stephanie ruhle. we are staying on all these important stories for you. hit me up on twitter, facebook, sn snap chat. "deadline: whitehouse" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. accounts of white house chaos and dysfunction plastered across many newspapers, indictments of the president's undisciplined style coming from friends and one time allies, general kelly took to the press briefing room for the first time as chief of staff. >> although i red it all the time pretty consistently, i'm not quitting today. i don't believe, and i just

talked to the president, i don't think i'm being fired today. and i am not so frustrated in this job that i'm thinking of leaving. i will tell you this is the hardest job i've ever had. this is in my view the most important job i've ever had. i will offer, though, it is not the best job i've ever had. the best jobive ever had i've said many times when i was an enlisted marine sergeant. unless things change, i'm not quitting, i'm not getting fired. and i don't think i'll fire anyone tomorrow. when i read in the morning -- you watch tv in the morning, it is astounding to me how much is misreported. i will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are operating off of contacts, leaks, whatever you call them.

but i would just offer to you the advice i would say, you know, maybe develop some better sources. >> kelly sought to calm the waters and beat back the perception that the trump white house has become a pressure cooker with the president ready to blow. but his mere presence suggests that the west wing woke up today to the realization that the president is fighting on too many fronts. as of this hour he's on a verbal war footing against the island of puerto rico, the first amendment, rex tillerson's iq and a senator who called the west wing day care. joining us from the white house, nbc news kelly odonal, along with "the new york times" chief correspondent -- baker and senior foreign affairs correspondent for politico, michael crowley. peter baker, let me start with you. we have had this conversation

before about the limits of john kelly's power. but he made abundtally clear he doesn't have the president's twitter feed in his sights without acknowledging it is that dwiter feed that has got the president in so much hot-water, even getting even harshly critiqued by his friend tom barrack this week, and his former ally, senator corker. >> he's made it clear he does not think it's his job to control the president's twitter feed. i'm here to process information to the president and help him do his job as best he can. but it is not his job to baby-sit the president of the united states. one, you just said this idea he is not in fact trying to control the president's twitter feed. the second is that he was there in in fact in some ways to counter the president's twitter feed. he was asked about puerto rico. he says we're going to be there until the job is done.

he was asked about north korea. and the president who said a week or two diplomacy is a waste of time, he said i hope diplomacy works. we've had a second official come out and say i'm not thinking about quitting, i'm not so frustrated i'm about to leave. that's a remarkable situation. >> kelly, it really does count as a jaw dropping headline for someone to say i'm not quitting today. and the last time i saw the president, which wasn't too long ago, i hadn't heard i was getting fired. and oh, i don't plan on firing anybody. he could have gone back to his office after that, and we would have had our headline of the day. >> reporter: well, and it was the chance for us to see the style of john kelly. he's called it the hardest job he's ever had. and i think peter was right, he was sort of countering the messages of the president and perhaps has observed telling the

president to stop tweeting is not the way to get the president to stop tweeting. through the reporters were asking questions, the role as he sees it and emphasized trying to get quality information in front of the president so he can make decisions, that is in his own way an effort to tamp down on questions that have been swirling in different reports from various sources who are not named who are saying that there is a turmoil inside the white house that certainly from the white house we can observe the factors that would cause that turmoil. but it is very notable, i think, this chief of staff who has not played a public role in his time here at the white house chose an announced time to come forward and address a lot of these questions. clearly, there was some decision that this day was the right day for the former marine general to go on the front lines of the media and be an infantry man as

he so-called it from the political side. to go hand to hand, to change the narrative, give a new story line, and reflect calm. his demeanor was so important for this white house with so much volatility perceived real, generated from inside. the tone of general kelly was necessary today. >> and one of the reasons the tone was necessary is because of the story you reported yesterday. on labor day there was a stunning story "the new york times" the way john kelly was yelled at harshly the way he had ever been yelled at in his career. your story also detailed shouting matches between the president and his chief of staff. it is clear that while the staff by and large appreciates john kelly, there really isn't anyone

