbed to at least 230 people. crews have been desperately searching for those trapped in collapsed building, including a schoolhouse. the scene of immense loss. joining us at the scene of that search, miguel almaguer. miguel? >> reporter: good morning. the elementary school is a heart breaking scene. it's where dozens of bodies have been recovered and dozens of lives have been saved. they're calling the school the miracle in the rubble. first responders say they're looking for a little girl who has identified herself as frita. they can hear her talking to first respondersed in building that's pancaked down to one floor. that little girl tells them there are other children still buried alive inside that building. first responders have been here at the elementary school since that earthquake. they've pulled out dozens of children including two little girls yesterday. it is a focus of this search all

across this country. first responders pouring into this area to try to help some of the youngest victims. >> miguel almaguer, thank you. of course we'll be following this throughout the day on msnbc. >> still ahead, the latest on the russia investigation including that bob mueller is interested in about any white house document that has to do with paul manafort, first jeff flake joins us. he'll ask him why he's supporting the new republican health care bill before the cbo can even score it. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪

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please donate now to help people affected by hurricane harvey. your help is urgently needed. nobody wants me to talk about your other senator who is weak on borders, weak on crime, so i won't talk about him. nobody wants me to talk about

him. nobody knows who the hell he is. >> well, we kind of want to talk about him. let's talk about him. >> let's do it. >> he's here. >> why not then? that was president trump talking about republican senator jeff flake at a campaign style rally in phoenix at the end of august on his home turf. senator flake joins us now. last time he was here he discussed his isn't it true book. >> you've got a reader. a loyal faithful reader. >> a 15-year-old little girl of mine reading your book in kentucky, and he's fascinated by it, a big supporter. >> i appreciate that. after that arizona rally, i felt like is like harry potter, he who should not be named. >> right. how is your relationship with

the president right now? >> it's frankly, whether it's a democratic president, republican president, i support them when i believe they're right. i worked with president obama on cuba policy. president bush, i agreed with him on most things but opposed prescription drug benefit. i work for the people of arizona. i've worked with the president on what i can work with him on and i'll oppose him on things i think he's wrong on like nafta, for example. >> poll numbers have come out. it suggests you're 842% behind in primary -- primaries next year. right? >> it is. >> are you facing that sort of rejection from people in the republican party? >> off year polls are always incumbents are always down. the polls are probably accurate. it's just that they're not very relevant right now.

when you run a campaign like mccain two years ago had similar poll numbers. he was going to lose by double digits to a generic general opponent. in the end you run a campaign and it comes out differently. >> lisa murkowski ran as an independent and won. would you consider that? >> i am a republican. i've been a lifelong republican. i think i'll stay where i am. >> lots of luck with that. we've going to talk about the republican health care bill now. it seems like this is the last thing you would support, not because of what's actually in the bill but the process is radical. no cbo scoring. no regular order. once again, a couple people scribbling down a bill and shoving it in your face saying if you're a member of the tribe, you'll vote for this. >> i've heard people say that we're simply responding to donors out there. some people may be hearing from donors. i'm hearing from when i go home

every weekend, one thing i do is go to the gym every morning. i'll get on a stationary bike, and somebody will get on right beside me, because i'm trapped there. >> they say we love "morning joe." after they tell you that, what do they say? >> it's 6:00 a.m. you're already off the air. but what they tell me is i had insurance. i lost it. there are 183,000 arizonans who are paying the fine to the federal government because they can't afford care. many of them if not most of them, had insurance before the affordable care act came along. 80% of them are making less than $50,000 a year. >> does this bill fix that? and if you say it does fix that, how do you know it really fixes it? because it's being rushed through? >> one thing it does fix is it relieves that fine that they're paying. these people are paying a fine that's a total of about $39

million from those 183,000 people. and they still don't have any insurance. after paying the fine. they'll no longer have to pay that fine. that's what the so-called skinny repeal would have done as well. this doesn't fix everything with obamacare. it can't. we're going to have to do that with a bipartisan bill. this is the first step. and i can tell you there are people in arizona and elsewhere who need relief that. there are 15 counties in arizona. in every county those who are buying on the exchange are paying more fair their health care premium monthly than a mortgage. if you're a typical family of four, you're paying more for your health care policy than a mortgage. and most of them can't afford to use them because the deductibles are so high that they have to pie 30,000 out of pocket before it kicks in. >> to joe's point, have you read

the current bill you're about to vote on? >> i've read a lot of it. we're all looking at it. >> how long is it? >> i don't know the current number of pages. there are provisions in there. i've heard it said it will be a race to the bottom, and that the states can ultimately deny coverage or allow insurance companies to deny on preexisting condition. if they're able to de facto, they won't be able to. >> joe understands well, in 1986 with welfare reform, it was said, all right, you turn this over to the states, it's going to the race to the bottom. people will be dying in the streets. it wasn't the case. they respond to political pressure as well. >> senator, does the bill address the issue you just raised? >> it does, but ultimately in the end, i think it does allow them to apply for a waiver to do that. but in reality, is any governor,

is any state legislature going to deny coverage based on preexisting condition? >> yes. >> i don't believe they will. >> in the past, maybe, but not anymore. i don't believe that's the case. they have to respond to political pressure. you can say right now that this is not a constitutional guarantee for preexisting condition coverage, therefore, congress could at moment deny the coverage. that could be said now. but congress is not going to? cht. >> you said accurately some arizonans are worse off than before the affordable care act. >> and some are better. >> who will be worse off if your bill becomes law? anyone. be honest with your constituents. some will be worse off. describe who they are. >> what we have right now, one-third of arizonans are covered by our version of medicaid. arizona -- >> and some of those people will be worse off. >> theoretically. we don't know.

