in jerusalem, a move praised by israel and condemned by palestinians. we'll have live coverage from the scene and full analysis at the table. meanwhile, rudy giuliani, he's on the news again, walking back his own comments that appeared to suggest that president trump intervened in the justice department's decision to block a megamerger on wall street. we'll have the latest on that. and, also where the michael cohen case stands today. good morning, everyone. welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, may 14th. with us we have the president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "a world in disarray" richard haase. >> nick confessorry, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department now msnbc political analyst, elise jordan. >> and pulitzer prize winning historian, author of the new

book, "the soul of america" jon meacham. >> rudy is confused again? >> he's always confused. >> he gets confused a lot. >> mixed up. >> it's interesting. jon meacham, rudy will be the first to tell anyone who asks, he has been knighted by the queen of england. >> that's right. >> have you been knighted by the queen of england. >> no, you have not. >> i have not. you'll appreciate this, joe, there was a police commissioner in chattanooga when i was growing up when he was indicted and tried and found innocent and he ran for re-election on the platform that he had been found innocent by a court of law and no one else had a declaration of his innocence and i think he won. >> he's smarter than you and you put together. >> all of us. >> i know it. >> and more accomplished any way. >> jon should be knighted. >> i have not been knighted. i'm available to be knighted. >> you are the soul of america, jon meacham.

>> the soul of america. >> lord meachum of swanny. that means something. >> harvard of the south, right? >> i thought alabama was the harvard of the south. >> ole miss people will be upset. let's get to our top story this morning and stop talking about how smart rudy is. might get to his head. he's smarter than you, though. >> here he comes. president trump says he's working hard to save jobs. >> told you he would. >> yeah. well those jobs are in china. >> what? >> the president tweeted that president xi and i are working together to give massive chinese phone company zte, a way to get back into business fast. too many jobs in china lost. >> hold on. hold on. nick confessorry, i'm confused. too many jobs in china lost. i thought he was campaigning -- >> i am also confused. >> then he goes on and says, i

will be ordering my federal government, the u.s. government to help save jobs in china. he wants to save jobs in china. that's not why we elected him to save jobs in china. >> listen, i applaud his concern, but it does seem that somebody mixed up two of his standard tweets and mashed them up and put china for america. it's important to remember why we kind of move to remove that company from doing business in the u.s. because of national security concerns and where tho components are creating a risk. >> i'm confused. now, elise, last time i went to mississippi, nobody down there was saying, joe, you know what i think the biggest problem is,

that there are too many jobs lost in china. >> i'm worried about job growth in china. >> i am worried about china. but donald trump is saying, can we say trump, cohen, make china great again across the bottom, please? >> yes. >> boom. they already had it. so i don't think people in moss point are worried about making china great again. >> it's a globalist move anywhere. i wonder if breitbart is going to brand donald trump a globalist. he might go to cfr meeting before we know it. >> look, one assumes -- >> seriously -- >> wrapped up into the larger trade negotiations. you had the u.s. delegation went to china. it was a fiasco. china's trade commissioner is coming to washington this week. this is obviously part of that. exactly what the details china

is going to give the president remains to be seen, but this is part of that. >> oh, so jon meacham, donald trump is learning a year and a half in that being president of the united states actually isn't as easy as it seems to be and sometimes there are tradeoffs that you have to make and it's not as easy as just going out and throwing red meat into the crowd, saying we're going to destroy china. >> absolutely. i have to introduce a serious note here, but one of the things the country is going to have to figure out is the people who are skeptical of the way the president has conducted himself rightly skeptical and unhappy, is if he does demonstrate a capacity to do the right thing and does it, how do we talk about that? and what is the vocabulary, what

is the ve vrnaculavernacular, t particular tasks, politics is the art of compromise, it's not just the art of being donald trump, and if he does, in fact, if the entertainer in chief commands the commander in chief, what does that look like? >> well, it's pretty simple. we would say he -- that's good. >> that would be great. >> yeah. we have time -- >> been doing something positive. >> we have time to practice. richard, i do think that if donald trump didn't make such a habit of consulting our allies, then i do think there could be a really good conservative liberal debate around iran, for instance. and there has been. the problem is that everything,

you know, every move whether you're talking about trade deals or whether you're talking about the paris accords or whether you're talking about iran, whatever you're talking about, there are ways to frame all of those decisions and all of those moves, but he does it by tweet, by insult. and that's part of the problem. >> two things, one, we take all those things collectively. this is the united states abdicating its role as the foundation of the world order as we knew it. look at darrell this week. you can't show the headline on family television the cover. but essentially a german saying this is the end of the atlantic alliance, the u.s./european relations. they've given up on donald trump. you're right. if you're going to disagree, then you have to go the extra mile on process. we always disagree with our allies, but then you really have to work the process and the consultations hard. what's so bad with this administration often is you disagree on the policy and they

feel that they simply been ignored, not taken seriously and the combination of the two is so deadly. >> jon meacham, ronald reagan had policies for eight years that not only our allies disagreed that 95% of the national media disagreed with, the national media was saying poor reagan, the duke. i remember the reports you would have thought that america's future was forever compromised by it while there were others of us who thought, no, that's the move the man had to make. you don't expect the liberal media to go along with you every time. but the one thing reagan always did, james a. baker, iii would be over there explaining what reagan is doing. we would be working with -- always five steps ahead. >> always. one of the things that's so

interesting about the universal acclaim that -- nearly universal acclaim that president reagan has in historical terms, most of the press thought that he was a combination of the mad bomber and ebenezer scrooge in realtime. i've always thought and this is why the character is so important, i've always thought that we never fully appreciated that ronald reagan's most significant life experience coming into the presidency was less his actual movie career and more his labor union career because he negotiated that contract for six, seven, eight years. somebody once said what's it like dealing with the soviets. hell, you've never dealt with jack warner. he was able to come out in the first press conference and say the soviets lied and cheat and wanted world domination. after he was shot, he writes a letter by hand.

