music awards knows how to party. [ cheering ] what up, dog? show me top artist. unbelieveable. i've got my whole family up here. look at my dad looking all sharp. with just the sound of your voice, xfinity x1 gives you a front row seat to the billboard music awards, including throwback clips from some of your favorite artists. the 2018 billboard music awards, sunday, may 20th. only on nbc. . that's a wrap of this hour of msnbc live. i'm alex witt. i wish i was joining joy's team. they're having so much fun over there. you have to stay tuned. hillary clinton called you the king of death. >> no. i called myself the king of debt. nobody knows debt better than me. i've made a fortune by using debt. if things don't work out, i renegotiate the debt.

that's a smart thing, not a stupid thing. >> good morning and welcome to "am joy." over the years donald trump has claimed himself to be the king of debt. in his business dealings, a title that played to his image as the ultimate dealmaker who knew how to leverage debt to expand his family empire. when he wasn't the king of debt, he was instead the king of cash, a self-crowned term he used in 1990 when telling the "wall street journal," quote, there's nobody that has the cash flow i have. i want to be the king of cash. >> which one is it? king of debtor the king of cash? according to a new piece in "the washington post," the latter. the piece revealing, quote, in the nine years before he ran for president, donald trump's company spent more than $400 million in cash on new properties including 14 transactions paid in full without bow rowing from banks. the piece notes the biggest cash bi binge before trump announced running for president when he paid almost $80 million for

large golf courses in scotland and ireland. we have a "washington post" heavy panel. jonathan, this is two and three from our producer here. the great david fahrenthold, his latest piece. he shows the amount of cash spent per transaction by trump since 2006 when his cash bringe started. so he spends on, in 2014, this golf resort in turnberry, scotland, for which he spends more than $60 million, the infamous washington, d.c. hotel he leased in 2012. that's about $40 million. you get the doral resort -- those of us who lived in miami know about the doral golf course. in 2011, a winery in charlottesville, virginia. he's spending a lot of money.

the next chart shows the cash-heavy spending by year. look at that spike. boom, it spikes in 2012. 2014 is a little lower. when you look at that and this amount of cash he's spending at a time when no banks were lending to him, does it look to you that he's flush with cash and can't get loans, or what do you see here? >> this is what's so terrific about what my colleague, david fahrenthold has done. it's diving into the weeds of president trump's finances in a way that wasn't done in the run-up to the 2016 campaign. he's now getting the scrutiny now that he should have gotten back then. to answer your question, i have no explanation for that. if you talk to any financier here or any well-healed person in new york city, they will tell you flat out, no bank in this city would loan him, trump, a

dime because he was just not trustwort trustworthy. i don't trust the quote in the story from the president's son, i think eric trump who said, well, the reason why we had all this cash was because the businesses were so profitable and so successful that we had the money, that we had the money to spend. so it goes back to your original question. which is it? was he cash rich or was he the king of debt? we'll get the answers the more reporters like david and others dive i understand the weeds and try to piece together an explanation. >> absolutely. e.j., you have -- speaking of eric trump, jonathan called his name. let's talk about him for a second. eric trump who is quoted in the david fahrenthold piece saying we don't have to worry about that, we've got so much cash and so much success that we don't need any loans. but according to a "vanity fair" piece published on may 8, 2017, eric is on a golf course with a

writer named james dotson in north carolina. he's asked where donald trump was getting all this money to spend since banks were not touching golf course construction because of the great recession. this is what eric trump said. he said, well, we don't rely on american banks. he said this in 2014. wet don't rely on american banks. we have all the funding we need out of russia. i said really? yeah. we've got guys that really, really love golf and are really interested in our programs. we just go there all the time. according to this golf writer, he represented they had access to maybe $100 million in russian money. what do you make of all this? >> correct me if i'm wrong, i think that interview was given -- the writer figured in 2013. >> 2014, yes. >> right in the middle of that cash period. the post story is very careful,

as the post is, not to draw any conclusions yet. this is like the first chapter i think of a very important story as jonathan suggested. but it's intriguing that one of the sources of cash that the post story mentions is a trump sale of a house in palm beach for $95 million. that sale actually went to a russian oligarch. what was really interesting abili about that sale is that trump paid only four years earlier $41.35 million. he more than doubled his money in four years and that house sold for about $13 million more than any house in the area. i think what we're going to see is a lot more exploration of the russia question raised by that quote, raised by other issues. again, i want to be careful, the post itself is being very cautious before they draw any of these conclusions. that's what interests us,

obviously, the russia issue going forward in this investigation. >> let's stay with "the washington post" and go to jennifer rubin. david fahrenthold points out that -- in the past, 2016, donald trump tweets i'm the king of debt. that has been great for me as a businessman but it's bat for the country. i made a fortune off of debt. will fix u.s. that's one of his tweets in 2016. here is donald trump september 20, 2016, just before the election, and he's talking again about his businesses. take a listen. >> i do that all the time in business, other poem's money. there's nothing like doing things with other people's money because it takes the risk -- you get a good chunk of it and it takes the risk. >> we know, jennifer, donald trump put $65 million of his own money, well short of the $100 million he said he would put in to his campaign, and the rnc was

having to push him to put his own cash in. there's a fundamental contradiction here. >> there is. this is why it's so important that we never got his tax returns. if he's making gobs and gobs of cash, and it didn't seem that way from 2015 -- remember we got one page of a tax return. if those don't show a massive amount of income, then where is this cash coming from? i don't think there's anyone who thinks that the trump businesses in 2013, 2014, 2015 were throwing off that kind of cash. so it is a mystery and that's why the special prosecutor has a bunch of financial crimes investigators on his staff. they are expert at looking at the flow of money. we haven't talked about deutsche bank which did give trump a loan at one point when american lenders would not give him money. those people will go and look at the money flow, how the money went from trump to michael cohen. they're going to look at how the

money went from donald trump's businesses into his purchases. we'll see if that was donald trump's money or someone else's money. i think this is why we made a horrible mistake as a country, among other things, by letting someone who was in business, who was in some questionable deals, get to the white house without showing us his tax returns. >> michael, to the point jennifer was making about these businesses, the cash purchases began with a $12.6 million estate in scotland in 2006, he snapped up five golf clubs, a winery. the biggest cash binge came last in the year before he announced his run for president. in 2014, the same year eric trump said they're getting a lot of money from russia, trump paid a combined $79.9 million for

golf gurs in ireland. since then they've lost money, requiring him to pump in another $164 million to keep them running. these golf courses weren't making money. they were losing money. are we going to have people start to wonder about this stuff? there hasn't been that much interest in it today. >> i don't think they're going to wonder about it. until you see a shift in the number of registered republican, i don't think the party leadership will question some of these things. e.j. made a very interesting point when you mentioned the house in florida that the president sold for $90 million. when that russian oligarch purchased that home, he ended up demolishing that home, joy. you mentioned the $60 million the president invested in his campaign short of the $100 million that he initially promised, if you recall there was reporting that the president had to liquidate some of his stocks in order to pump in that $60 million. what that tells me is though he may have significant holdings as

far as hotels and other properties that may have a decent amount of value, his liquid assets meaning the cash he may have available, may be a lot shorter than what the president actually tells us which i think raises further questions into the link between the president, his organization and ties to russia and russian oligarch. >> one of the jokes michelle wolf told at the excess spon depth's dinner is trump is broke. he supposedly has enough money to buy $79 million to buy a single golf property. but when it came to paying back michael cohen just a few years later, he had to pay him in $35 a month monthly retainer increments. if he had so much cash, why would he need to pay him back piecemeal? and why did cohen need to use his own money? >> you ask a lot of questions to which i do not have the answer. paying cohen in installments?