>> how could they not be? >> we have a governor who looked at it and said please, pass it. because we have for flexibility. >> answer my question. >> the governor may not have somebody at home who has terrible disabilities who can only stay at home because of what medicaid provides and there are going to be cuts there. >> well, one thing we have now is a situation where with medicaid, we're running this program at medical inflation plus one or 2%. that's a very definition of unsustainable. you can't do that forever. you have to have changes. >> why don't you have a bipartisan bill? that's what i don't understand. >> i would love to have a bipartisan bill. >> i know you agree with me. i have seen you through the years. you don't like when people get in the back room and scribble down bills and throw it out there. shouldn't they have done this -- isn't john mccain right? this should be done through regular order with a cbo score.

why can't republicans in the senate do that? >> one thing we had a crisis coming now. like i said, we have 200,000 arizonans who can't afford coverage and are paying the fine. second in january of this year -- >> you could have said that in january. why can't you start now and have regular order and get it right over the next six months? >> the regular order has been -- i agree with him when he told us the other day that there is no imminent solution here. they're not getting support from the democrats. we'd love to have it. and we're going to ultimately have to have it in january. the fines that will be imposed against employers, employees are already being fined when they don't have insurance. but the employers have gotten off the hook so far. starting january, the bills will go out from the irs. 90,000 businesses will receive a bill totaling about $5 billion.

that's going to hit hard, and that's going to hurt businesses. >> joe mentioned the senator mccain. he cast the deciding vote to defeat the last health care proposal. have you spoken to him about this? are you lobbying him? >> we're speaking on it. obviously we're concerned about what our governor says and our state legislature. he has his own franchise, and i tell you, i admire the heck out of him. >> he does. it's a big one. >> it is. and he has spoken eloquently every day in our lunches or wherever we are meeting together. he's talking about getting back to regular order. he sees it in the armed services committee. he's a chairman. he works the process well. we have to do something here. arizonans are hurting now. >> all right. jeff flake, thank you so much. >> you brought a guest. your wife is here. >> yes. sheryl? is it sheryl? on book tour. >> how did he do, sheryl?

>> he did great. >> okay. >> perfect. >> all right. ahead we'll talk to another republican senator supporting the obamacare repeal bill. ron johnson of wisconsin. more "morning joe" in just a moment. i can't wait for her to have that college experience that i had. the classes, the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i'm glad she'll miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise [ airplane bell chimes ] you should be serving you're c.i.a.?

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we have really big know your value announcements this morning. we were in philadelphia for a know your value event but another one is coming up. >> the new york city the next one is on october 30th. and tickets go on sale today. >> mark halperin and i will be there. where do we go to get the ticketss? >> purchase ticket online. kn knowyourval knowyourvalue365.com. >> there will be all kinds of people. laura brown, willie geist will be there. >> willie geist? >> yes. you're going to show up. >> i'll be there. >> what are you going to talk -- when we go and all the other powerful women go -- >> we'll have workshops,

conversations, talking act negotiating, health and wellness in a real way, not just drink a lot of water. personal value. finances and managing the different stages of your career and your personal life. >> okay. so in these events you have grow your value contests? >> yes. we're announcing a new one. >> everybody loves this one. >> this is my favorite thing. so we're announcing right now the grow your value bonus competition, the next one. and this right here right now is an official call for entries. three finalists are going to be chosen. you'll get professional coaching and styling and a chance to pitch your value live on stage for a $5,000 bonus. it's easy. >> i'm applying. >> not you. >> simply tell me your value in a video as effectively as you can in a minute or less, and send it in to the contest.

you can do it in selfie mode. talk right to your phone. this is a good exercise. tell me why you deserve a bonus. why you have value. what you bring to the table. communicate it effectively. we've look at your message, what's behind it, how you present id it, and we'll help you improve everything about that pitch. i urge every woman to make a video and send it in. it's a first step in learning your value and learning how to communicate it effectively. once again, join us on october 30th in the audience. learn more about all of this and buy tickets go to knowyourvalue365.com. >> did you get that? >> knowyourvalue365.com. >> i already sent in my video. >> we'll have to delete that one. >> why? >> i'm sure it's lewd. >> it's like straight out of a

video that ted cruz would like. that's not what we want. knowyourvalue365.com. >> thank you guys so much. >> thank you. >> for raising the bar here. up next, you have to go back to 1929 to find a time when democrats were in worse shape than they are now. that's bad. >> that's kind of bad. >> the new issue of time magazine asks can anything save them? that's next on "morning joe." at ally, we offer low rates on home loans. but if that's not enough,

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>> the legislation we passed was full of things that still need to be fixed. it wasn't perfect. but it was better. and so when i see people trying to undo that hard progress for the 50th or 60th time with bills that would roll back protections for older americans or people

with preexisting conditions, the anc cancer survivor or child with asthma for whom coverage once again would be almost unattainable, it is aggravating. and all this being done without any economic or actuarial or plain common sense rationale, it frustrates. >> former president barack obama speaking in new york city last night saying it was frustrating to have to mobilize so often to protect obamacare. they have to mobilize because democrats control neither the house or senate. the new oissue of "time" analyzs the states of the parties. joining us from washington, michael duff. >> michael, everybody is so obsessed with donald trump. i think the more vexing question

and the question that i haven't heard a single democrat answer i think at least to my liking in a convincing way is what's happened to the party, why have they lost over 1,000 legislative seats over the past eight years? why have they lost over 60 seats in the house, and why are they in the worst shape than they've been in since 1929? >> it really is like the 1920s. lowest number of governors, lowest number of house members and about 1,000 state legislative seats they've lost over the last decade. part of the reason is they're defending their gains. they built a big welfare state and now they're protecting it from erosion which is what's happening probably this week or next week in the senate with health care. the story gets at the different splits inside the party as with the republicans in 2010, we're now seeing democrats split done left and center on health care, on taxes, on tech, on trade, and