he gets a marvelous partner in gorbachev. by 1988, the man who calls him an evil empire is in literally in red square kissing babies. and that kind of won praise. i don't think there is a method to this madness, but we do have, i think, you have to have some hope that we stagger through. >> we do have prayers. moving on, "the wall street journal" reports that michael cohen took an aggressive approach to profit from his relationship with donald trump. >> who would have ever seen that coming. >> they report that cohen also offered consulting services to ford and uber, which both rejected his overtures. the journal and detroit free press report that special counsel robert mueller's office contacted ford requesting information on cohen's outreach and has interviewed ford's head of government affairs. the general reports that uber sited new york cohen's taxi

business as a conflict of interest when rejecting his offer and modified his approach to remind the company that he was, quote, the president's lawyer. cohen's overall pitch was blunt, telling prospective clients that they should fire whomever was advising them and saying i have the best relationship with the president on the outside and you need to hire me. according to a person familiar with cohen's approach. >> so nick, this is not how business is usually done among lobbyists. i know people knock lobbyists, but there are rules even for consultants and a way to do things and a way not to do things. for people at home to think this is how it usually happens, it is not. this is irregular and it is wrong. >> it's a parody of how washington works in real life, right? so, yes, relations are important in washington. and lobbyists cloak these discussions in expertise and say

i'm an expert on the process, on legislation. and there's some truth in that. it's rare to get the hard core play of simply i have a relationship and if you want in, you should pay me. he ran around in this really hand fisted way. i remember hearing about it in 2017 and saying i have the president's cell phone. i'm his friend. i can get to him. you don't usually see it that baldly stated. in one sense it's refreshing to hear the proposition stated so clearly. on the other, it runs counter to the way the lobbying community tried to cloak what it does for years and years. >> particularly for somebody not registered as a lobbyist. >> lawyer, fixer, what's the adjective, before? bumbling lawyer, corrupt lawyer, bumbling fixer, corrupt fixer? >> i have this image of michael cohen going through linkedin and just looking at all the

different businesses who have interest in d.c. and is like, oh, well maybe i'll put out a feeler there and reaching out. it honestly is a microcosm for just the level of ineptitude. yes, we should maybe be heartened that he's that inept at legalized corruption and trying to get in there as a lobbyist, but it's a sad reflection on how everyone involved with the trump administration they can't even do the things that corrupt people have been able to manage. he gets caught. >> that takes us perfectly to our next story. rudy giuliani kept up his rapid pace of comments this weekend, saying he was unsure when or even if michael cohen has stopped working as the president's personal lawyer. quote, as far as we know, he's not. >> he's not stopped -- okay. we're back to this. >> he told that to politico on friday. >> wow. >> he added that the president's

current legal team has never really determined a precise day when cohen stepped away. the president referred to cohen as one of my personal attorneys after the raid on cohen's offices on april 9th. and then tweeted attorney/client privilege is dead on april 10th. the white house has sidestepped questions on cohen's status. "the wall street journal" reports that cohen bragged about his relationship with the president. a source said cohen told lawyers at the firm squire patten boggs he could call the boss at any time. but giuliani characterized trump being all about politics. early on maybe about the russia investigation before cohen came under scrutiny. of cohen's business deals, giuliani says the president said to him, quote, i had no idea. he certainly never lobbied me. here is the president late last month telling fox what he knew about cohen's work.

>> michael is in business. he's really a businessman. fairly big businesses, i understand it. i don't know his business. but this doesn't have to do with me. michael is a businessman. he's got a business. he also practices law. i would say probably the big thing is his business and they're looking into something having to do with his business. i have nothing to do with his business. >> i love how he writes one word or a phrase in front of him before every interview. sometimes it's no collusion. we're going to like the no collusion christmas tree, no collusion. later -- no collusion. noon, no collusion. so this time was business. he's a businessman. business. michael has a business. it's a big business, i think. i don't know. but i've been told it's a big business. most of the stuff he does has to do with business. he's a businessman. not my business. his business, of course. i understand it's a fairly good

business. i don't know because i don't know what his business is. we got that from "fox&friends" then we have rudy taking his medals off. >> there's so many. >> so many from the queen. >> sword. >> sword. >> yes, taking his sword. and then saying, oh wait, he can still be his lawyer. maybe it's not about business. >> well, look, the entire problem for the president and for cohen is this question mark around his business and where it overlaps with the president's business. so cohen is a guy who is flipping realize in suspicious ways, he was buying taxi medallio medallions, being a fixer, setting claims for the president, paying off affairs for the president. part of his big, big business was working for the president. and part of his big business was telling companies he could get to the president. yeah, it's not like there's this bright line between cohen's business. he was going to companies that

were in trouble with the administration and pitching himself as a fixer to them. and you know, it's still unclear exactly who that money was for, who was getting paid. was it lobbying, was it something else? we don't know. >> richard, i have to say a year and a half in, the incompetence of all of these people, elise said, they're not good at lying. you know, david quote, the clintons are unusually good liars. well, donald trump and those around him unusually bad liars. and bad at corruption. just so obvious. it's one crumb after another crumb after another crumb they leave laid out. i just wonder how a year and a half we have a president who said he would hire the best people, have nothing but the best people around him but really is surrounded especially in his personal dealings and his staffing around him at the white