what is this? lay dloet away for billionaires. >> remember layaway? >> i do remember layaway. this is trump walking up to the window, this is for the michael cohen account. >> shermichael raises a good point, e.j. raises a good point, david therrien ho fahrenthold raises a good point. it doesn't make sense. how does someone who is cash rich but loves debt, whose son says on a golf course we get all of our money from russia, sub text because we can't get any from american banks, none of it makes sense. jennifer makes a good point. a lot of these questions would be answered if we had ak sets to the president's tax return. we have no answers at all. it's incumbent upon us in the press, at "the washington post," nbc, msnbc, everywhere to dig deep and find these answers. these are questions that in a

normal time we would have answers to because we would have a president of the united states who abided by the traditions and the norms and the customs that arc crude to the oval office where we would have the documentation to be able to come to some reasonable conclusion. but we don't. >> e.j., i want to put this chart up one more time. it's not just the amount of money. it's the when. you made the very good point that the "vanity fair" article from 2017 is referencing an eric trump quote from 2014. look at that spike, e.j. i don't know. it's curious. >> first of all, i want to get in on jonathan's layaway for billionaire's plan. i'm only missing billionaire. thank you, jonathan, for that. again, one of the problems as jonathan and the other panelists have suggested is there are so many holes in our understanding

of trump's finances compared with every other president since general ford because of those missing tax returns. so what this requires is the kind of very careful digging that david fahrenthold and his colleagues did. they're careful not to draw any hasty conclusions here, but as soon as i saw that quote from eric trump and i went back and looked up the sale of that house, it makes you think, gee, i wonder if mueller is looking at that. we don't yet have any indication of that, but i think the money ner nexus is one of the issues in the russia connection that people are going to want to get to the bottom of one way or the other before this whole investigation is over. >> joy, you know who does know what's going on? that's michael cohen. that's why trump is so freaked out. >> absolutely. jonathan, shermichael, jennifer

will all be back. e.j., we'll release you to have the rest of your sunday. >> thank you. up next, robert mueller interviews one of trump's closest friends. we'll discuss after the break. it took guts to start my business. but as it grew bigger and bigger, it took a whole lot more. that's why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. everything. and that 2% cash back adds up to thousands of dollars each year... so i can keep growing my business in big leaps! what's in your wallet?

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audience in the history of inaugurations. i did. >> who did donald trump have to thank for the biggest inauguration crowd ever? president obama's crowds were way bigger, this guy, tom barrack, a billionaire real estate investor, one of trump's oldest friends. he was the chairman of the trump inaugural committee. he's another trump associate questioned by robert mueller's team. as first he ported in the associated press, they questioned barack focusing many questions on former campaign manager paul manafort and business associate rick gates. joining me natasha ber tran, msnbc analyst paul butler. natasha, if you could, just walk us through the relationship, the enter relationships between trump, manafort and rick gates.

>> tom barrack is an interesting figure because he has the confidence of both paul manafort and donald trump and, of course, rick gates. he's known him for about four decades, met in beirut 40 years ago. he's known trump for almost as long, almost three decades. when the president needed or the then candidate donald trump needed someone to wrangle delegates for him at the convention, paul manafort stepped in and said i really want to work for this campaign. he told tom barrack, please connect me with the president. he said, okay,ly write you a glowing cover letter. in that letter he mentioned that paul manafort would be willing to work for free. this was a really interesting anything. tom barrack's importance is that he serves as a nexus between the president and paul manafort. after the election and after paul manafort was ousted from the campaign because he was revealed to have all these shady payments from the ukrainian

government, tom barrack hired his right-hand man. a lot of people were questioning tom barrack's judgment about that, saying why would you hire someone who has so much baggage. that raises more ace about, well, what was the -- why did tom barrack feel compelled to keep rick gates around. after paul manafort left, the first place he went was to tom barrack's yacht off the coast of greece. we don't know if the 'emphasis was on the relationship between the two men or campaign finance. tom barrack was the top fund-raiser for the trump campaign. he's well positioned to be able to answer all the questions. >> i want to come to the inauguration. despite the fact that paul manafort was in a tirm with roger stone for decades, it was

barrack that brings him in, not roger stone. >> no. i think roger stone gave some kind of recommendation, but it was paul manafort who went directly to tom barrack and said can i work for this campaign, can you put in a good word? tom barrack is one of the very few people that donald trump trusts unconditionally. he has the president's ear. he can tell the president how he feels about certain things. he can criticize him openly and say i don't like your rhetoric. after tom barrack asked them to hire paul manafort, it was ivanka trump and jared kushner who passed on the regs may and cover letter and to their father. >> paul manafort didn't get paid which is an interesting thing. you've got then barrack being this sounding board for donald trump. he does, according to other reporting, call him all the time. he can speak plainly to him. most people can't. and then you've got the money

that he raised. this inauguration which raised more money than the obama inauguration. they didn't have beyonce, big stars, didn't have the things that obama had, didn't have the crowds, but record spending which left little for charities. they said they were going to give money to charities. they didn't. they paid $267 million to a firm owned by melania trump. the inaugural committee spent more than $107 million, more than two times barack obama's n inaugural. according to the associated press, there was conflicting what was asked by mueller. one says barrack was asked about gates' work on the nug rinaugur committee. ot one said it was broader and

included questions about the campaign and the inaugural. what do you make of all this as a former prosecutor, paul? >> i think mueller is interested in barrack for two reasons, one has to do with the trust you talked about, that president trump has in him. defense attorneys always tell their clients don't talk about the case with anybody but me, but if you do, the prosecutor can call you before the grand jury and make you reveal it. president trump doesn't have many close friends. but barrack is one of his dudes. dude has to go to mueller and spill it. i think mueller is interested in everything we heard the questions that mueller wants to ask like why did you fire comey, what were you thinking, what's up with that meeting on air force one? again, if trump is talking to barrack, he probably knows all this and he's got to give it up. follow the money. the golden rule of prosecutors and that brings us to campaign