even on weather to do deals with president trump himself. >> you know, michael, i'm a firm believer in the pendulum effect of politics. i remember the election of 1964 when the republican party was dead. they'll never come back. it's all over for them. they came back with a roar in less than four years by electing a president. but what impact do you think money has had on the difficulty of both major parties in they their tendency to spend most of their time, elected officials, raising money, separates them from the real needs of their constituents? >> a good example is how the party is split about silicon valley and technology. the party likes the money that the valley has given them in huge quantities since about 1988, 1992, but the party's constituents have issues with what technology is doing to the workplace, to jobs. what it's going on privacy, and the liberal left is concerned

about what technology is doing to what we know, information, fake news, the kinds of things that happened in the election. the party takes money and the leaders take money from those guys but they're much less comfortable with the policies and the things that are happening as a result of the technology. >> michael, did you find any democrats who had ideas about turning this around that seemed good? >> almost an impossible question from mark halperin. i was glad i'm not flake a minute ago. there is this incredible debate going on i think about who is going to step up, whether it's from the left side of the party, the bernie sanders and elizabeth warrens, the kamala harriss, sherrod brown versus some of the more moderates, tim ryan, joe biden and the party leadership in the form of schumer and

pelosi. the party is punching a little above its weight here. in general i think it might benefit from going to that workshop noyourvalue.com. it might be time for them to hit that. >> i seriously agree with you. that's knowyourvalue365. >> how does hillary clinton play into all this and the book tour? >> i think a lot of the attention was focused on what she thought bernie sanders had done to her or to the party or changed it. i think what's past is prologue, mika. i think we'll see some of the same things take place as they roll into 2018 and 2020. a lot of people have criticized sanders into stepping up, the

one-single-pair things. some people criticized sanders for a time that would do thgive lift to the graham cassidy member. that that teed up the whole health care debate when obama said i thought it was done. only 50 or 60 times they tried to kill it. this looks like it might have a good shot of passing. some democrats blame sanders for helping to put that back on the table. that split in the party she wrote about continues. >> hey, michael. it's jonathan la mere. what are you seeing from democrats beyond being the party that's not trump, what are you seeing from them to rally a positive forward thinking message? >> i think they're trying to wrestle particularly on trade to try to get past the old we just don't want to do trade deals, we want to protect the rights of workers. there clearly is a split there that they're trying to close. you see some beginnings of a

conversation about immigration in the party. people asking the question are we just too far to the left on that? that's not a consensus view. but you begin to have that question raised which wasn't being raised six months ago, a year ago, and i think daca, that has probably set that conversation back a little bit. we'll see what happens. it's going to be very interesting. i don't think anybody around your table thinks there's going to be tax reform ever. but there might be tax cuts, tax relief at the end of the year, maybe early next year. the democrats will have to decide if they're for lowering rates or not, getting rid of preferences on mortgages and state and local taxes or not. those are fights to come, but they're coming. they'll probably split on those, too. i think we're seeing again a kind of fracturing of the party like we saw with the republicans in the tea party era in 2010 and

2011. >> new issue of "time" is out now. michael duffy, thank you very much. we'll get live reports on the deadly earthquake in mexico and the hurricane that has 100% of puerto rico in the dark. we'll go to our correspondents in the ground in both disaster zones, plus two reporters behind two big front page stories involving the russia investigation this morning. "the new york times'" michael schmidt and "washington post" carol len nick. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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good morning. it's thursday, september 21st. to say this is a busy news morning is an understatement. the devastation and destruction left by hurricane maria is extensive. the entire island of puerto rico is without power this morning. officials say it could take six months to restore electricity. we'll go live to san juan and show you where the hurricane is headed this morning. in mexico rescue workers are trying to find survivors in the rubble, children potentially still trapped under a collapsed school. we'll go live to the scene there. in politics, the republicans' last-gasp attempt to repeal obamacare is set for a vote next week as the debate rages on over whether or not it actually protects people with

pre-existing conditions. president obama is speaking out on that. there is news on the iran nuclear deal. president trump says he's decided if he'll pull out of the deal but won't reveal his decision, not even to his own secretary of state. major developments in the russia probe from both "the new york times" and "the washington post." is the investigation getting closer and closer to the white house? we've got the reporters from both those papers who broke those stories. president trump has continually said he's done more in the first months of his presidency than practically any president in history. but a new poll out this morning shows people don't quite agree with that. i guess it really depends on what you mean. a lot to get to politically this morning. >> a lot to get to. we've got "the daily news" -- actually this is quite interesting.

"i want your papers," bob mueller as uncle sam. a lot of stories on russia developing. presidential politics. i've got to say the inexplicable, coming from republicans on capitol hill again. the donors, all i can say is their donors must be extraordinarily persuasive because they have moved to put their hand on the burning stove again. there's no reason. but they're doing it. is it the third time? >> i've lost count. it's sad for the country. a big waste of time. >> really sad when republicans -- >> senate majority leader mitch mcconnell's office said the latest effort to repeal and replace baurk will be considered on the senate floor next week. here we go again.

republicans are fighting for the 50 votes needed to pass it. after the 60 votes are required to avoid a filibuster. critical republican senators like alaska's lisa murkowski, still in doubt. >> are you ready to support it? >> nope. >> why not? >> because i am doing the due diligence that i committed to doing yesterday. what i have had an opportunity to do is sit down with my team who has sat down with hhs and we are ferret iing out large numbe and we're continuing to do that. >> you better be at your general aviation airport to hire a private plane to see if the secretary of hhs is on a private plane. >> they need their comfortable travel, those members of the administration. into luxury like the rest of

america. >> only four or five times a meek. >> but they're going to make america great again. senator john mccain continued to call for regular order to consider the health care bill. president trump reacted on twitter to another republican opponent of the bill yesterday tweeting, rand paul is a friend of mine but he is such a negative force when it comes to fix health care. yesterday evening the president spoke about the bill from republican senators lindsey graham and bill cassidy and vented his frustration with the process. >> i believe that graham-cassidy will do it the right way and is doing it in the right way. it has tremendous support from republicans which i believe were 47 or 48 already senators. a lot of others looking at it very positively. mike pence has been working on it. o i thought that what i want, i would go to the oval office, sit down at my desk and there would