house with the most and history will prove this. with the most incompetent staff members around him in the white house in the history of the white house. >> you've got incompetence and in many cases questionable judgment corruption. when jeb bush said he would be a chaos president, it's ad hoc on steroids. you have the wrong people. we talked about iran the minute ago. an idea that a decision would be taken without an meeting, without organized consideration approach, pros and cons the various considerations. >> we have to fix your mike. >> by the way, the bhous can't give us clarity. can't give us clarity on what he does. i mean, what cohen does. >> the schedule? >> yeah, what cohen does. >> if they can't do that, then there's no reason for the press

office. >> it changes everyday. >> yeah. that's a question they should be able to answer. >> but this is trump and giuliani sort of winging it. it's something that the staff has been complaining about for some time, jon meacham, that trump and giuliani get into the room and sort of wing it. they both live in their own alternate realities at times. trump especially. and what's unbelievable is that nobody has sat down in a room and said, let's figure out what happened, when it happened. even if they don't want to do the right thing, they're not sitting down saying, okay, what's our story? what do we tell people? giuliani has been just spitting out words now for the past two weeks contradicting himself everyday. this would be as if we talk about past administrations. this would be as if jimmy carter had billy carter as his personal

lawyer. >> i think two tributaries are merging here. they're both used to being the principal, the biggest person in the room. they both think they know better. one became president by the most unconventional means possible. the other has been a worldwide celebrity knighted by the queen. >> knighted by the queen he says. >> unlike jon meacham. >> also like donald trump, he says he's very smart, very intelligent. >> so speaking of -- i got one more rudy story for you. >> i know. but before we get to the last rudy story, what is it with both donald trump and rudy giuliani that they feel they have to run around telling people how smart they are. do you guys know people that run around saying how smart they are? >> you should listen to this guy in the green room. >> meacham has a t-shirt that

says soul of america. >> it's a golf hat. >> it's weird that these people run around going i'm so intelligent. i'm smarter than everybody. >> which tells you actually they're not. >> fear. >> the more you swagger, the more you swagger, the more insecure you are. and you protest too much. somebody said i've heard last weekend and i'm not stealing the line because i can't remember who said it, in this washington there is the west wing and then there's trump and they're not the same thing. >> yeah. >> i think now you add giuliani and so you have a genuine three ring circus. >> oh my lord. >> that's going to keep going. there's no intersection. it will just be the president -- i mean, when it's all over, nixon had bb-roboso, trump has his telephone. that's it. this is the cell phone presidency. it's very lonely and i think that's why, you know, we see

these erratic moments because he has no one else to have them with except all of us. >> doesn't feel like it ends well. this is the final rudy story. rudy giuliani created confusion about president trump's role in the justice department move to thwart an $85 billion emergencier speaking about at&t's $600,000 contract with michael cohen, giuliani told huff post, whatever lobbying was done didn't reach the president. he did train the swamp. the president denied the merger. they didn't get the result they wanted. after some got the impression trump had taken a personal role in the justice department's decision to challenge the merger between at&t and time warner, giuliani followed up with nbc news, quote, i just want to be clear, the president did not intervene. >> i got to stop really quickly. >> i know. >> can we show that picture of giuliani again with this quote. i think it was dan dressner, the

instant juligiuliani tweeted ou look for clarification within the next 12 hours. i was going to say like that. everybody was saying the same thing. it is so funny. your former boss says i'm not going to vote for so and so. you know he is. you're just waiting for him to come up with the excuse. no. it's happened. it's happened every time. i'm not going to support this -- you know they are. say, okay, what's going to be -- here with giuliani, time and time again, people are saying he will back down. why is this situation occurring? put yourself in the position of having a family member who had legal problems and they had someone who was going out and freelancing like rudy giuliani,

you would nip that in the bud immediately. no. this is dangerous. >> instead they're saying have another. >> they're digging in and letting him continue to add to just the myriad of issues that donald trump faces. and even from the michael cohen comment saying, oh, well they might have discussed the russian investigation, throwing them into that, it's making everything worse. >> the problem is there are legal consequences to this. nick, this is not just them bumbling around about some political issue, some political ping-pong ball that goes back and forth, these are legal issues. he's already heard them in the california case. now we have the at&t case that he's gone and bumbled his way into. every time he opens his mouth, donald trump is in more legal trouble. the problem is he doesn't have a competent legal team around him,

this sort of work, that could say, listen, this guy is really damaging your legal interests right now. you're going to pay for this later if you don't get rid of him now. >> high end defense work is not steaks 21 club, not a panel on fox news and there's a reason that the lawyers who are really good at that stuff aren't doing the stuff that he is doing day in and day out. what he does is try to solve one problem and goes right and creates a second problem. the second problem is created on at&t and suggesting that, in fact, the president did intervene in the process and did put his thumb on the scale and the fact that it didn't go the way that cohen's client had wanted it to go, doesn't matter. because the point is because half of lobbying is trying, right? and if they thought he had some influence to affect a decision, then what rudy said is in fact there was a chance of the president intervening. >> mika, look, if you look at what the president knows he needs right now, according to news reports this weekend, he says he needs better -- i'm not

making this up, tv lawyers. >> all right. >> that's what he's concerned about. he's not concerned about -- in fact, he's being pursued by the most competent prosecutor in our times. he says he needs better tv lawyers. still ahead on "morning joe," there is no apology from the white house to john mccain after a top staffer disparaged the ailing senator with a cruel joke. remember the white house correspondent's dinner? plus, paul ryan says there's nothing to see here while he believes republican voters aren't worried about stormy daniels or bob mueller. and jared kushner's pet project aside from the middle east making peace there, is running into syria's problems at the v.a. his digital health problem is so terrified that doctors are terrified they'll kill their own patients. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. growing up, we were german.