that is spared from the president's harsh temper. >> that's right. and john kelly really had to come out today to save his reputation. these stories were coming out all about the tension in the white house and that the president who wanted to control and bring some good decision makers in front of him and control that information flow. but at the same time he's been bucking this idea hat he has to limit who he talks to. and several people close to trump spoke with us and said trump has been calling them at night and early in the morning as a way to get around his chief of staff, john kelly. and john kelly saw his role when he came into the white house as trying to bring people in an ordly way to talk to president trump and deliver him with different choices and different options. and it creates tensions at times because trump is an impulsive person. and sometimes he tweets things out in the morning that steps on his own message and undo a lot of things his staff has been

doing for weeks. >> i want to read you the tweets he sent out this morning that stepped on whatever message he was going for. well, he started last night with his twitter war against the first amendment writing, network news has become so distorted and fake that network licenses must be challenged. must be revoked, not fair to the public. tweeted fake news is going all out in order to demean and denigrate such hatred. that brought about a rebuke from republican senator ben sass who tweeted, mr. president, words spoken by the president of the united states matter. are you recanting the oath you took on january 20th to preserve, protect and defend the first amendment? sort of stunning to see someone in the president's own party suggesting he's undermining the oath that he swore to protect when he was inaugurated less

than a year ago. >> going straight to the question of his fitness for office. and i think that ben sass offers us a bracing bit of perspective here. you know, trump says and does so many outlandish things that of course we've talked about whether or not it's becoming normalized. and this is a case where you have to step back and say this is extraordinary. and he really is challenging one of the fundamental tenants of our democracy, civil society, and constitution. so we've had this dilemma ever since trump was inaugurate. do you sort of look at those tweets and say this is trump kind of running his mouth and venting. let's focus on the policy, let's focus on what's really haemg in congress, on what the military may or may not be doing. or do you have to take it very seriously and say this requires almost a crisis atmosphere response. and with trump it's still i think on this particular

question, not entirely clear how much is bluster and how much he might plan to put into action. you know, jeff sessions has talked about more aggressively prosecuting people who are involved in the leaks of classified material. that could extend to the media. even the first amendment protections for the press don't actually give the media total immunity to put any kind of government secret into print. if trump wanted to go after reporters on that score, he really could. and that's when you start getting into hallmarks of authoritarian governments that are totally alien than what we're used to. we have to put trump in a larger context. but we still don't know how serious he is and how much is still just bluster. >> michael crowley makes i think the most important point of the

hour, it is this struggle i'm sure we all face. how much attention to pay to the tweets. in my judgment we have to rise to the occasion of doing both because the tweets are our best window into what he's thinking. and we know from the tweeting the deliberations of the iran deal, the deliberation over the nuclear stockpile, there's just monologue. but you and others have covered this country and abroad. yp to play you two-pieces of sound from his predecessors that to me signaled their concern about the first amendment. let's watch it and talk about it on the other side. >> i spend a lot of time talking about our state of our democracy. it goes without saying that essential to that is a free press. that is part of how this place, this country, this grand experiment of self-government

has to work. it doesn't work if we don't have a well-informed citizenry. and you are the conduit of which they receive about the information of what's taking place in the halls of power. so america needs you, and our democracy needs you. >> i consider our media to be indispensable to democracy. that we need an independent media to hold people like me to account. power can be addictive and corrosive. and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power whether it be here or elsewhere. >> god, i miss those two. peter baker. >> well, look, neither one of those -- both those presidents probably believe what they just said, and both of them at moments kind of have feelings not that different than president trump had towards resentment towards media that

they thought were unfair. the difference is they expressed what you just played, that they understood the role of the president was to very least make these testaments to the rule of the first amendment and freedom of the press even when they try at moments to restrict them. both those presidents pursued leak investigations that were a concern to us on this side of the media -- >> peter, president obama actually pursued more leaks. but neither man neither said or tweeted that the fake news is going all out in order to -- and they never questioned the motive oz of the media and never said licenses should be challenged. to say we don't like our press coverage goes for every ceo, frankly anchors i've met, every sports figure -- i mean not liking your press and