be a health care bill on my desk, to be honest. and it hasn't worked out that way. i think a lot of republicans are embarrassed by it. >> oh, my god. >> first of all, he doesn't really know what's in the bill. he hasn't known what's been in any of these health care bills. he's just wanted anything to sign. and it makes you wonder what would have happened if 7 1/2, 8 months ago they started with a process and had regular order and marched through the process regularly instead of drafting something quickly, have two or three people do it, shove it down everybody's throats and have the president say he likes it and the president says it's a mean bill, et cetera, et cetera. if they had done it the right way -- this reminds me, mika, we were in philadelphia a couple days ago. and mika has "know your value." one of the things she tells the

women and the women who are in these conferences, when it comes to success, there are no shortcu shortcuts. you have a senate, mark halperin that has taken one shortcut after another, haven't even had hearings. this is the third time they said, we've got an idea, we're going to reorder one-sixth of the economy without going through the right committees, without really letting the members know what's inside the bills, without getting scoring from the congressional budget office and without knowing what the impact is of our reordering, one-sixth of the economy from washington, d.c. now, that is something that edmund burke would have called radical, something russell kirk would have called radical, something that william f. buckley would have called radical, something in his time paul ryan would have called radical, something that mitch

mcconnell would have called -- you can't reorder one-sixth of the united states economy without a committee hearing, without regular order, without a cbo score, without being a dangerous radical. and i don't understand how they think they're going to get away with that and how some of my friends, and they are friends and that's why it hurts so much, are getting on tv and lying every day to the american people, lying through their teeth about what's in this bill and what's not in this bill. >> they also don't have any support of the health care industry which is important, or the grass roots of the country. on the politics of this, they're actually today closing to getting a successful senate vote and successful house vote than they were yesterday according to congressional people i've talked to. so this could happen. but the substance of it is

really problematic to the party. they're doing -- they're making many of the same mistakes president obama made in passing health care, first and foremost, not being honest about what's in the legislation and who it will impact. that will make it harder to pass. if it does pass, it will be a huge substantive problem for that. >> wasn't that over the course of a year or something? we were talking about health care hearings and health care committee votes and -- we were talking about that for six, seven, eight, nine months where they were actually going through a process. i hate it, the result. i didn't want it to pass. i was upset when it passed, but they went through a regular process. this is like, hey, let's go in secret, write a bill as fast as we can, don't tell anybody what's in it, don't let the congressional budget office score it and shove it down the american people's throat. >> i'll read two tweets to your point. may 4, 2017. i appreciate the apparent

progress on health care reform in the house, i will admit i'm concerned with the process. a bill finalized yesterday has not been scored, amendments not allowed, three hours final debate, should be viewed with caution. whose tweets were those? senator lindsey graham of south carolina. that was him talking about the process 4 1/2 months ago. now he's leading this process in exactly the same way it was conducted in may now and wants a vote on it next week without any of that regular order you talked about. now to the latest on hurricane maria and the sheer devastation it brought to puerto rico. we'll have a live report from san juan. first let's go to nbc meteorologist bill karins with a check on the storm's latest track. >> now lashing the coastline of the dominican republic. as we get more daylight, we'll get an idea on what areas were hit the hardest in puerto rico. you can see the eye of the storm still a category 3. dominican public being brushed by the storm, turks and caicos,

same for you. the rain bands continued over puerto rico, some gauges reporting over 20 inches, one rain gauge is reporting over 36 inches of rain in 24 hours. that's as much as houston got in three days. the flooding is catastrophic right now and there's flash flood warnings from one end of the island to the other. here is a different view of the satellite. there's the eye, there's the dominican republic. the bright white is the top of thunderstorms still sitting over central portions of puerto rico. they're not done yet. the storm will barely skirt turks and caicos, then off the southeast coastline. we're happy to say it won't be directly impacting the u.s. let's turn our attention to puerto rico to correspondent tammy leitner. now that we have more daybreak, what are you seeing? >> reporter: i can tell you i'm seeing a lot of destruction, bill. they're saying they're starting cleanup. if you take a look around me, this is going to take a long time.

quite honestly right now, the rescue missions are what is going to take precedence. they're having a very hard time getting to some areas of the island. there's no power across the entire island. there's very little communication. what i've heard from a lot of people, even the rescue crews that have been brought in, they're not hearing from the other emergency operations center as to where to go. there's not a lot of communication right now because everything is down. bill? >> the cleanup in front of you is unimaginable. you're in san juan. we can't even picture what the people are going through in the rural areas. thank you, tammy leitner reporting from san juan. this is where the eye made landfall, guy yam ma. wooden structure house. this gentleman looking for possessions. trees snapped, more roof damage. people will need shelter, water and food. this is far away from the big populated cities to the north. that's obviously -- we'll have

more pictures and images and stories throughout the day. we want to turn to our other major story. that the deadly earthquake in mexico. joining us is nbc news correspondent steve patterson. you've been at the scene of the search for the missing students and faculty at the collapsed school. any good news? >> reporter: none yet and it is crunch time for rescue crews here. we're nearing 48 hours since that earthquake, a crucial time in this search and rescue effort. 21 students, young elementary schoolers were killed when the earthquake occurred, four-story building slammed and crushed on top of them, crushing those children, four teachers as well trapped inside that building. what they're doing, they've identified the young girl, 12 years old, somewhere trapped beneath the rubble. they found her location, found her vitals, confirmed those. they've identified what they think are heat signatures that

are around that area meaning that there could well be more people. they're thinking um to five people are trapped inside there as we speak. the reason why it's so slow is obvious. there's human life. so they have to pull every piece of debris by hand and it's a very meticulous, arduous and heartbreaking process that will continue as this goes on. now it's a race against time as we're nearing 48 hours. back to you. >> nbc's steve patterson. i can only imagine what those parents are going through hour after hour. we'll continue to update you of course on these two major developing and heartbreaking stories in puerto rico and mexico city. joe and mika, back to you. >> bill, thank you very much. coming up, from the firing of james comey to paul manafort to the president eeps oval office meeting with russians. bob mueller is reportedly interested in all that. we'll get the latest bombshell reporting next on "morning joe."