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donald trump send iranians who are the descendants of persia a message to reflect on their own history and that it was the king of persia who 1,000 years before mohammed was even born that said jerusalem is the capital of the jewish people's country there. there will be no shiite nations that will destroy jerusalem any longer. donald trump recognized history. he like king cyrus before him, fulfilled the biblical prophesy of the god's worshipped by jews, christians and, yes, muslims. that jerusalem is the eternal capital of the jewish state and that the jewish people finally deserve a righteous, free and sovereign israel. >> as you know, i think it is in

laminations, jon meacham, the verse she quoted after that, showing that truly these are biblical times that a porn star will be born unto you and her name shall be stormy, stephanie, clifford daniels. i mean, this is really these are perhaps end times, just as all those -- who was the dude back in the '70s that had all those books. hall lindsey said these were end times. >> exactly. >> i think janine -- >> the late great planet earth. >> they had all of us thinking the end of the world would be 1988. little did we know that would be the end of good music. >> and good television. >> jeanine pirro is telling you about how donald trump moving the embassy to jerusalem is all talked about thousands and thousands of years ago. you know we entered into special

times. >> we are past where the buses run i think is what we used to say. >> wow. we thank her. richard, unpack -- we know the religious, cultural significance, but what's the actual geopolitical significance. >> this happens in the absence of any diplomatic process. it's a one-off, takes the most volatile issue meant to be the caboose to the peace train puts it up front in isolation and gives the israelis something didn't ask anything of the israelis and didn't give anything or ask anything of the palestinians. it was essentially just carved out. and so it doesn't help. to some extent it hurt. mainly it just exposes a lack of a diplomatic strategy. this is about a political strategy. >> but you also do have not only

egypt, saudi arabia, other sunni arab states that are actually fine with this. they're not fine with it. they're not going to be cheering about it at home, but they're not going to raise a fuss about it because they see iran as the enemy. >> the era when the palestinian issue was the or a fault line, those days are decades gone. people forget when saddam hussein invaded kuwait. they were cheering for him. they have done themselves in time and time again. the middle east in many ways have moved on. the saudi leader is still the custodian of the holy place. he has to be mindful of this issue which is why the saudis can't sign themselves up to the kind of peace process that jared

kushner has been pushing. by and large, you're right, the middle east has moved on. iran is the biggest threat as the sunni arab states see it. they're willing to overlook. >> more often than not, the palestinians find themselves isolated. >> they've had many opportunities almost like lucy and the football to make peace. they haven't done it. and the problem is they've got nothing. there's no process. but it's also not good for israel. if you want israel to be forever or secure, prosperous, jewish state, and a democratic state, something has to give. right now neither israelis nor palestinians are well served by the status quo. >> go ahead. >> how is jared kushner's peace process going these days? >> there isn't one right now and there's talk and there's talk that the administration will come forward with its own set of principles, parameters, what have you. but right now nothing. even if it were great, even if it were jim baker and several

ores putting it together, there's no context to plug it into in the middle east. >> deliver a prayer during the embassy ceremony today. dalla dallas-based pastor has a warning that all jews will go to hell and that islam promotes pedophilia. >> let's strike that off the list too. >> labeled mormonism a cult leading mitt romney to tweet, robert jeffress says you can't be saved by being a jew. and mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell. >> we don't really have to go into theology to just say it may not be the wisest thing to send a christian minister over to israel to take part in the ceremony when he told everybody he's been speaking to that they

are condemned to the fiery gates of hell. >> i think that's a pretty safe view. this is once again an unforced error that is not just a political flap or tweet flap that we'll talk about for a couple hours. this is gravely significant symbolic moment. it's largely symbolic, so therefore the symbolism itself becomes all the more important. and why you wouldn't have -- maybe they do. why you wouldn't have a christian minister and rabbi and emom do this, this fella runs chairman of the evangelical advisory board to trump sounds like a christopher guest movie, "best in show," it's unnecessarily provocative. and we're not supposed to cast the first stone.

i don't know what is in this guy's heart, all of that, to be sure. just the three remarks you quoted. why he would then stand on sacred ground and symbolically be speaking for the united states when he's consigning people to hell. it reminds me of a great bush story where george w. bush and barbara bush are arguing about who goes to heaven. so as only the bushes can do, they decided to call billy graham. it sounds like a joke and there's one parachute but this actually happened. so they call dr. graham and he said to them, we want to know who goes to heaven and dr. graham said, why don't you leave that to god. that's the position we should be in. the other thing on this obviously is so much of this as richard was eluding to is about domestic politics. the president needs the evangelical vote but president

who thinks the book is called two corinthians. he is basically giving them something here to buy some support down the road. evangelical community at some point will have a reckoning about this. >> i just don't know when they are. i think most -- at least three of us grew up around evangelicals. i group up in the baptist church. this is unrecognizable anything i saw for my first 45, 50 years. and i'm not exactly sure what these evangelicals think they're going to get on the other side of this, but none of it is good. and you're saying that you don't know this guy's heart. but said you don't want to cast the first stone. i'll tell what's in his heart, casting the first stone. you see one comment after another and they're unchrist-like. if you don't believe me, instead of what you're listening to what donald trump tweets, go to the part of your bible matthew to john and read what's in the red.