financing. the interesting thing there is if mueller does find illegal activity and criminal activity, will he go there? that seems far afield from collusion and obstruction of justice. rosenstein would have to approve that because that's a different move. if he's asking these different kinds of questions in the grand jury, if mueller is, we can assume that rosenstein has approved this further expense of the special counsel investigation. there's always mission creep in these special counsel investigations. same thing happened with the clinton investigation. >> started out as white water and ended up being about monica lewinsky and lying about a sexual affair. there's also reports in "the new york times" this week that mueller's team questioned a russian billionaire who attended trump's inauguration. we know barrack was the chief fund-raiser, cnn reported last month that investigations are asking whether wealthy russians illegally funneled money into

the president's campaign and the ininauguration. >> i'll put on my former defense attorney hat. as paul said, if any of these people were my client, i would be very worried that mueller is going to walk into some sort of financial fraud. it's my understanding that mueller is noting looing into the finances of the presidential inauguration committee but is actually looking at the finances of the trump campaign. again, it's follow the money, follow the relationship of the campaign with cambridge analytical. is there financial fraud, bank fraud, potential rico claims? i think they have a lot to be very fearful of because there is mission creep, as paul said. quite frankly, as an arm of the law, if mueller finds evidence of fraud, he has to go there. he has a moral obligation to talk to rosenstein about it or maybe send it to another u.s.

attorney's office. he can't just ignore it. whether there's smoke, there's fire. >> that which brings us now to the question of whether or not donald trump would then go in and talk to mueller about all this expanding list of things. here is rudy giuliani, his new lawyer, who has had quite a week. he was on abc's "this week with george stephanopoulos" today talking about the investigation. take a listen. >> are you confident the president will not take the fifth in this case? >> how can i ever be confident of that? when i'm facing a situation with the president, and all the other lawyers are, in which every lawyer in america thinks he would be a fool testify. i have a client that wants to testify. he said it yesterday. jay and i said to ourselves, my goodness, i hope we get a chance to tell him the risk that he's taking. >> very quickly to natasha first and then paul. natasha, inside the white house how concerned are the done mcgahn's of the world?

>> extremely. we know mueller's team is weighing the credibility of jim comey versus the president. in the past week alone we learned that he dictated a letter about his health to his personal doctor which turned out to not be the actual assessment of his doctor. we learned he did hire a new attorney and ousted ty cobb. we're learning about his credibility problems with regard to whether or not he knew about the stormy daniels payment. when they're wearing the credibility of james comey who he fired last year, that's going to be very significant. we don't know exactly whether or not the president still wants to sit down because, as he said last week, he doesn't know if the mueller team is going to be fair to him, but it's definitely something that is worth watching. >> very quickly, paul. george stephanopoulos asked if donald trump would comply with a subpoena and giuliani said he

doesn't have to because he's the president. your quick thoughts? >> that's not true. based on supreme court precedent, it would go to the supreme court. at the end of the day president trump would have to testify. the only privilege he has is the fifth amendment privilege. i've got to say, joy, if rudy giuliani, president trump was doing damage control for him, it's his first day on the job, give him a break. if president trump is doing damage control for somebody, you're in a very sunken place. >> the sunken place. natasha and paul, thank you very much. michelle will be back in our next hour. trump made it clear he hates the iran deal and got a big assist from one of his key allies next week. that's next. so, you guys have recently started dating... yes. - yes. a little less than a month. coming up on two months now, yeah... cool. so, i want to show you guys these three chevy suv's.

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there is no question

whatsoever that saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons. no question whatsoever. and there is no question that once he acquires it, history shifts immediately. >> those comments by israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu back in 2002 helped encourage the u.s. to invade iraq. his argument sound strikingly similar to comments he made in 2012 and earlier this week where he alleged iran's continuing pursuit of a nuclear bomb. in a 2012 speech to the united nations he used a cartoon drawing of a bomb to depict the iranian nuclear threat. monday, in a full-blown powerpoint presentation just days before donald trump is set to decide whether or not the united states will withdraw from the iran deal, netanyahu boasted new evidence he says proves iran violated the deal.

>> iran lied, big time. after signing the nuclear deal in 2015, iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret nuclear activity. the iran deal is based on iranian lies and deception. >> joining me is foreign affairs columnist bobby ghosh and rula gibril. i feel like everything old is new again. we have a push for saying iran is in violation of the deal struck by the obama administration claiming that they are still pushing toward a nuclear bomb, some questions as to whether that is true, but a real push to -- it's not clear what. but -- i want to come back to that. we do have other information that is interesting about the ways in which the trump administration seems to be trying to discredit even the idea of having a nuclear deal on

the idea. rula, you first alerted me to this idea that the guardian reported -- not confirmed by nbc news -- that a source with details claims there's been a dirty tricks campaign in which an israeli-based oppo research firm, the idea that people acting for trump would discredit those pivotal in selling the iran deal, making it easier to pull out of it. that includes ben rhodes who worked for the obama administration and a guy named collin cowell who has actually tweeted about it. what do you make of this? >> if there's anybody in violation of the iran deal, it's the americans themselves. the ambassador in germany has been lobbying german firms not to trade with iran. president trump visited israeli last year, supposedly they hired an israeli firm, allegedly they fired an israeli firm. there's rumors this israeli firm

is the same one hired by harvey weinstein to spy on these women. there's no confirmation of that. however, to spy on american citizens. so he's hiring a foreign spy agency to spy on former diplomats who worked with the obama team. i don't know if this is legal. i'm not a lawyer. but i think this is immoral. at the least it shows a picture that the president has decided to leave the iran deal and is trying to find justification and dirt on these people who are part of the iran deal. his opposition to the iran deal is an ideological opposition, that whatever obama did, he needs to undo and kill. the international community will not follow him on that. if israel would push him once again to have war with iran, which seems what he wants and we're heading towards another war of choice in the middle east, the consequences this time will be devastating for the united states itself and i would say for the rest of the region.