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there are several new developments surrounding the russia investigation. according to "the new york times," special counsel robert mueller has asked the white house for documents about some of president trump's most scrutinized actions since taking office including the firing of his national security adviser michael flynn and fbi director james comey. "the times" sources white house officials who says mueller is interested in oval office meeting with top russians officials. documents described to the "times" in may saying he was not under investigation. i just fired the director of the fbi, a real nut job. >> stop there. that is -- everybody used to

love watching "perry mason." i watched the reruns, but nobody really breaks down on the stand and says, oh, my god, i did it, i did it. >> nobody does that. >> but donald trump, mike barnicle. it's the final scene in every "perry many son" tv show. he did it in the oval office, did it own his own, did it when the russian foreign minister and ambassador were there. he literally laid out the case for obstructing justice. >> to continue with the analogy, hamilton berger who is the district attorney wouldn't even have to ask the question in this case. just let the guy talk. he's talking himself right into it. >> special counsel's office has made requests about response from the white house, and donald trump, junior, is meeting with russian lawyer natalia bell sky

yeah. asking for any e-mail documents that relates to paul manafort according to two sources briefed on the request. the paper says less than two weeks before trump accepted the republican presidential nomination his campaign chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to russian billionaith billionaire closely aligned with the president. >> get this. >> that's the first thing that ronald reagan did. >> see if this concerns you at all. man fort who wrote to a go-betwe go-between, if he needs private briefings, we can accommodate. a spokesman confirmed to nbc news the authenticity and said they had been turned over to a congressional committee. >> isn't that something james baker did when he was running reagan's campaign for brezhnev.

is brezhnev wants a briefing about what we're doing in western iowa -- >> it's a tradition. bob strauss, lyndon johnson's case, he had hoe chi m chi minh phone all the time. >> reaching out, if you want to know what's going on, we'd be happy to accommodate you. why would you need to do such a thing? >> the question is, who in the world might think there might be collusion between the trump campaign and russia if you're saying, hey, you want to get vlad on the phone, we'll let him know what we're doing. >> the paper notes there's no evidence in the documents that dare posh ka received the documents and the spokesperson dismissed it as little more than consultant scheming. >> except he was the chairman of the next president of the united states' campaign at the

republican national convention. so not a consultant, but actually chairman of the presidential campaign. >> all right. let's get to richmond, virginia. "new york times" reporter michael schmidt who broke the mueller probe story and staff writer for "the washington post" carol leonnig who had bylines on two of the big headlines for her paper. >> carol, let's start with paul manafort, just a lowly consultant. this is just scheming, so they say. tell us what in the world, what was the prelude to this extraordinary offer. >> so you're right. it ooh es a startling offer, not a typical thing for the chairman of the presidential candidate for the republican party to say, hey, by the way, i'm trying to figure out a way to use my prominent role in this presidential race to make some money, and that is essentially what paul manafort's e-mails

suggest. paul manafort was in a lot of debt. he appeared to be aperson who was looking to be repaid, several outstanding bills from various foreign nationals including this very prominent russian billionaire, one of the most wealthy men in russia, and a person who was very much angling to find a way to get into the united states. he's been denied visas to do that and he's been trying every way he can, political consulting, pressure, pr, to figure out how to get a visa so he can travel into the u.s. >> can't he just invest in one of those buildings that jared's sister is talking about? >> i think he found a pretty prominent advocate who said we can accommodate you, i'd like to help you. it's just a very strange place to be as a leader of this

campaign where your interests appear how to get money from a russian billionaire. >> michael schmidt, you have a piece in "the new york times" today about mueller's inquiry into the trump firings. what does this tell you about what bob mueller is up to? we see this is going to be a wide and deep investigation. what more did you learn from that request? >> we did suspect that mueller was looking at things related to trump's time in office, but we really didn't know details about it. what we learned was the breadth of what he's looking at, trump's handling of flynn, handling of comey, how the white house responded to these questions about this meeting that their campaign officials had in 2016 with russians promising derogatory information about hillary. it struck us that so many things that the president was directly involved in that have turned out

to be pivotal in his presidency are things that mueller is indeed interested in. we had some details about that and we thought that was significant. >> still ahead on "morning joe," senator ron johnson wasn't a fan of the process the last time republicans rushed through the health care repeal plan. what's changed this time? we'll ask him straight ahead on "morning joe." this is the drug enforcement agency. we are ordering you to land immediately. alright boys, let's land. what is he? [ car horn honks ] that's for your bike. you never saw me. [ bell rings ] i was working for the c.i.a. and pablo escobar. who thought that was gonna be a problem? [ upbeat music playing ]

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i like almost everything about this bill. they could make changes to it that might bring me around. if what they're going to do is steal money from my state to give it to another state that didn't choose to expand medicaid, i can't be in favor of that, injuring the people in my state. >> all right. ron johnson is going to be joining us in just a moment. with us from washington, jeremy peters of "the new york times." here onset, nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson. good to have you both on board. hallie, lead us in on the strategy with health care? does it have a chance? >> based on the reporting we've seen so far, it seems unlikely they'll be able to get these folks on board.