that's what the big man -- when the big man talks, they put that in red and line that up with the judging of this guy and just about everybody else. it's vengeance is mine sayeth the lord and this is well above robert jeffress' pay grade. >> so many wonderful evangelical leaders how do they go out of their way to pick this one person who is so inflammatory -- >> it's hard to find it for you. >> they have to find men, mainly men, some women, who will so compromise their values that they will stay there and listen to donald trump and say things like franklin graham says. he writes long op eds talking about the sins of bill clinton and he's not fit to be president of the united states but now when it comes to lying and

paying off porn stars, he says it's nobody's business. >> history some of the people in the party that's now running israel, that they have been willing to get very close to american christian leaders who really behind this israeli government and overlooking a lot of theological issues shall we say. >> we'll go live to jerusalem late they are morning for the opening of the new embassy. also, still ahead, why does this white house leak like it's going out of style. axios has reached out to some of the trump administration's most prolisk leakers, aka, their sources to find out. cofounder and ceo of axios joins us for more on that next. there was an idea. to bring together a group of remarkable people.

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should the president himself apologize? >> i'll leave that up to him, but if something happened like that in my office, somebody in my office said such a thing about somebody, i would apologize on behalf of the office. >> yeah, that is senator john mccain's long-time friend, senator lindsey graham weighing in on the fallout after white house communications aide kelly sadler mocked the arizona republican brain cancer

diagnosis during an internal meeting last thursday. what is that? why does that happen? >> i understood that she called meghan mccain and apologized. >> axios reports -- >> she said she would go on the air and apologize. >> no, she's not doing it. >> axios reports after the leak of the callous remark a visibly furious sarah huckabee sanders scolded the white house communications team on friday calling the leaks disgusting. at one point, mercedes shlapp interjected saying she stood with sadler. mccain's daughter -- >> about what? about mocking a man who is dying? >> what's wrong with them? >> wait. is that -- weren't they the ones that rushed out of -- >> they're rotten. >> of the white house correspondent's dinner because they were so offended by the jokes so they rushed out, of course, get in their limousine and go straight to an

afterparty. i think it was msnbc afterparty. they were so -- >> i parentally i was -- >> there are liberals here. we can't be here. there's liberals. let's go to the msnbc event. >> lets's go work it. >> so now they're standing by someone who actually makes fun of a man who has committed his entire life to serving the united states of america, who has brain cancer and a white house aide mocks them and they interject that they stand with the person mocking john mccain for having brain cancer, fighting for his life? what's there to stand with there? >> so as joe indicated -- >> what does that mean? >> what exactly jon, you stand with somebody who mocks an american war hero, who is dying of cancer, who had the

opportunity to be released while he was being beaten so badly that he would never raise his arms above his shoulders again but said he wouldn't leave until all of his band of brothers left with him? what does that mean? what does that mean she stands with kelly sadler? >> she feels she was targeted by a leak. go ahead, jon. >> it means it's exhibit 7,812 or whatever in these people are on the wrong side of history and they're on the wrong side of decency. we all make mistakes and say stupid things. apologize. >> we all say stupid things. >> apologize and move on. >> especially when they're really stupid. >> stand with, stand with someone? i mean, that's -- they're in this bunker. it's a bunker of their own making because they're chiefton is the one who has decided quite consciously and deliberately not to govern as an american president but to govern as a

tribal leader of his base. >> and who is the leader of saying insulting things. >> and history going to be very harsh here because everything we know about the history of the republic is that the presidents we remember -- he should know this because he's going to be worried about those ratings some day, too. the presidents we remember and want to emulate and commemorate are the ones who reach beyond and represent all of us, not just this small base of people who stand by people who insult people like john mccain. >> it's rot on the the core. as joe indicated, mccain's daughter meghan, said that sadler called and privately apologized for the comment but there's been no public apology by the white house. >> jim vandehei, everybody says stupid things. i don't know kelly sadler. you apologize. why can't she apologize? she not apologizing because

donald trump would be angry if she apologized? >> i think meachum hit it on the head. sit in the bunker especially in thishouse's bunker and it corrupts your thinking. it's up against them. now it's a standoff against the media that could have been put behind them by saying listen, i said something stupid, i apologize. in fact, she should have volunteered to get out of the white house and the white house would have stood by her. this episode illustrates the level of dysfunction in the day to day operations of the place. that meeting over the weekend, sarah sanders calls a meeting about a leak, about the leak about what the woman said and says i know this meeting is going to leak, is furious that it leaked in the first place, within minutes several people in the room are leaking it, it ends up on our site within hours. >> what is that?

why do they leak absolutely everything? >> your viewers, especially who's been watching this show for a long time, you learn more in a week in this presidency than you have in a year. so jonathan swann asked the prolific leakers why they leaked and they leaked why they leaked. a lot was about score settling, about going after people internally who didn't share their views, a lot was killing ideas they don't like. some of it was let's shape the narrative in a way that's positive for the administration but so much of it was inward looking. so much of it about life in the bunker. and i think that's why you don't get an apology. why you can rationalize comments and behavior you can otherwise in any atmosphere not rationalize. >> i'll tell you something else going on here, they know they're on the wrong side of history. as jon meacham said, they know this president is is going to fall at some point. we don't know whether it's six months or a year, a year and a

half, but they want to be on the right side of history. they want to be a source so they don't get killed in the afterreport. >> but the lack of loyalty and serious process in this situation, that's a recipe for leaking. >> maybe if you're frightened with what you see you have nowhere to go with it. i would be -- i would be horrified if i was in there watching what was going on. jim, stay with us. only the best people. the "new yorker" looks at how the trump administration has reshaped our government and led to the departure of more than 79,000 full time government employees. we will speak with the author of the piece, evan oz knows next.