>> bobby, is there any actual evidence that iran is in violation of the deal that was made between the obama administration and literally the world. once the deal was made, iran stuck to its side of the bargain. netanyahu was trying to make the argument that several years before the deal was made, iran lied. here is the thing, we always knew that. obama has negotiated -- all the countries negotiating went into that negotiation assuming that iran was a bad actor to prove retroactively, yes, you're rite, they were a bad actor. it's interesting in theory and has practical considerations for the future, but it does not change the facts of the deal. the deal assumed that iran was planning a nuclear weapons program. otherwise, why make a deal at all? basically what netanyahu is telling us is what we already suspected to be true, and the deal was designed expressly to prevent iran from reaching its goal of making a nuclear weapon

at least for the next ten years. >> also, joy, what bob is saying, if i may, the iaea had the same information that bibi netanyahu put forth, they had the same information which is the nuclear watch dog, before 2009. he's recycling old information to push president trump to go into war with iran at his behest. >> jennifer, for a lot of people who were disturbed by the way we wound up in iraq and the things that were said and the case that was made, the idea that they either had nuclear weapons or were imminently going to get them, the whole yellow cake in niger and all that. it is something that had a familiar ring to it. the white house changed a statement this week. the original statement says iran has, present defendant, a robust clandestined nuclear weapons program. it was updated to say they had.

even things like that, it makes people nervous. should the american people be concerned that we're being pushed in the direction of war with iran, having already seen this movie play out in iraq? >> i think there are several things to be concerned about. first of all, on the issue of finding dirt, it sounds like a hair brained scheme. if they thought taking away ben rhodes' reputation was going to sink the iran deal one way or the other, that's just screwry. they need better espionage if that's what they're up to. on a more serious note, robert is right, what netanyahu is saying is that these documents from 2003 show that iran has and always will want to build a nuclear bomb. there's no dispute. that's why i opposed the deal, but my side lost. we made the deal, and so far iran has been living up to the deal. now the question becomes, what do we gain if we pull out?

it is completely counterintuitive. he wants to have a longer deal. how do we get a longer deal by pulling out of the current deal? how do we get better inspections if we pull out of the deal? there's a complete disconnect between what he's saying as justification for pulling out and what he hopes to achieve. people are concerned, that because there is such a gap, he must be thinking about a military solution. i get very nervous when i hear people like tom cotton say, sure, there's a military solution to iran, we could take care of the missiles. it's that kind of talk and the hiring of john bolton that should make americans very nervous. our european friends have seen this and they are not following us. they will maintain part of the deal. one of the big problems we're doing is isolating ourselves from our allies and we're going to start sanctioning german firms or french firms doing

business there? >> the issue is that donald trump does seem to have this perception that he can do anything better than president trump and that anything he wants to do is easy. so he's surrounded himself now with people who are very hawk kish and would very much be for a potential war. can you just please tease out to the audience. iran is not iraq. it's a much different thing. >> iran is -- has many more weapons than iraq did. i don't mean physically weapons of war. they have a whole bunch of terrorist organizations or militant organizations, depending on how you define them, hamas, hezbollah, available to do its bidding outside of iran. if you go into iran, you're not just fighting a head-to-head war against a well armed military force whose qualities we won't know until -- let's hope it never happens -- actually test them. but we do know the quality of their other proxy wars.

we've seen what hezbollah can do against israel and syria. we know what hamas can do. we're seeing what the houthis can do in yemen. these are people, essentially the cat's paw for iran. it's not just a straight war against one country. >> it's not iraq because those people who are the cheerleaders and the architects of the iraq war who are sitting in the white house today forgot that once iraq was destroyed, basically iran was the winner of that war. it dominates. it's a country for 18 million people. it's a country that's a regional power. israel wants to push into that, to push america to fight iran because they want to be the only regional power. >> we're out of time. to say nothing of the human mistery for the people in that region who are already suffering so much. >> bobby a we're out of time.

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north korea. we're really doing well. [ applause ] all right? we're doing real well. remember they said, oh, it's going to be terrible. they were actually saying three months ago, when the rhetoric was rather sharp -- do you agree? i won't use the rhetoric. i'm trying to calm it down a little bit. >> weeks of detente hit a snag when north korea accused the trump administration of, quote, misleading public opinion by claiming that sanctions and tough talk brought the kim regime to the table and warned that the u.s.' insistence that the sanctions will not be lifted until the north gives up its nuclear weapons amount to provocation. summi terry, analyst on north korea. i want to establish one question. donald trump wants to take full credit for the detente you're

seeing between north and south korea, including the olympics and everything else, saying it's all him. critics of donald trump are saying, no, the credit needs to go to moon jae-in, the president of south korea. which is it or along what part of the continuum is the truth? >> they're all partly true. it is true that president trump's pressure, particularly sanctions and pressing the chinese, did help, and probably even his talk kind of it rattled the north koreans. >> like the mad man theory. >> right. but president moon jae-in did his part, giving the overture about the olympics and inciting the north kor the north koreans to come so he deserves credit too. and the north korea, the nuclear program, he said i'm done with my nuclear program. he's saying the ballistic missile capability, i'm going to enter the negotiations from a position of strength. i think it's all part of it. it's not that one person should take all the credit. >> what do you think kim jong-un

wants? he clearly doesn't want a free country, but he obviously wants to be sort of normalized. >> of course he wants to appear to be a normal leader of a normal country, a modern leader. i think he wants some respect from the international community. he also wants sort of recognition that it is a nuclear power and that he's going to try to negotiate about disarmament or arms control, not complete denuclearization of north korea. >> you don't ever see north korea giving up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for normalization. >> in a complete, irreversible way, i think that will be a very tough thing to get. but they might act, sign a deal. i believe absolutely that the trump/kim summit will produce an agreement. >> and verification. he'll do the homework. >> absolutely he knows president trump. their energy is focused on us

for years. talking about iran, we have a million and a half issues, so distracted, domestic issues, foreign policy issues. kim jong-un is all about the united states. they're doing their homework. >> on the iran deal, there's a week coming where donald trump pulls out of that deal, if north korea is watching us get out of a deal duly implemented and negotiated by the world, how does that affect their desire to reach a deal with us? >> absolutely true. the north koreans are contrasting. they've done this before in the clinton years. since the bush administration came in, from north korean perspective, that got the deal. now we scrap the iran deal, the north korea will say how do we trust the united states. that said, probably from the trump administration's perspective, they think scrapping the iran deal toughens their position or they have more of a negotiating leverage with the north koreans because they're telling the north koreans whatever deal we have with you have to be much tougher. >> let's talk quickly about this issue of hostages. you have three americans, two

who were taken hostage in 2017, one who's been there since 2015. how does these men's plight play into these negotiations? >> well, i think because kim jong-un wants to make sure that his meeting goes well with trump, they are prepared to release these americans because they know that this is what we want. it's sort of -- you know, it's a gesture from the administration. i think they will be released. i think they will be in okay condition because if they were in otto warmbier's condition or very bad condition, it would go sour very quickly. >> there would be no point having us back. sue mi terry, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me on. to most people, i look like... ...most people. but on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i'm glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. for some, lyrica delivers effective relief from