threatening to revoke licenses are two different things. neither was ever rebuked by their own party -- >> that's just sort of the fundament tenant of what the press is all about. president trump can defend it by saying, look, he wants a more responsible press. certainly john kelly put that in a way in his briefing, he said it more respectfully. the difference is with respect to licenses, whether he follows through or not, clearly has a danger of a chilling effect. if you're a broadcaster who has a license, and he doesn't seem to understand the networks themselves don't have the license. but if you're a newspaper that's concerned about your business, you might worry as a result of these kinds of sort of what seem to be offhand comments, that

this creates an environment in which journalism could be chilled. now, the good thing is i'm pretty confident our newspapers and our networks are strong in this society and aren't going to be intimidated by things like that. but it raises big questions. >> kelly, we're running out of time, but if you could quickly weigh in on what performance reviews you think john kelly got. i'm betting the president liked the performance. and we know that to him that's a big part of what he judges when someone goes in front of the cameras and fields questions from the media. >> reporter: well, you can also see the president had an event shortly after john kelly went in front of the cameras. it was a separate event for the next secretary nominee for homeland security. the president acknowledged john kelly didn't have to do that if he was anyway unhappy with the big smile. he likes the projected strength of john kelly, and certainly the comments of kelly were

supportive of the president's abilities in office. and that's important. i think one more important is that the president's attacks on the media are also tactical to speak to his base, to under cut the credibility of stories, to keep them believing what he says versus what they may be reading or seeing in broadcast media. to under cut the credibility of the media is something i think is tactical for the president at the same time he likes to engage the media all the time. so it's hard to know how much he really believes in his critique and how much he's using that as a political weapon. >> and i guess it's the news outlet that finds out that your secretary of state calls you a moron is throom, you're going to stay irritated about that for a long time. thank you so much. when we come back, avoiding presidential fury. a report out today of a national

security team dealing with a furious president. also the mayor of san juan accuses the president of condemning the island to a slow death by depriving puerto ricans of clean drinking water, food and medicine. and rush lim bah goes negative on donald trump's war with the nfl. ♪ when food is good and clean and real, it's ok to crave. and with panera catering, there's more to go around.

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as far as the tweets go, you know, it's funny. i read in the paper -- you all

know, you write it. i've been a failure at controlling the president or a failure at controlling his tweeting and all that. again, i was not sent in or brought to this job to control anything but the flow of information to our president. you should not measure by effectiveness as a chief of staff by what you think i should be doing but simply the fact is i can guarantee you that he is now presented with options, well thought out options. those options are discussed in detail with his team. and then he comes up with the right decision. but it's always, always, always focused on protecting america and advancing america's economic development, jobs for america, safety for americans. >> as general kelly does public relations cleanup in the briefing room a new report in the "the washington post" suggests the president's national security team was

managing the president's anger over the iran nuclear deal. defense secretary jim mattis and others that the landmark 2015 deal while flawed, he threw a fit, he was furious. our reporters are still with us and joining our panel today, a former director of the congressional budget office and a former advisor -- michael crowley, let me start with you just on the question of how these deliberations over iran went down. "the washington post" report, which i didn't see any white house officials knocking down

today, suggests he was looking for curtain number three. i think the truth is most republicans will probably welcome an opportunity to reopen this deal. but i wonder if the chaos surrounding the process is something we've been talking about all hour. >> yeah, of course it is. and by the way, the president says he's feeling jammed. part of that is the law. with the law he has to certify whether iran is complying every 30 days. and he doesn't like this. and some of it he's venting like it's their fault. it's a law passed by congress. it's also reminiscent of the debate of sending more troops to afghanistan. they described a president who was frustrated with the options he was given, he was lashing out at hisviders, yelling at people. and they were trying to come up with clever ways to repackage

the policy options to give him something he could digest, he didn't really want to do. a, there's this atmosphere of chaos around these important decisions, which you really didn't see very often in past administrations even if there was internal debate, obviously. and b, it's this exercise in trying to get trump to sugar coat the pill in some way, that he'll swallow it. to manage him back in sort of a main stream foreign policy position from the position he's at which is way out on a limb with basically the entire foreign policy apparatus. >> bryan, let me bring you in and ask you about this sort of urban legend that people in and out of the white house around donald trump have always held further where, that he would be better than the man we see on twitter, that he would be so big. i'm wondering if there's