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coming up, mike pence says it's time to wrap it up. president trump says it's rapidly losing credibility. where does bob mueller's investigation stand as it enters its second year? >> one year, mika, of watergate is enough. >> it really is. >> the "washington post's" robert costa joins us with this new reporting.

plus, the president hits pause on america first in an effort to save jobs in china. we'll dig into his about-face on trade. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ i fell into a burning ring of fire ♪ ♪ i went down, down, down and the flames went higher ♪ it was my very first car accident. we were hit from behind. i called usaa and the first thing they asked was 'are you ok?' they always thank you for your service, which is nice because as a spouse you serve too. we're the hayles and we're usaa members for life. see how much you could save with usaa by bundling your auto and home insurance. get a quote today. what? directv gives you more for your thing. your... quitting cable and never looking back thing.

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my generation can tell you, the only thing more dangerous than dishonest politicians who have no respect for the law is a chorus of enablers who defend their every lie. >> that's what you said in your piece. that's amazing. welcome back to "morning joe," it's monday, may 14. still with us, we have the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. political writer for the "new york times," nick confessore. co-founder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei. former aid to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. and joining the conversation, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc and executive producer and co-host of show time's "the circus" john heilemann. and political reporter for the "washington post," msnbc political analyst robert costa. >> give me a couple minutes. >> why? >> just give me a couple minutes. >> i know where we're going. >> couple minutes? s >> point of personal privilege. >> we're at the top of the hour.

>> i forced mika to watch the end of peaky blinders. >> the end of the fourth season. >> which i must say, for those who have not watched the first bit of that, it is nothing -- it's nothing short of extraordinary. >> i told you and now you're affirming my -- i'm like the chief proselytizer for "peaky blinders." >> it's amazing. everything is pitch perfect and cillian murphy under believable. and let me tell you something -- >> he's like a man of your own heart, a musician. >> big beatles fan. if you haven't seen this you want to write a check and send it somewhere for those momentscd

tom hardy in scenes together. very few moments over the past five years. >> i think -- when you get to the fourth season, adrian brody is in the fourth season playing the italian capo, the three of them at the various time when they're in combination are some of the most electrifying television i've ever seen. >> i differ with you on that. >> that's quite an endorsement. >> and tom hardy's character, doesn't matter what language they're talking behind his back, he knows every one of them. >> the only question is whether you think that where we end at the end of the fourth season with respect to tom hardy's character, do you think that is actually a revolved thing or do you think there's some chance

chances -- >> i will say this. if the golden globes and emmys do not -- >> we'll boycott. >> back up a brinks truck to wherever these award ceremonies are held and just open it up and everything that falls out, if it does not have "peaky blinders" just shut the shows down. turn the lights off and go home. it's a scam. >> there have been russian mobsters, jewish mobsters, american mobsters, i believe the fifth season -- although it's cloaked in secrecy -- i believe the shelbys are coming to america between world war i and two. there's al capone -- oh, my god. >> it's enough. it's too much. >> i can't handle the anticipation. >> heilemann. >> it's post-world war i and i will say one thing the show does

show how much world war i ravaged an entire generation and how difficult the impact was on europe and america. >> go to any oxford or cambridge college and see the plaques on the walls and you see how it took the greatest of their generation and decimated their societies. >> something like for young men one in four in france -- >> the losses are staggering. >> it ended the european era of history because the great european countries ended up depleted. that's why they couldn't counter germany and what it took was the united states to rebalance history. >> it's a great show, historically significant, cinematically beautiful. it is good but now it's time to do the news. >> it is remarkable. it's good? it's like saying the bible is good. it's like saying shakespeare had

a couple of good days. >> i've given you five minutes! at the top of the hour, rudy giuliani has put off a sit down between president trump and special counsel robert mueller. giuliani told the a.p. that an interview would likely be delayed until after the june 12 summit with north korea in singapore because i wouldn't want to take his concentration off something far, far more important. that's saying a lot. >> stormy daniels? >> that is saying that he -- okay, i'm just saying, that's saying a lot. he also called the investigation's fairness into quo. quote, if we believed they would go into it honestly with an open mind we would be inclined to do it but right now we're not there. giuliani also said he doesn't belief the president's children or son-in-law will be interviewed in the probe. >> bob costa, you wrote a piece on this this past weekend very interesting, you and severalover your post's colleagues are out with a new piece about the

mueller investigation. i thought one of the more interesting part had to do with the fact that you believe right now that -- not you but people inside the white house are concerned that jared kushner and also don jr. may be indicted. tell us about it. >> the interactions with the mueller team have been limited for this white house. some white house officials go in as witnesses, giuliani the former new york mayor acting with some of the mueller prosecutors. the advisers know about general flynn, they know about others like manafort who have been indicted and are about to go to trial but those who haven't been interviewed, they're not sure where this is going and that's part of the problem for this white house and why giuliani said the president is trying to work on foreign affairs because they don't know how long mueller will take when it comes to the conduct question of the investigation and the collusion aspect. >> and a line out of your piece,

there's worry about trump's eldest son donald trump jr. and jared kushner his son-in-law and senior adviser. >> that goes back to a meeting he had with the russian lawyer. they know that has been brought up. >> bob, i'm fascinated to read this piece and think about how little we have heard from bob mueller over the course of this investigation and i have to ask you, has anyone in the history of washington been more powerful and said so little and been so invisible in that town? >> it's such a smart point? so many people refer to this probe as a submarine. they don't know where it's going, it sometimes pops up with