>> what's the strategy? >> the president wants something. the issue is it's like a ping-pong ball. he wanted tax reform. now he wants health care reform as well. if this iran deal situation happens, as our report says it's likely to happen, congress is going to have to deal with that, too. there's a lot. >> is the president going to share about the iran deal. >> he didn't share it with theresa may when she asked. secretary tillerson said she wanted to find out what the decision was but the president refused to share it. it was interesting he made such a big deal about that in this news conference because it's a little embarrassing. >> does he want to rip up the deal or alter the deal? the promise was rip up the deal on day one. now he wants to tweak the deal. >> a lot of things said on the campaign trail that didn't come to fruition in the last nine months of the administration. what we know is that the intention is to alter the deal at this point. >> jeremy peters, what's the strategy with health care in

washington. wh >> there are certain ways they can try to make the bill sweeter for her. i no e that lindsey graham is working on that very hard, if my reporting lindsey graham has been going around expressing a lot of optimism. it's easier said than done. there's virtually no cushion here. if you lose murkowski, that's pretty much it because you've already lost rand paul and there goes your 50 votes. i think they'll have to make it very appealing for her. alaska is a very poor state, a lot of health care challenges, very medicaid dependent. let's face it, this bill could gut medicaid funding. >> mark? >> let me ask you both, what is the white house strategy for prioritizing these items? do they have them or are they letting congress decide how to take things up. >> the focus is tax reform and

daca. that's where they actually have specifics that are going to be rolled out over the next seven to ten days. actually early next week you'll start seeing dpaktly what the white house wants with tax reform, specific numbers on the corporate rate. you'll also see what they want to see in a daca package. there's less discussion about health care because they're letting congress with the ball here. lindsey graham says he speaks with the president all the time. he was caught in that a.p. report at the airport talking about how much he talks with the president. that's true a. he's answering questions about it. behind the scenes there's a lot more work being done from the staff level on other issues. >> jeremy, we were asking at the top of the show, why the switch including co-sponsors on this health care legislation like lindsey graham who was so concerned in may about rushing a bill through.

kasie hunt reported at the beginning of the show that a lot of them frankly went home over the recess, a lot of his congressmen and women and senators and were told by donors, we put you there to do something. we put you there to repeal and replace obamacare and that, in part, at least explains why we've seen a flip on some of these senators and why they're going back in for another bite at this apple. is that in line with what you've heard? >> absolutely. what's it been? seven years and 60 votes to repeal this thing and they still haven't been able to get it done. the pressure has been immense. now, i will say that while i've heard that donors -- the fund-raising has taken a lunch, a fundamental promise of republican governance. give us the house, give us the senate, give us the white house, we'll do this. the failure to do that i think has been somewhat lessened by the fact that they have moved on to tax reform. for a white house and congress that have kind of bounced

around, ping-ponged from one crisis to the next, this was looking somewhat manageable, these next few weeks and months. they were going to move on to an item that they agreed at least in theory they needed to pursue. that's tax reform. then all of a sudden you have donald trump throwing the hand grenade of daca in this. you have a budget that needs to be resolved or the government will shut down by december 15th. now on top of all of that, y u ear go into deal with an issue that has vexed republicans since they've taken control of washington. this is not how the white house or many of the outside groups that fund republican activities wanted this to go. they were really looking forward to moving on on tax reform. >> meanwhile president trump is headed to alabama. yesterday he tweeted in part, i am supporting big luther strange

because he was so loyal and helpful to me, adding alabama is so lucky to have a candidate like him, smart, tough on crime, borders and trade. loves vets and military. strange is trailing in the race. bob costa reports in "the washington post" that members of the republican establishment waged a fierce effort to get the white house to support the incumbent with senator bob corker personally telling the president you've got to go, we need you there. so hallie, why is the president taking the time and effort and power of the presidency to this race? >> backdrop, people in alabama love donald trump. this was done as a favor to mitch mcconnell to smooth things over with the senate majority leader, of course, within 24 hours of the president originally coming out and endorsing luther strange, he got word mcconnell had said what you could interpret as not-so-kind

things about the president's grasp of his understanding about how things work in washington. there was discussion even among folks in the strange camp that maybe the president would go back on it. they're like, well, you know, i hope this thing sticks. i do think it's fas naelting. this is a proxy war, what's happening in alabama between the steve bannon wing of the conservative movement and then the establishment as we've been talking about. in my conversations, you talk to folks who are close with steve bannon, close with the breitbart faction, they're all in. you have seth gorka reappearing going to this rally today with slal. you have these people who are very fierce donald trump backers who are splitting with him in this particular race. now strange is trailing. so if the president is not able to pull this out with visits, that's going to be a concern. mike pence is going down monday,

too. >> hallie is right. the white house has put a lot on the line, president trump has put his own personality credibility and capital on the line. look at the opposition, the opposing side, sebastian gorka, slal and now leo gomer. these are not heavy hitters of the republican party. on the other side, the president, vice president and $30 million from senate republican allies. this is a total mismatch. if donald trump and luther strange don't pull this out, it will be a huge blow to them and it will be deeply unsettling to mitch mcconnell's leadership in the senate. >> joining us from green bay, wisconsin, republican senator ron johnson. senator, i understand we've got a wonky connection, so i'll speak louder than usual. thanks for being with us. we talk a lot about graham-cassidy. you, too, are one of the co-sponsors of this proposed health care legislation. why do you think, senator, so many republican governors, people who will have to manage this if you send the block money

to the states, have come out against it and why have so many major insurance companies come out strongly and said this plan is bad for people who need health care? >> well, oftentimes people really don't like change. from my standpoint, there's an awful lot of governors that have come out in favor including governor walker because this will be hugely beneficial for wisconsin. under obamacare, three states, california, new york, massachusetts, 20% of the population get 30% of the funding. it's unfair. if wisconsin were to get federal allocations based on population -- right now we're getting 59%, under this proposal, 76%. a far fairer allocation. i truly believe governors and state legislators will do a better job managing health care in their states. wisconsin didn't need obamacare. according to the department of health services, 94% of wisconsinites had coverage, all or part of a year prior to obamacare, now we have 96%.