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having something to do with paying some stormy daniels woman $130,000? i mean, which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. >> they funneled it through a law firm. >> funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it. >> oh, i didn't know -- >> he did. >> however, imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016. >> sure. >> in the middle of, you know, the last debate with hillary clinton. >> so to make it go away, they made this deal. >> cohen didn't even ask. cohen made it go away. he did his job. >> welcome back to "a.m. joy." rudy giuliani has been a prominent trump supporter for years and a trump legal adviser for just over two weeks. but rarely has someone so eager

to help done so much damage to their cause in so little time. in two separate tv appearances this week on the friendly ground of fox news, no less, giuliani announced that trump had, in fact, reimbursed michael cohen's $130,000 payoff to stormy daniels and made a direct connection between quashing daniels' sexual allegations and the campaign. that forced his boss to come out on friday and do some damage control. >> rudy knows it's a witch-hunt. he started yesterday. he'll get his facts straight. he's a great guy. >> not to be deterred, giuliani has kept at it, snagging a booking with the trumpiest fox news host of all this side of sean hannity, judge jeanine pir pirro. from the looks of it, he did get his facts straight. >> it kind of gives the american people of what we have to deal with day in and day out with the abuses not so much of bob mueller but of the people that work for him. i mean, they're way over the top. when you look at the questions

they propound, what do you think, what do you feel, it's like come on in and commit perjury. >> joining me now eric voller and jonathan capehart and i a richelle bernard. i'm going to play you the first 38 seconds of rudy giuliani's interview this morning with george step nop louse. >> the president does acknowledge meeting stormy daniels, correct? >> you know, i'm not really involved in the daniels thing, so i don't know. i mean, he denies that it happened. she has written a letter denying it. >> we have a picture of them together. >> depends what you mean my met her. >> there's the picture. i just want that fact on the table. >> it looks like my friend

donald trump before he was president, and that looks like the woman that was on "saturday night live" last night. >> that's right. >> i think she kind of got -- if i were her lawyer, i'd be very upset. fame and fortune, let me make money. how is she damaged? >> that's how it started. eric, that was the beginning of the interview. >> yeah. he's had quite a week, right? i mean, you know, rudy giuliani is an attorney the way michael cohen is an attorney. so trump clearly hired his mini me, right? rudy has become this buffoon, he's a liar. the ideal he's filing legal briefs in d.c. is a joke. he hasn't been in a courtroom in 30 years. he's basically like communications director for impeachment and he's just kind of out there running interference. but a key point, and he made it there, his job is to conflate the russia investigation with the hush money investigation. so last night he said, you know, he was asked will you walk back this stuff about the hush money?

he said i'm just learning the facts. we have 1.2 million documents. well, that's for the russia investigation, not for the -- that has nothing to do with hush money. the other quick point is fox and rudy and the white house are confused. they don't have a villain. they can't blame hillary or the fbi, so this is why it's so scattershot at this point. it's complete chaos. >> speaking of the women, here's another part of the interview, and this is rudy giuliani again on this week asking -- and he said he's not involved in the stormy stuff at all. he was asked about the possibility that michael cohen paid even more women. take a listen. >> did michael cohen make payments to other women for the president? >> i have no knowledge of that, but i would think if it was necessary, yes. >> i don't know. >> joy, of course it's necessary. they have opened pandora's box

and i guarantee you'll find thousands of women jumping out. i mean, you know, i have to say, again, putting on my white-collar criminal defense hat, can you imagine what emmitt flood, the president's attorney from the distinguished williams & connolly law firm, the premier trial law firm in the united states, started by edward bennett williams, who represented adam clayton powell, "the washington post," michael milton, williams & connolly, i am not a potted plant testimony before congress representing oliver north is thinking? rudy giuliani is making his defense of the president absolutely impossible. he puts his foot in his mouth every single day. he's making admissions that will be admissible in court. it is a nightmare. i was about to give president some advice and say get giuliani off your team but it will

probably go from bad to worse. >> there's several explanations. one, he's a plant from mueller. two, he's in declining mental state. three, he wants to get fired. four, he wants trump to get fired. or five, some combination thereof. because nobody who is defending an attorney -- he also said by the way he is just learning the facts. >> right. >> if you're learning the facts, what are you doing on national television? he has no idea what campaign finance law is like. he has no idea what the constitution requires in this case. he is now saying things like the president doesn't have to respond to a subpoena, which clearly he does, u.s. v nixon. he is really off the wall. and donald trump may not know enough law to know how badly he's doing, but the rest of us sure do. it's somewhere between amusing and hofr fii horrifying.

>> jonathan, rudy giuliani was a prosecutor. he worked in the u.s. attorney's office. he hired jim comey. they worked together. right? so he is a former prosecutor. but here he is talking about the special prosecutor, robert mueller, and whether or not doing an interview with him would be donald trump walking into a trap again from "this week request george stephanopoulos." >> what is the danger in answering robert mueller? >> they're trying to trap -- you couldn't put a lawyer on this show who wants to keep his law lie ens who would say he should testify. >> it's to tell the truth. >> it's only prosecutable if they have some built-up manipulated evidence to prove the president hasn't told the truth. how often has the that happened? >> if you have evidence that the president didn't tell the truth, then he didn't tell the truth. >> no. people do things like lie. >> what's that? people do things like lie. yes. to stephanopoulos' point, it's

only a perjury trap if you didn't tell the truth to begin with and you're not going to tell the truth in response to a question that is asked. look, jennifer just said this is a choice between amusing and horrifying, and i would like to say it is horrifyingly amusing. the reason why -- the reason why giuliani is on television now, i posit, is because the field has been wide open for stormy daniels, and by extension michael avenatti. michael avenatti, her attorney, has been all over television, defending his client, supporting his client. he's been at every show, every network, you know, just pounding away at the fact that she has a story to tell and the president is a liar. he makes predictions, what seem like outlandish predictions, on these shows and then lo and behold days later something happens that proves him right.

so with giuliani now coming from out of nowhere being hired by the president and is on television still after that disastrous debut, oh, he's only been on the job for one day, and now he is back out compounding the errors, what this says to me is that the president -- the president, as he has his entire professional life, plays in the court of public opinion. >> right. >> giuliani is out there because the president wants someone out there defending him. >> yeah. >> a bulldog who will go out there and be as blunt and nasty as he is on every television show. they don't care right now because they're such short-term thinkers. they don't care what kind of problems that might create for them in the court of law where it really matters. that's why i think, hey, rudy, you want to go on television, keep going on television because it only makes it worse for your client in the court of law.