anything that you're picking up from his own national security establishment that is alarming, that he looks at the iran deal as simply erasing obama's legacy and looking at the nuclear stockpile in july and wanted it bigger. are there things this team is feeling anxious about not being able to sort of pull out of him a different person than what we see on social media? >> there are. and one of the issue areas that comes up is north korea. his advisers for months have been counseling him how to handle north korea, how to speak about the issue, and not to push things too far to the limit that could solicit a really disterous response from the north korean leader. an early draft of the speech didn't include a rocket man reference and didn't include some of the attacks on north

korea. and those references were added right at the end, something the president wanted to do. he really wanted to use tough talk on that. and a lot of some of his advisers were taken by surprise. and then that then solicited a really dangerous moment of tit for tat insults from the korean leader. and so that was an example of the president's impulsiveness, wanting to shoot from the hip and look tough and use tough talk. going against some of the advice he'd been given from a lot of his advisers. so we've seen this pattern where his advisers are recommending certain actions, but his impulsiveness takes over and he acts out on his own and against their advice. >> one of the things he acts out against is this feeling of impotence, that congress doesn't bend to his will.

he made a move on health care. >> we're going to have great health care across state lines, it'll cost the government nothing. you'll go out. private insurers are going to give you incredible health care. and i can sign it myself. i would have done it earlier except i was hoping they were going to put this through and i'd have it in the bill. >> and except for the fact that y he attacked president obama's -- hypocrisy alert, and problems of your own making alert. but what do you make of his taking this path? >> it's symbolic and no more, really. we're talking about 150,000 people on short-term health insurance policies. he's talking about small group

employers, wanting to band together and act like big group employers. regardless of what you think about the executive order not determined by the agencies when they do this, this isn't a change in the american health care system at all. >> right, and if you could do it by executive order, it probably wouldn't be. you break a lot of news on the russian investigation. and i wonder if you have gone through the exercise of trying to track looking back. sometimes we don't know when they're coming. but if you look back to periods of great instability in this white house. and i think the chief of staff going out there was an acknowledgment someone had to calm the waters. i'm wondering if you think there's anything on the horizon, any developments orb something that might hit a nerve on the russian probe? >> something to keep an eye on is who is handing over documents to russian investigators and

when. those document productions are what tend to drive a lot of really eye popping stories. we all know there are a little more congressional staff that are candid and as a result it often upsets the white house. one thing i reported recently the data firm that's owned in part by the mersers, billionaire power brokers who supported donald trump, is currently in the process of giving documents about the work it did for the trump campaign to the white house intelligence committee. now, we haven't seen any of those documents. we don't know what they might indicate, but to the extent that some of the president's most generous supporters are facing heat, that's something the white house probably isn't happy about. it's safe to anticipate within the next two weeks or so we can kind of expect to see some of these interviews kicking off. one thing i was told is that the

white house has turned over about 90% of the documents that mueller has requested. that would indicate once mueller gets all those documents, we can expect more of these interviews to be happening and generating more of these headlines the president close pays close attention to. >> thank you so much for spending the top of this show with us. the mayor of san juan today accused the president of tweeting away to mask the mishandling of the crisis. we'll bring you that story next. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish,

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we love puerto rico -- puerto rico. and we also love puerto rico.

and we're marshaling every federal resource at our disposal. we will not rest until that job is done, and we will be there all the time to help puerto rico recover, restore, rebuild. >> except that we're not. how times have changed. that was just last week tat the president pledged his utmost support for the people of puerto rico. but this morning he struck another tone, tweeting, quote, puerto rico survived the hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making says sheryl atkinson, a total lack of accountability says the governor. electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes, congress to decide how much to spend. we cannot keep fema, the military and first responders who have been amazing under the most difficult circumstances in puerto rico forever. puerto ricans were not pleased

to say the least. and the mayor of san juan issued a stunning statement. quote, tweet away your hate to mask your administration's mishandling of this mumanitarian crisis. while you were throwing paperings at us, your compacherants and the world are sending love and help our way. dawn dem us to a slow death of nondrinkable water, lack of food, lack of medicine while you keep others eager to help from reaching us. >> i believe it's basically to kick people while they're done when we are pulling together, when we are getting support from abroad. what clearly we still need the assistance of the united states. we don't have enough personnel. fema keeps tweeting about