an indictment but there hadn't been a public report and there is a concern among those close to president trump that the probe is expanding. that it may be a report on the president's possible obstruction of justice in the coming months but with the russia part of it they don't know how long it could take and they don't know where it's going and that's why you see vice president pence and others ramping up the pressure saying they want to hear more publicly from mr. mueller. >> and john heilemann, the parallels of what mike pence is saying right now and what richard nixon and spiro agnew were saying in 1974 are uncanny. but part of the madness for donald trump, he's so used to everybody being a day trader, everything he sends out immediately getting a response on twitter. somebody close to him said sometimes saturday mornings he's just bored and he'll send out tweets not just for the headlines, he loves to see the immediate response, the attacks,

the back-and-fourth, robert mueller is maddening because he does the opposite. >> there's a number of things trump is intemperate, but one of the things he's done in time of politics is he's not just lashing out, he likes to -- he believes by attacking people in certain ways he gets inside their heads and unnerves them. he did it to marco rubio and ted cruz and various of his opponents in the '16 race. >> but organisms adapt. mueller has adapted. michael avenatti attacks him everyday and habsn't been attacked by donald trump. >> it makes trump crazy. all he gets is more avenatti in

his face. it's like there's a double teamed yin/yang thing going on that i think is part of the mental gamesmanship that's put trump on defense. i will say last week it was interesting to see trump stop attacking everybody last week, including bob mueller and let sort of normal white house coordinated strategy. i'm not saying i approve of this but to see pence, giuliani and kelly all making a concerted argument through normal media channels going on the "today" show and other places and saying the things they're saying about how the mueller probe should be shut down, that's how a normal white house would go about making the argument. not have the president on twitter or acting in a histrionic way. you wonder if for all the other noise whether they're finding their way towards a more conventional strategy of trying to undermine the various probes under which they're operating. >> and yet when they do that you have mike pence who's undermined himself for the future.

when it all hits the fan and when 2020 comes and you have nikki haley on a stage and mike pence who was apologizing for donald trump's actions and trying to kill a probe into how russia influenced the 2016 campaign, everybody acts like politics is stagnant and things are not going to change, they change. history changes, it's always moving forward. donald trump gets ensnarled, his administration gets ensnarled and mike pence is there playing richard nixon in january of 1974. that does not end well at all for mike pence. >> makes you wonder about house speaker paul ryan about how president trump is an asset for republicans in the upcoming midterms this fall. ryan made the comments after his address at the wisconsin republican convention on saturday. the house speaker told reporters he does not believe the recent controversy surrounding trump

are resonating with voters in states like wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania saying the president is strong in these states, he's an asset, whether i'm running around in southern wisconsin or america, nobody is talking about stormy daniels, anybody to nobody is talking about russia, they're talking about their lives, their communities, jobs, the economy, they're talking about national security and jim vandehei, i don't argue with that to an extent in certain parts of the country. it's what paul ryan hasn't said all this time that strikes me as curious given that i thought that this was a standup politician who loved this country and stood on the side of right. >> we just don't know what he's doing right now. >> i'm wondering what's happening. >> he made his deal with the donald early on. he didn't like him, didn't want to support him and has gone

silent on almost everything trump has done that's controversial. ryan is right and wrong about trump being an asset. he's an asset in republican districts because republican base loves donald trump. he could turn out to be a massive liability because in swing district this is off year election is not about the tax cuts or economy, not about north korea. it's about donald trump. it's a referendum on donald trump so it motivates some republicans but if you look at turnout numbers among democrats in every off year election to date that's because of donald trump, because women and democrats who weren't voting before are voting now in opposition to him. if that continues to election day, he could be a net liability and that's why i think this election is about trump. >> jim, paul ryan does get it half right but but he's talking about districts that republicans were going to win in anyway. yes donald trump is an asset in

districts and states republicans would win anyway. it's those districts that hillary clinton won that a republican holds and swing districts whereas you said the past year and a half of special elections have shown this, donald trump is a nightmare. he's not an asset politically for these people. that's why they don't want him to come to their districts to campaign. >> remember ryan stepping aside probably in part because he knows he won't gain seats and become more powerful after this election had he stuck around. you talk to any republican leader, they assume they're going to lose the house. why? because in the 50 to 55 seats that are competitive, republicans are in a weaker position than they thought they'd be in because democrats are turning out, because democrats are getting better candidates than they had anticipated and because they're getting more money. all three of those things aren't because of the greatness of the democratic party. a lot is because of the weakness of donald trump and that he repels a certain type of voter who is voting.

democrats are terrible at voting in off year elections so to win they have to turn out and that's what alarms republicans is they're seeing in these elections in different states in different regions with different candidates turning out at much higher often double digit percentages than before. that's why republicans think they have a decent chance of losing the house. >> axios's jim vandehei, thank you so much. and bob costa, you have so many republicans in swing districts who are retiring. you have senior republicans who are retiring. you have other republicans who just say they don't want to spend their days defending donald trumps inane comments anymore. they're all retiring. that makes an uphill climb that much more difficult, doesn't it? >> you nailed it. it's not just about defending president trump. the challenge for so many republicans i talk to in the course of my reporting is that they feel president trump has personalized the presidency, made it very difficult to

interact with the party, to have a reelection campaign based upon your ideology. you're either for president trump or against president trump. it's a referendum on trump but not about his policies but something more vague, broad, more visceral and emotional and that is for many traditional republicans a challenge. >> it seems all you have to do is look to the deep south which has been solidly republican for the past quarter century. you have a senator, democratic senator in alabama and tennessee you have a democratic senatorial candidate who is a favorite who smart money to written that thing and then mississippi. if those primaries end a certain way in mississippi you have the opportunity for democrats to make that race competitive. i talked to republicans high up in that organization saying we

could lose this seat. >> they could splinter the vote and throw it to mike espy pretty easily and you look at donald trump isn't going all in for the candidate who was appointed by the governor, maybe he will, maybe he'll be more support ifr down the road but that will be split with chris mcdaniel. i think the tennessee race is the most telling in terms of a bellwether because you look at a popular former governor that people remember as a time -- governing during a time when the economy was strong and then you have marsha blackburn who is a huge cheerleader for donald trump and is doing things like bringing diamond and silling to testify on the hill and then you have people talking about jobs and what he can do to grow the economy. it's going to be a question of what tennessee voters are buying into when it comes to trumpism as an ideology.