>> and just to make a point, i want to give michael avenatti a chance to respond, because he did, in fact, react to rudy giuliani, who jonathan capehart is essentially arguing is his tv lawyer. and he wants michael avenatti i tv. here's michael reacting. >> george, did that interview just happen? i mean, i'm not being spoofed, right? >> you heard the whole thing. what's your reaction? >> it's an absolute unmitigated disaster for rudy giuliani and the president. it's a train wreck. i can't believe that that actually just happened. i mean, what we witnessed by rudy giuliani may be one of the worst tv appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times. >> the thing about what donald trump does and what he wants, he interviewed several people, he

does want there to be a tv lawyer, somebody out there defending him, you know, jay sekulow, for whatever reason, isn't going. that in the fox universe is one thing. but when you take that on the road to abc and when the clips from fox are outside the universe, how does that -- >> it doesn't work. think about how many times john dowd and ty cobb were on the last 12 months defending their client. i think it was zero, and for good reason. if you're a serious attorney you don't do this. so important, abc, once you leave that fox news bubble, people -- sean hannity couldn't believe what he was watching. >> "fox & friends," their faces -- >> they were blank when trump called in last week. as i said, they haven't had a narrative because they can't blame hillary or the fbi. they're confused, but it's still within that circle and bubble. the base still loves it. you go on abc and other outlets and it doesn't fly. that's always been the problem when you super serve the base in

terms of a media strategy, because once you go outside of it, it is a disaster. >> go on, jennifer. >> there is one way in which rudy giuliani is very helpful and that is if trump later wants to claim that he had inadequate representation, he has that. that's a defense. >> indeed. let me play rudy giuliani on jeani jeanine pirro last night. this was one of the stranger clips because this was giuliani sort of doing a bit about hillary clinton. a reminder for those who don't remember, rudy giuliani ran against hillary clinton for the united states senate before he withdrew. this was just before he married his soon-to-be ex-wife. he's done some dramatic things on tv before, but this is rudy giuliani, and i believe jeanine pirro at some point ran against hillary clinton as well. they both have history with hillary clinton. here they are playing out those feelings about hillary live on your tv. >> when you juxtapose that

against the so-called investigation of hillary clinton, where she was basically given a warning, she deletes -- >> nice, nice, nice. poor little hillary, we have to be nice to her. no under oath. >> right. >> we'll take that now. no under oath. no q&a. just notes. fbi 302s. >> right. >> and how about the report written by that phony jim comey before he even interviews her? what the hell was the interview for? >> jonathan, you've lived in new york in that giuliani era. i feel like there is the personal animus that, you know, if people don't know the history, jeanine pirro and rudy giuliani, what they have for hillary clinton, this does not serve donald trump's defense to do that. poor little hillary. i don't understand what that does other than try to do what eric said, which is to draw hillary clinton into the story. >> well, she's not going to be drawn in. what we witnessed is something else that erin talked about, and that's they're playing to the

base. they're playing to that fox audience for whom hillary clinton is the wicked witch of every direction you can think of, and if you want to rile the passions, just mention her name and mention president obama's name and throw in some black and brown people and you've got them ginned up. >> yeah. >> rudy giuliani has always been a nasty man. and that has not changed from the time he was mayor to the time now. what i do question is where is he in terms of his own internal workings? >> yeah. >> because this is the same man who would chop your head off if you even blinked the wrong way at police and yet gives an interview where he says that fbi agents are storm troopers. >> yeah. very quickly, go. >> i just wanted to add, i mean, whether you liked his politics or not, there was a time where you could argue that rudy giuliani was effective at whatever his mission was. >> sure. >> that is absolutely not the case now. he is ginning up an ineffective

assistance of counsel claim. it is a complete disaster. michael avenatti is beating them handle over fist. it is the thrilla in manila. it's over. >> as a media matter, and you can follow and watch the conservative media, could this -- even though we're here sort of chuckling at it, could it be working? >> well, it's the same defense they've used for a year, but, boy, it's tough because, you know, even neil cavuto last week, when you're asked to defend this as your job, even he said i can't do this. >> he couldn't do it. >> you're just making up a time line, making up facts. like i will defend you as i've done every day. i'm not going to look like an idiot every day. i think most people at fox are still willing to do, that but we're seeing some cracks and it could be problematic if you become a laughingstock, which is what giuliani and trump have become in the last week in a very serious way. >> very interesting. eric, thank you very much.

jonathan, jennifer, thank you all. michelle is sticking around. coming up, democrats haven't even won back the house yet and they're already undermining the woman who could be speaker. that makes perfect sense. more after the break. - i love my grandma. - anncr: as you grow older, your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate! you wanna play again? - anncr: prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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support them over, far over, american citizens, nancy pelosi and her gang, they've got to be voted out of office. they've got to be voted out of office. >> democratic leader nancy pelosi has long been a boogeyman of the right, but even with a blue wave poised to break in november, some democratic candidates are reviving what has become a time-honored tradition within part of the party -- giving in to republican bullying by throwing pelosi under the bus. "the washington post" found this week so far ten democratic candidates said they would oppose her return to the speakership and another ten have conspicuously declined to express support for her. joining us, michael singleton and michelle bernard and danielle. danielle, first of all, let me play this ad. this is a new ad this week by someone running in indiana, a

republican, who's running for the united states senate. here is his ad. >> mueller. pelosi. donnelly. they're using fake news to destroy our president. who's tough enough to stop the witch-hunt? >> so joe donnelly is the incumbent so that makes sense to attack him. mueller of course is the villain who is going to get trump. but throwing nancy pelosi in has been a republican staple since 2010. she's the boogeyman, the bad guy. that i get. but why do you think democrats then respond to that by saying, oh, god, no, no, we don't know her? >> i don't understand what that is and which democrats would do that because nancy pelosi is the first woman speaker, the one that we should applaud for the affordable care act and getting that through congress. so i'm confused. i'm also confused when people start to bring up her age as if we didn't have a conversation about donald trump's age or john mccain's age or any of the men that are still in leadership or run for president. but when it comes to women, for some reason it's like, oh, no,

we need new, fresh blood. i'm, like, whoa, whoa, if we were to average the median age of congress right now, it's like 103. so why is it okay, then, that we come for nancy pelosi about this? i think, first of all, she's raised $16 million in like the first quarter. right? she is the democrats' money woman. she has the cardi b money bag. they should be applauding her, not running from her. >> it's interesting, michelle, typically when you think about a house speaker, usually it's a combination of seniority, somebody who's raised a lot of money to danielle's point, somebody who knows where the bodies are buried and cajole members to take unpopular vote theys don't wa s they don't want to take. that's what she's done. and she's considered the most productive speaker since like sam rayburn, right? >> yes. >> so one wonders what would be

the pragmatic reason why you would want to have -- you know, you get younger leadership, but in the speak ears chaer's chairt somebody less experienced, who's raised less money and done less hard work, somehow that's better for the party? i'm not sure i understand that argument. >> because their argument is absolutely insane. to add on to what you were saying, joy, also remember that the democratic party gets almost half of its votes from people who are nonwhite. there is a gender gap in the country. the democratic party gets the majority of its votes from women. what are they thinking, particularly in the era of me too, harvey weinstein, all the other atrocities, and you look at nancy pelosi's effectiveness, it's like the democratic party that says we are the party of diversity, of civil liberties, are wimping out and saying we want to go back to being the party of white males because then people will like us and

vote for us. the strategy is ridiculous. they should celebrate dwefivers, celebrate nancy pelosi's successes, go after the women's vote, go after all those white women who for some reason voted against self-interest and voted for donald trump. nancy pelosi is the woman to bring those women back to the democratic poll. >> interesting, because this republican party tried the experience going with the young gun, the person attractive to the media because they're a young white guy named paul ryan. he has not been as speaker. this idea you get somebody who doesn't have -- who hasn't gone through the trials by fire. it hasn't worked for your party. what has worked is creating this -- i guarantee most americans, you show them a picture of nancy pelosi, it's hard to say how many would know who she is, but her name, the villainny has been effective. i don't know your thoughts on that. >> as it relates to paul ryan,