14,000. we to the health care infrastructure, literally the reports we're seeing these days, we're seeing an increase in the number of deaths where people are drinking polluted water. super fund sites, epa had to issue a warning because people were accessing polluted work. and there have been deaths as a result of the polluted water people are drinking. this is a fragile state of affairs. and him turning his back on us in that way is malicious and cruel. and i hope there are voices of reason and sanity around that are not going to allow this country to turn its back on the 3.4 u.s. citizens in puerto rico. we have given so much to this country, where we've sacrificed and had people on the front lines on many battles giving their lives. this is not a time for this country to turn its back on

puerto rico. >> and we should note that fema came out and disagreed with the president's tweets saying fema will be with puerto rico, the u.s. virgin islands, every state and territory impacted by a disaster every day supporting throughout their response and recovery. and general kelly in that command performance today in the briefing room also reiterated fema's message, not the president's message. but i wonder what you make of something melissa said, the sadistic nature of seeming to take pleasure in a fight with an island where 96% of the island still without power. they're not watching tv, they're not on twitter. who is he fighting? >> i think he's trying to first of all play to his sense of own

sadistic nature. and i think he's playing to crowd that he feels brought in through the primaries that likes to stand up against people of color. >> maybe you can't separate that, maybe the president can't ever separate that, but is there anyone that delights in leaving an entire island -- >> only bigots. i mean think about this, would he say this about other people if they were not people of color? i don't think so. and to say this at a time that people are literally suffering, that i remind you are american citizens, you're dealing with american citizens there. he's the president of the united states. in the same 24 hours that he brags about how corporate profits are up, the stock markets are up, he mistakenly thinks that affects the national debt. maybe general kelly can teach him the difference. but that's another issue. >> i think sean hannity --

>> yeah, but somebody should. but you're bragging about how the national dts are up, big corporations are up. but let me tell you these people down there, these people like they're not american citizens, like they're not even real human beings. i want you to know we're not going to be there forever, like their beggars asking for hand outs. these are american citizens suffering from a natural disaster. and no u.s. president of the united states ought to mockingly act, that we have a moral and people engaging with our citizens who have served this country -- we have a responsibility. >> obviously i'm following this extremely closely, but a lot of the help getting to people in the mountains and remote areas is coming from volunteers. somebody tweeted the other day he sold his harley so he can get to puerto rico and help the people out. we have veterans issuing every

day reports they're getting supplies to. we're being lumped into, and we're all people of color, the idea that trump has of people of color in this country, that somehow we're a drain, we all don't have contributions to make, that we're all being set aside. and we fall under that narrative, and that presumption he has of us. and again it's bigoted, racist. and taehat really is the reason we're getting such a lackluster response. i spoke to the fema director, he's going to be down there for two weeks. but i expressed my serious concern to him. i talked to him braef lee today. i believe he's listening. i said you have a responsibility

to try to talk some sense to this president. but we need to see more seriousness, particularly to the instruct. we still have 85% of people still without electricity. and the state of these hospitals, it is unbelievable. i continue to thank everybody paying attention to this story. >> don't forget he was just down there bragging about all they were doing and having the governor and others singing his praises. and to do this a week later, even this mayor said let's put partisan stuff aside and work together, and she shunned her. >> i want to ask you something. so this is president who loves to build things, right? why not rebuild puerto rico? why isn't that a thing he wants to rebuild? >> it's an obvious thing to do. the instruct is in shambles, and this is an opportunity to fix some long-standing things in

puerto rico. he's missing a huge opportunity for the united states and puerto rico as a whole. it's because of his pattern to accept inability of criticism. you're failing in puerto rico, no, no, i'm not. i'm going to take fema away and go home. fema is going to be there, we're going to make puerto rico better, none of that -- >> it's a statement from the republican party -- >> i think it's important to remember the president isn't just monitoring this disaster but coverage of this disaster. he's incredibly sensitive. >> the problem with rebuilding puerto rico is their puerto ricans. that's the problem. >> i won't speak for puerto rico, but i'm guessing if he

offered to rebuild the whole island, you'd let him stick his name somewhere. go for it, mr. president. thank you so much for being with us. when we come back, we'll take you to another front of president trump's war with everyone. nfl players and their right to protest. growing up, we were german. we danced in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen. when i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna.