it's true 200,000 people in wisconsin got coverage, but 100,000 are paying the penalty and going without coverage and more than 80% of them make less than $50,000 a year. premiums have doubled nationally, doubled here in wisconsin, sometimes tripled. obamacare isn't working. senator flake pointed out you've got 90,000 businesses that will get notices in the beginning of october and have to pay penalties close to $5 million. >> i have a few things to get through here. let me stop you for a second. you say people don't like change and that's why they're resistant. we heard from christie, kasich who say we don't like the kind of change that takes medicaid coverage away from people, we don't like the kind of change that prevents people with pre-existing conditions from getting the coverage they need or not being able to afford the coverage they need because the premiums and the prices go up so much. what do you say to people now covered by medicaid expansion who are worried that your plan would take away their health

care, low income people? >> first of all, governors that took medicaid expansion aren't going to want a fair distribution. i get that. there will be less money than they otherwise would have gotten because the distribution has been so inequitable. we are still spending vast amounts of money. i think the total reduction is going to be probably less than 4% in terms of spending over ten years. we'll still spend close to $5 trillion over the next ten years. in medicaid, 2009 we spent $200 billion, this year we'll spend about $400 billion. under obamacare, close to $600 billion. we'll knock that down probably less than 4% in the future. in wisconsin, for example, we have traditional medicaid. i would argue that medicaid expansion which was targeted at able-bodied working age, childless adults where the federal government fully funded that. ramping down contribution a little bit. disabled, elderly and

children -- >> senator, will not some of the people who enjoy coverage under medicaid expansion no longer have medicaid coverage. will people who enjoy coverage under medicaid expansion be now denied coverage they have now? will those people be covered in some way or left in the lurch? >> i will say not if governors manage their programs properly. >> what if we don't have enough money to cover that anymore. >> medicaid expansion should be for a bridge to a job. i think that's part of a problem with any kind of entitlement. i'm not sure it's being used as a bridge to a job. if you capped enrollment in medicaid expansion, let everybody stay on, grandfather them, if they get a job, come back in and can always take it, through attrition, medicaid expansion would basically be reduced to about 20% of its current level. again, medicaid expansion puts at risk medicaid -- traditional medicaid. that's what we have in wisconsin. that's why i'm in support of this bill, one of the many reasons. >> do you agree governors, if

your plan becomes law, will have to make choices they didn't have to make now. if they have less money, that means somebody gets less coverage or somebody gets no coverage at all. can you say this morning on this -- can you say this morning on this show under your plan no one will lose their coverage? >> for example, governor walker will have more funding. not as much as our population will indicate. >> but people will lose coverage? >> -- benefit for the state of wiscons wisconsin. >> people will lose coverage under your plan? >> i can't guarantee that. >> you can't guarantee they will or they won't? >> premiums have already doubled. supposedly guaranteed coverage under pre-existing conditions under obamacare, it's not a guarantee. if you're one of those forgotten people bill clinton talked about, people busting it, 60 hours a week, premiums tripled, coverage cut in half. unless you quit your job and have pre-existing condition --

>> senator, i want to clarify. >> $5 billion in fines, premiums have doubled. this is unsustainable. we'll have to continue to throw billions of dollars into a failing system which is one of the reasons the bipartisan effort i've been fully involved in great discussions, they'll continue. this puts us on a path to state control, more flexibility. >> senator, i want to be clear in an answer you gave a minute ago because i think this is at the core of what we're talking about here. will people who currently have coverage, medical coverage lose it under your plan in the united states? >> listen, millions of people lost coverage under obamacare. there are no guarantees other than the fact that premiums have already doubled, they'll continue to skyrocket. we'll have to continue to throw money at a failing program. it simply doesn't work. >> okay, senator. let's try this one. this is a pretty simple question because i'm a pretty simple

person. >> mark, it's a pretty complex problem. that's part of the problem with simple questions, there are no simple answers. >> there have to be simple answers for the people who you represent. here is one of them. somewhere in wisconsin there's a family with a 9 or 10-year-old child with cystic fibrosis currently covered under what you call the disaster of obamacare. can you tell that family that their premiums under your proposed bill you're about to vote on, their premiums will not go up? >> certainly shouldn't. they should be going down. obamacare artificially doubled premiums nationally. so again, the state of wisconsin, we'll get more funding because we've been disadvantaged under obamacare funding scheme right now. in wisconsin, we're going to do very, very well. i think other states will as well. maine, they instituted guarantee -- they didn't repeal it. premiums fell to a third.

covering people with pre-existing and high cost conditions without skyrocketing premiums or collapsing insurance markets. obamacare is a failed model, a faulty architecture. this will put us on a path to start fixing it. >> senator, i'm begging you. can you guarantee their programs won't go up. >> there are no guarantees under obamacare. i just pointed out individuals that are busting, that are working hard, don't get subsidies, they're without coverage. some of them have pre-existing conditions, so there are no absolute guarantees other thanks if we don't do anything, $5 billion in fines, premiums will continue to skyrocket unless we inject tens of billions into a failed system. that's a guarantee. we're trying to make sure that doesn't happen. >> senator ron johnson of wisconsin, one of the sponsors of the graham-cassidy legislation under review in the united states senate. senator, thanks for your time this morning. >> have a good day. >> the same as with the

affordable care act. if you're not going to be honest with people about the winners and losers of your legislation, if you pass it, you'll have trouble. people are going to be surprised it turns out that not everybody wins. he had repeated chances as have other republicans who have come on the show in the last couple days. >> they cannot answer the questions. they cannot answer the questions. >> his response is i don't know. does he know your example is a hard one to deal with or is he pretending it's not? i don't know the answer to that. >> nor do i. >> i just can't tell. >> question two is the rush job on this. they have a week. they could use the same process in a year. i get it, that republicans feel obamacare is a disaster as you heard ron johnson say. it's been seven. >> what they need is a president who wants to bring people together and create something really constructive and good. they don't have that. jeremy peters, hallie jackson, thank you very much. we'll be right back. i was playing golf days ago...