one, no one foresaw president trump's presidency, right? none of us. number two, you had the freedom caucus and various factions within the white house which would make it almost impossible for any speaker to lead effectively. that was part of the reason why john boehner decided screw this, i've had enough. as relates to the democratic party, i've also critiqued my own party as it relates to this issue. granted, i give nancy pelosi credit. i think she's done a great job for the democratic party. she has raised a lot of money, but at some point, what are you grooming that next group of leaders for and when? if you want to stick with a woman, can they not find a hispanic or african-american woman? i say the same thing for my own party. when you talk about some of the issues of diversity in our country, in our political representation, where are those african-americans, hispanics, asians, gay lgbtq individuals that these parties are grooming to lead their parties into the next direction? i don't think you see that from either party. so i'm not going to sit here and

pretend as if selecting nancy pelosi is a good thing as it relates to the direction of the country just as my party also needs to do a better job of reflecting where the country is going. >> the democratic party needs to bring up younger leaders and leaders of color. but the leadership is a specific job. talk about faction, the health care bill, she had to bring together anti-abortion democrats who wanted stronger language on abortion with liberal democrats demanding a public option or they would not vote for the bill. the democratic party is more racially and ideologically diverse than the republican party. a younger leader, tim rryan, coe have passed that bill? >> no. nancy pelosi has the background, the historical knowledge, the know-how and the grit to be able to grease things through congress, which is exactly what you have to do. i don't think that a younger inexperienced person -- i don't think that that is the role for them. now, i do believe that michael

is correct in the fact we do need diversity and need to see it in leadership. this was problem coming out of the obama administration saying that oh my god, obama, charismatic, amazing, you know, love him, but where was the building of the pipeline over the eight years from the rest of the democratic party? there wasn't one. so we have stars, absolutely, and figures that are fantastic, but at the end of the day, we're not building the pipeline. but that doesn't mean that then you just blow up the pipe and say we don't need nancy pelosi. right? because we do. you need that innate understanding of how government works. we have a president right now that has no idea how government works, and look at how it's running our country into the ground. >> absolutely. we are out of time for this segment. michelle, have a great rest of your day. our other two guests will be back. president trump wants a rapper summit in the white house and he already has one guest booked -- kanye.

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kanye west must have some power, because you probably saw i doubled my african-american poll numbers. we went from 11 to 22 in one week. thank you, kanye. thank you. >> donald trump and his fellow republicans are still reveling in the love they're finally getting from a celebrity whose fame blossomed in the 21st century, kanye west. but many people are shaking their heads after calling 400 years of slavery a choice by

african-americans during a rant this week. the trump and kanye bromance shows no signs of slowing down with kanye doubling down on his support and trump looking to host kanye at the white house, his own version of a beer summit, which trump and his adviser reportedly envision chance the rapper, colin kaepernick, and other celebrities who take part in a, quote, race summit. someone really wants to be around famous people like president obama was. daniel moody mills and sche scherrmichael singleton are joining me again. our kanyologist, toure, and leah wright, assistant professor of public policy at harvard. donald trump did say his support among african-americans doubled to 22%. he's quoting a reuters poll that says his to approval among black men had gone from 11% to 22%, so that's, you know, whatever. and it's a methodology for that

poll that a 2014 pew research study said it doesn't accurately represent african-americans. >> yeah. because i don't feel 1 out of 5 are down with kanye. >> with trump. >> with trump. not at all. >> let's play for everyone who hasn't been up on kanye'sry was a choice bite from tmz. this was tuesday. >> you hear about slavery for 400 years. for 400 years? that sound like a choice, like you was there for 400 years and i it's all y'all? >> professor blair kelly debunked that. but let's listen to van latham responding to those comments on tmz. >> kanye, you're entitled to your opinion. you're entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything that you just said. and while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you've earned by being a genius, the rest of us

in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. we have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice. frankly, i'm disappointed. i'm appalled. and, brother, i am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that's not real. >> toure, what is going on here? has kanye morphed into something or is this just him and we just didn't notice that this is who he always has been? >> you know, i don't know. i mean, like, for one thing, we've always thought of kanye as a genius and he presents himself as a genius and we find out he's actually really dumb and really does not know a lot of things about the world. i mean, i assumed he was a reader because his mother was a ph.d. he's always presented himself as an intelligent person. and now he's sort of bragging that he does not read. i mean, how can you be a free

thinker and not read? i mean, it's just this mishmash of hurtful right-wing rhetoric with no actual understanding of conservativism. yes, he's promoting an album, but he's going about it in the completely wrong way. i can't walk down the street without people going what is going on with kanye? is he just promoting an album? say it isn't so. i don't think he really believes this stuff, but he is saying. >> you don't think he believes it? he was on with charlemagne tha god. >> when he was running, i felt something. the fact he won, it proves something. it proved that anything is possible in america, that donald trump could be president of america. i'm not talking about, you know, what he's done since he's been

in office. yeah, yeah, yeah. >> but the fact he was able to do it -- >> it sounds like this is genuine, that donald trump is a stand-in for kanye west in his own mind. >> absolutely. if you think there's something about the aesthetic of donald trump that kanye is attracted to, deeply attracted to and that part of his contrarian nature is, you know, also really interested in ideas of celebrity, but i don't think that this idea that, you know, of being a free thinker means trashing black folks, you know, in the pursuit of upholding white supremacy. and that's what he's doing. so there is something else going on there, but it's also very much rooted in kind of echoing and repeating traditional and the harshest of right-wing talking points but then connecting it to some kind of aesthetic about donald trump and his victory. >> danielle, you know, there's something else that might be going on. remember all the talk of kanye 2020? there was a hashtag. it did come from donald trump winning. kanye obviously has an album out

in which he quotes donald trump in it, so maybe he's just promoting it. but there might be he shares with donald trump this anger at barack obama, this resentment of barack obama. he seems to share it. this is kanye talking about being disappointed by president obama also to charlemagne tha god. >> so obama it's like, yay, it's like, my favorite artist, i want your support, i'm running for office. i'm, like, oh, this is dope. then when i went on stage, and it would have been good if this video didn't get out, but you saw the video. >> he called you a jack ass. >> yeah. he never called me to apologize. now all of a sudden kendrick and j and all the people are invited to the white house, like, now, these are your favorite rappers now. i have a problem wi i don't have a problem with these rappers but you know i'm your favorite but i'm that safe. >> it feels like a sense of