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common side effects are nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, decreased appetite, indigestion, and constipation. side effects can lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems. ask your doctor about victoza®. i am very uncomfortable with the president of the united states being able to dictate the behavior and power -- behavior of anybody. that's not where this should be coming from. trump is in the right, don't misunderstand. but no president should have tickatorial power over individual behavior. the president should not be able to tell the owner of a business how their employees are going to act and what they're going to

swear allegiance to and all that. that's up to the owners to do. >> see, we can come together. that was rush limbaugh. but to trump's suggestion that the league's massive tax breaks be revoked over the ongoing anthem protest scare the nfl into action? the owners will collectively consider a new rule on tuesday that would make standing mandatory. joining us now a retired defensive lineman for the new york jets and pittsburgh steelers. he's now an analyst with sports net new york. and the rev is still here with me. i'm shocked personally that the nfl doesn't have the fortitude to stand up for their player's right to protest. the congress doesn't yield to president trump's will, the

media doesn't yield. why does it look like the nfl might? >> because it's about money, and that's the bottom line. it's funny the last time i was here, we were talking about trump threatening to pockets of the owners. and here come the owners threatening the pockets of the players. it's unconstitutional to do that. this country was founded on the right to protest. and right now the owners feel their money is in jeopardy, they're in trouble. and i feel there yet to be an owner -- reverend maybe you can help me or correct me -- there has yet to be an owner to address the problem. they haven't acknowledged nothing. all they keep talking about is this false unity, when at the end of the day there is no unity. the players are going to meet with roger goodell, but right

now it's disheartening. >> i think he's right, because one, they've gotten away from what the protest is about. the president has flipped the script to the national anthem, which it is not about. you do the bow silently not doing it disruptively. there's religious groups that don't fledge to the flag. he's flipped the script. now he has said about the tax of the nfl, which is intimidating the nfl to grovel to him. there's no way you can interpret but groveling to the head of the state threatening their tax status. and now jemele hill who has said don't blame the players, if there's any talk, you put the players where they're going to be called sell outs or they've got to stand up for their

contracts, which is an unfair position to put them in. the issue is the president and this country doesn't want to deal with racism and police brutality. his justice department with it flipping the script, putting pressure on the nfl who needs to stand up and say no business should allow this to happen. >> i understand that's what the president is doing. i understand your case for the nfl, worried about their -- >> the money. >> bottom line. what i don't understand is how a league made up of 75% african-american men sends their players out and deprives them of a first amendment right everybody else enjoys? >> because it's uncomfortable. they can't address it. they don't want to address it. >> why can't they hide behind the first amendment? i can't do anything. >> i said it last time i was here. the nfl has a chance to come out say, we understand the

african-americans in this sport, they stand for 75%. here's a chance for goodell and the powers to be to say we hear your cries. we're talking about kaepernick's protest on the wake of fernando castille, sandra, eric gardner. time after time. listening to a conservative speech. we have to judge every case, case by case. well, that's easy to say in the outcome isn't always no justice. there's no justice for these family. >> for all of them. >> how do you want us to judge case by case? for us in black america, i'm tired of people from our standpoint telling us what should be comfortable and how we should react. all i see end of the day, every time there is a black and brown american slandered or enslaved, there's no justice. no justice. at this point i don't want to hear what's comfortable for white america or for the nfl. i want to hear, how can we make this right? start being -- if you get stopped by the cops you deserve to go home at the end of the day