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>> i was on with my kids. did i miss anything? >> history, television history. >> you missed nothing. >> juggling, ed sullivan type show. >> if it's information you're looking for, you missed nothing. >> willie jumped over the pit on a motorcycle. >> if you've been on twitter, mike allen, nobody is bullying him and he's not bullying anybody. if you follow -- >> did somebody say blood all over his face? >> no. if you logon -- >> it looks like that cyber bullying effort is, woulding now. >> thank god, because melania trump did a speech about bullying. >> maybe that's why nobody is tweeting about it. >> the co-founder of axios describes an exchange he had with former white house press secretary sean spicer.

>> we've got the new spicy, right, mark halperin? axios texted him about the fact that he took prodigious notes, interest to robert mueller. >> this could be a good story. >> so mike allen inquired. that's what he does. >> he's such a nice guy. >> and spicer reportedly responded, quote, please refrain from sending me unsolicited texts and e-mails. should you not do so, i will contact the appropriate legal authorities to address your harassment. >> is that his voice? i don't think that's his voice. >> real subtle read. >> that's how i read it. >> per my text, please refrain from sending me unsolicited tebss and e-mails. should you not do so, i will contact the appropriate authorities -- >> what's wrong with him? >> talking about harassment. hold on. hold on. hold on. is there an e-mail police in washington, d.c.? >> maybe leticia baldridge?

>> perhaps, perhaps. we'll be right back. wait, isn't there more to this story? >> there's a lot more. throughout my career, i've been fortunate enough to travel to many interesting places. i've always wanted to create those experiences for others. with my advisor's help along the way, it's finally my turn to be the host. when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant.

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to teach life's many ethical lessons along the way. >> you do learn by example, don't you? >> what? >> you look at the people closest to you. >> do you think you could -- >> and learn by example. >> -- tell your husband? >> you know what's amazing about that? >> it would be amazing if you'd tell your husband. >> i have no idea. i have the same exact shirt. >> i know, i know. it's awesome. it's a little expensive, though. >> it is a little expensive. >> but why would you -- >> going to talk about bullying. >> -- talk about bullying when your husband is the bully in chief and actually attacks people, especially women, about blood and their looks. i don't get it. >> also wearing that puffy pink thing a couple days ago. >> maybe they don't talk a lot or something, i don't know. >> "fortune" is out now with a list of the most powerful women in america. can i just say we love -- >> i love indra.

>> she is great. >> i'm obsessed with her. >> she opens up a lot. >> number 50 with a bullet. >> ann finucan. >> actually the higher the number, the more powerful you are. >> that makes no sense to me. why would you do that? >> so let's stop and talk here, okay? >> uh-huh. >> can we listen to leigh? >> yeah. >> so she is our number two on the list. number one is the ceo of general motors. indr achl has steered pepsi through the food industry. everything is getting interrupted but perhaps not as much as the food industry. >> she saw this ahead of time. >> she's very clear to say not everyone wants all that stuff. there's still a market for the bad stuff. >> or some would say the good stuff, but go ahead. >> exactly. and profits are up 16% last year. so she's really steering this

company in a good way. >> so let's talk about mary barra. >> and this is a great example of women lead differently. when she took over, she expressed humility and more importantly she's turned the company around. the chevy volt is now the top selling nonluxury car and profits and revenue are up too. >> sheryl sandberg we see, meg whitman, they seem to always be on lists like this. >> this is the 20th year of this list. in the beginning there were only a small handful of ceos. now there's 26 ceos on the list. in the past, in the early years, it was, you know, a lot of women in advertising, fashion and beauty companies primarily. and now it's the biggest companies in the world. it's leadership companies. it's lockheed martin. it's everything, ibm. >> who's the youngest person on this list? >> it might be sheryl sandberg. >> reese witherspoon. >> she's our honorary. >> was there any contentiousness

about heather bresh being on the list? >> she steered the company through the epipen crisis and many thought that would have a bigger toll on the company than it did. >> effective leader. >> ann finucan. tell us about ann. >> she is vice chairman of bank of america. she steers the environmental, social and governance committee so she's really leading the charge of b of a's efforts of doing well by doing good. she's steering to low income areas of cities and she has done a lot of lending to clean energy. so this is a big topic in business. she'll be speaking at our most powerful women's summit on that topic. >> amy hood of microsoft is 45. >> she may be the youngest. >> thank you, mark. >> ann finucan also gives mike barnicle microloans every two weeks. >> she was also responsible for us having to put underneath mike

barnicle in 2008 and 2009, my wife works for bank of america. ginni rometti. >> the pressure is on her, but she has really expanded into new business like cloud, mobile, analytics, trying to right the ship there. >> i love it. you have some -- now, what's the criteria? >> the criteria, this is the most powerful women in business. it's four, the size and lehealt of the company, the arc of the woman's career, the cultural and social influence of the woman and i'm forgetting the fourth one. >> but it's good. >> appearances on "morning joe." >> yes, number of appearances. but it was. how did you know that? i love it. >> tell us about your conference. >> the conference is in a few weeks. we have a great lineup. we have mary barra, arianna huffington, diane von

furstenberg. we have jewel, we have billie jean king, we've had mika before, we hope we'll have her again. and a lot of people. >> and by the way, number 47 with a bullet, nbc universal's own bonnie hammer. >> we're doing a great panel on the news business with andrea mitchell. >> oh, very cool. i love it. that does it for us this morning. >> thanks for having me. congratulations on ten years, i forgot to say. >> thank you so much. >> we're all so old. all right. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. thanks so much, mika. good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle. we're taking you down to puerto rico. first light, puerto rico waking up to the aftermath of hurricane maria. the worst hurricane to hit that island in a century. >> have you ever seen anything like this? >> me? never. time is running out in mexico as rescuers comb through what's left of a school after that deadly earthquake in mexico city. >> there's about 20 kids