entitlement to have the president of the united states call him and take back that he said he's behaving like an idiot and you like these rappers better, kendrick lamar. it feels like a very trumpian reaction to president obama. >> what is so disturbing about kanye is the double in which he exists in where he thinks that he is literally the sun and everything else revolves. he is terrifying to me. that clip, it just looks so sad. he is so desperate for attention, for love, for connection, for significance, and so his idea of saying, oh, i'm a free thinker, it's -- he wants to be a contrarian. he wants to seem as if he is esteemed and thoughtful in some way so that he can push back against the grain, because guess what, kendrick and j and chance and all of those people, john legend, his friend, they have all assumed the role of resistance. they have all assumed the role of being warriors for the resistance, of using their platform. beyonce. what i find interesting about the two of them, beyonce and kanye west right now, is that

beyonce has got on the a place where she can fully embrace her blackness, her womanness, her fem feminism, her ideology, in a way that is advancing our community. it took her multi platinum albums to be able to do that. kanye west, however, that space is cramped he feels and he wants to stand out. let him then go and embrace the man that no one wants to stand next to, that everyone is literally running from in the white house. he can stand up and say look at me, he thinks i'm important. look at my hat. it was signed. he sees me. i mean, it is so sad. like it's terrifying. >> i want to bring scherrmichael in, because on the other side of that, there is you as a republican, as a young black male republican, you must feel inside of the party this sort of yearning to have the gaze of hollywood, of popular culture on them in a positive way.

right? there always is this sense that the culture despises conservativism or derides conservativism and so that you're stuck with the kid rocks of the world or what's his name, ted nugent, and that you can't really get like the popular current sort of cool sort of world of celebrity because it's so liberal. but it's -- the rush of people to just be giddy after saying we don't want the culture, but then when you have kanye on the side of trump, the giddiness that now is erupting into this idea of having a summit. daryl scott, who once said that he could get the gang members to talk to trump, now says he wants to bring colin kaepernick, chance the rapper, apparently he's working with andrew giuliani, rudy giuliani's son who worked in the white house, to try to create this summit with kanye. what do you make of that, that reflected sort of need you're seeing among republicans to have someone like kanye? >> personally, joy, i don't really care about having

celebrities. that's not important to me. as a conservative and as someone who thinks about a lot of things from a policy perspective in regards to how they impact african-americans and other minorities in general, i'm more concerned with trying to figure out a pathway forward for people who are really struggling. but from a white conservative disposition, i guess i understand why they would like to feel emboldened from a quote/unquote celebrity like kanye west. and i have written about this. i've tweeted about this. i personally sort of separate what i would deem black conservativism from mainstream conservativism because i see conservativism through the lenses of an african-american, from my perspective, from my experiences, and i think that is far removed and detached from the perspective of white conservativism, and so i want to make that clear delineation between the two. now, going back to kanye, i don't think he realizes the fact that he is being used. i don't think kanye west has any understanding of what conservativism is or even liberalism for that matter.

so as an intellectual, there is no way i could take anything he's saying seriously because i don't think he's taken the necessary amount of time to become versed on all things both big and small as relates to either of the two ideologies. so if he wants to go out there and say ridiculous things that aren't based off someone who's well versed in history, facts, et cetera, that's his business. >> i'm sorry. he said kanye said ridiculous things. we know he's repeating right-wing rhetoric. so you're suggesting that right-wing rhetoric -- >> i know what i'm suggesting. >> -- difference between black conservativism and white conservativism. and i would wait for the day that the black right explains to the black left what they are welcoming us to. they love to say you're on the plantation so you're criticizing our kwhochoice. but what are you welcoming us to that you want us to join? >> can i respond to that? >> i have to go. i'm getting the gotta go, gotta go. maybe we'll get our social media

folks to come out after. danielle, toure, leah, scherrmichael, thank you very much. at the top of the hour, new details on how the midterm elections could impact the mueller probe. but coming up next, paul ryan the house chaplain. stay with us. >> tech: so you think this chip is nothing to worry about?

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as legislation on taxes continues to be debated this week and next, may all members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success while others continue to struggle. may their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all americans. >> house chaplain patrick conroy is back after public outcry over speaker paul ryan's attempt to force him out. conroy offered his resignation at ryan's request, but this week he wrote a new letter to the speaker reversing course and challenged ryan's claims that he was asked to resign because of complaints about his, quote, pastoral care toward members. he wrote, had i known of any

failure in providing my ministry to the house, i would have attempted to make the appropriate adjustments. but in no case would i have agreed to submit a letter of resignare resignation without being given that opportunity. joining us is sister simone. i want to just get your reaction to this reversal. father conroy wrote in his letter saying he's reversing his decision. and he talked about a conversation he had with ryan's chief of staff jonathan burks and said i inquired as to whether or not it was for cause he was being let go and paul ryan's chief of staff mentioned dismissively something like, maybe it is time we had a chaplain that wasn't a catholic. i should note mr. burks told politico that he strongly disagrees with that recollection of the conversation and that he's disappointed in the misunderstanding but wish him the best as he continues to serve in the house. what is your reaction if in fact

it is true that him being a catholic was the problem. >> i think this is most troublesome in our current political polarization where even faith gets put into this polarized perspective and some of the anti-catholic sentiments from really the last century seem to erupt into our political space where more conservative members seem to think that they have a lock on what faith is, and it does not include roman catholic perspective, which is all about caring for everyone. but i must say that father conroy's effort has been in the house to minister to all of the members of the house. he's careful in not making any partisan comments. i've met with him a few times and each time he lifts up the needs of the whole house and those who work in that institution. so for me this was fairly

shocking, atypical behavior, but only shows greater partisanship of our faith. >> we should make a note that paul ryan is himself catholic. he is a catholic. and that, you know, according to at least the story on it, that part of the reason why he fell out of favor, why conroy fell out of favor, may have been his criticisms of the idea of cutting taxes for the rich and not helping the poor led to his dismissal. this is something that the nuns have argued with ryan about. >> over and over since 2010 when he first had his grand proposal to cut taxes for the wealthy and cut programs and services. and right now this is at the heart of the political struggle in the house of representatives. right now ryan is leading the effort to cut access to food for hard working families. it is shocking. it is wrong as a person of a

shared faith with ryan, we know that it is wrong. jesus says feed the hungry. what pope francis has said to paul ryan is, indirectly through his writings, this is the work of all catholics. he's turning his back on that effort. >> absolutely. and do you think that, you know that paul ryan, you've now had the catholic league calling on him to fire his chief of staff. is that something you want to see happen? how does this get resolved. >> quite frankly, i think firing a person may be an appropriate response, but really the issue is how do we change the heart of our nation so that faith is the place where we can talk across difference. that's what father conroy has been attempting to do through ministry. >> absolutely. sister simone campbell, thank you very much. have a wonderful day and blessed day, thank you. >> thank you, joy. >> thank you. more after the break. ♪ he eats a bowl of hammers at every meal ♪ ♪ he holds your house in the palm of his hand ♪ ♪ he's your home and auto man

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