and shouldn't have to worry if your life is in jeopardy. that's what this protest is about. we're watching this on social media and the news to the point i had a conversation with one of my good friends i love dearly. he goes, i'm getting exhausted. i was like, exhausted? imagine if render al sharpton got exhausted, reverend martin luther king or malcolm or our forefathers, black america cannot be exhausted by this. we must continue to fight and until we get heard and get justice in the country. until then i don't want to hear anything about the flag. it's never been about the flag but about our rights at americans. >> isn't the flag about the freedom to protest the flag? >> that is what they ought to be saying and i think that is what he's addressed, but let me go back to your question. why wouldn't the league say this, when 75% of the players are black. how many -- what percentage of the owners are black? >> is it none? >> so you have an all-white

league of owners. >> all white men? >> making the decisions. now, you put that with the fact that jerry jones takes a knee one day in the name of unity, but says i'm going to bench you if you take a knee. that's a plantation kind of mentality. so you can bend on your knee with me, and if i'm writing the script on which you get on your script for, but don't you dare bend your knee by yourselves, boys and think for yourself. why as he on his knee if a knee should take you out of the game? jones was on his knee. talking about unity. >> maybe pe knew trump was in the little boy's room? all white men in power. you know how this story ends if you look at hollywood. we'll sneak in a quick break and pick the conversation right back up after. it's time your "your business" of the week. jenny wittenbauer credited with starting an ice cream movement with flavors like bramble berry

swift. the company into crisis management and rebuilt their food safety program and their reputation. for more, watch "your business" weekend mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. sponsored by america express open. helping you get business done. we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. so you can get business done. with incredible flavors, like new nashville hot shrimp- crispy, spicy, and drizzled with sweet amber honey. plus the delicious classics you love, like garlic shrimp scampi. try all the shrimp you want, however you want 'em. but hurry, it ends soon.

i want to read you something from the nfl rule book that says, "throughout the period on game day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience including in pregame warm-ups and the bench area during interviews and on the field players are prohibited from wearing, conveying written messages in writing or illustration unless approved in the advance by the league office. one of the arguments against giving players the right to exercise their first amendment rights to protest is there are sort of workplace rules. what's your best response to that? >> well, just nfl being a corporation. that rule has been there since i

was playing. i'm not surprised by it. i think as a player, when you look at what lebron james and some of those players doing in the nba as far as bringing awareness, continuing to do their jobs but bringing awareness. this is an issue we are listening to, aware of are and wear a shirt. nfl always declined that. am i surprised they won't change it? no. that's the nfl. they try to put the shield in front of america, this is the honor being an nfl player but have yet to honor those in the nfl. hypocrisy that's been there forever. until they stand up on the issues as far as that it will remain the same. >> in a time crunch now. address the speed with which the nfl responded to donald trump compared to the pace, the very slow pace, with which they addressed domestic violence amongst players and their families? >> because no one was threatening them around violence in issues they should have dealt

with, but when the president brings up, a., your nonprofit status, tax dollars, if you lose that, and, b., that you're lowering ratings, doug said, saying to advertisers, don't spend money with them, nobody's watching. you react because you need to stop the president from threatening your advertisers, and by threatening your taxes which is why the public needs to deal with the advertisers saying we won't be watching and won't be dealing with you. that's the only way you balance that, if trying to balance the argument. >> running out of time. i think you need to bring in the mayor of san juan to help you fight. >> yes! >> she scares the begeezus out of donald trump. walk into the nfl offices. sorry we ran out of time for you. happy and fortunate to you have. thanks to our entire panel. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now.

chuck, how are you? >> are you fired up, game five? nationals fever yet? >> no. i live in new york! don't yell at me. are the yankees still winning? >> can you imagine a corridor fight between new york and washington if that is our world series matchup? once again -- >> that's why everyone hates us. you say that -- >> the only way the country will root for washington. for anything, if it's facing new york. yes. good-bye. i better -- >> have a good show. >> you got it. thank you. if it's thursday, it's a bridge over troubled white house waters. tonight -- trying to calm the storm. >> the great four-star general john kelly. where is john kelly? stand up, john. >> in another week of chaos at the white house, chief of staff john kelly makes a public show of strength. >> i'm not quitting. i'm not getting fired, and i don't think i will fire anyone