>> tennessee, a state that was one of the few states in 2008 that went more conservative in 2008. it's continued to become more and more conservative and yet, again, smart money right now is betting that a democrat is going to be the next senator from that state. >> there are people making a relatively plausible argument that maybe, maybe, some of the arguments about an overwhelming blue wave may be understated because the economic fundamentals are playing in and maybe what is seen as positive from the tax cuts and so on is seeping in. at the same time as jim said, you can't find a house member or anybody in the republican leadership in the house who doesn't assume the republicans are going to lose the house and the map if you look goes senate by senate race it's actually like the democrats have a slightly better opening to retake the senate even as the

overall skill of the wave seems like it might be smaller. if you play it out in the races and tennessee a is good example of whether the upper chamber turns blue, you can start to see a path now for democrats as to how they get there. >> richard haass, there is no evidence, no evidence at this time if you look back at the results of the past 18 months that donald trump is good for the republican party. that what paul ryan said is not borne out the results of virginia pennsylvania in local elections. you can go state by state by state, special election by special election by special election, local race by local race by local race. we have the exact opposite of what was happening to democrats when barack obama was president for eight years, republicans cleaned up then, democrats are

outperforming historically now. >> in part because donald trump is not a republican. his brand personally is what he is. so it's -- i don't see how others who are running under the republican label benefit or deraye -- gain from it. donald trump is not running on republican ideas and he doesn't stand for a set of issues or values or positions that other republicans can wrap themselves in. >> and don blankenship shows that the surge candidate this year might be in a bad position. it might not be the year of the insurgent candidate. they might get press play but not have much support and chris mcdaniel has been running low in all of the polls. >> and robert costa, what are you looking at today? >> the thing you're looking at is can the president navigate on these two fronts. can he work on the iran deal which he pulled out of north korea summit in singapore while also dealing with rudy giuliani, the legal team, the possible

mueller interview. this is one year into the mueller investigation, it remains a burden for this president but he has to see if he can still govern. >> hope the white house can maybe answer today just what does michael cohen do. robert costa, thank you very much. coming up, only the best people. >> only the best. >> the "new yorker's" evan osnos writes, since trump has no fixed ideology the white house cannot screen for ideas so it seeks a more personal form of devotion. he joins us with his new piece on "morning joe." a bachelor. and that's how he intended to keep it. then he met the love of his life. who came with a three foot, two inch bonus. for this new stepdad, it's promising to care for his daughter as if she's his own. every way we look out for those we love is an act of mutuality. we can help with the financial ones. learn more or find an advisor at massmutual.com

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oh hi sweetie, i just want to show you something. xfinity mobile: find my phone. [ phone rings ] look at you. this tech stuff is easy. [ whirring sound ] you want a cookie? it's a drone! i know. find your phone easily with the xfinity voice remote. one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. joining us from washington, we have staff writer for the "new yorker," evan osnos. his new piece in the magazine's may 21 issue details how the trump administration had reshaped our government and led to the departure of more than 79,000 full-time government

employees. in the piece entitled "only the best people" rewrihe writes in this. every new president disturbs the disposition of power in washington. stars fade, political appointees arrive, assuming control of a bureaucracy that encompasses 2.8 million civilian employees across 250 agencies. typically an incoming president seeks to charm, co-opt and when necessary coerce the federal work force into executing his vision but trump got to washington by promising to unmake the political ecosystem. this idea, more than any other, has defined the administration which has greeted the federal government not has a machine but as a vanquished foe. trump has elevated loyalty to the primary consideration. since trump has no fixed ideology, the white house can not screen for ideas so it seeks a more personal form of devotion and evan, would you argue that

that devotion is for trump? donald trump himself? >> it is and that is the big difference between this and what we've seen when president comes into washington. there are personnel who are reshuffled across the government but what's happening now, and this is what we wanted to pursue in this story is we know what's going on in the white house where it's a constant daily contest for loyalty, who can be closer to the president. but when you get away from the cameras and down into the working ranks of the government where the rubber meets the road, where they're making hard choices about foreign and domestic policy, what we're seeing is the culture of this white house is now trickling down across the government, meaning them a sis on loyalty driving outnon-partisan experts, sidelining them and trying to make sure above all this is about the promotion of donald trump and not about the promotion of independent expertise. >> evan, you have two new people, mike pompeo at state, john bolton at national

security. what's the definition of loyalty when it comes to american foreign policy and national security? what is it that it takes in order to be influential with donald trump given what we just learned about the iran decision and in the runup to north korea? >> i'll give you a good example. one of the people that i write about in this piece is one of america's leading iran experts. she was somebody who had been celebrated by the departments of defense and state. she joined the government when george w. bush in 2005 asked for americans who were familiar with the cultures of the middle east to come and aid the effort, to help the u.s. government. she did that. 13 years later she's been sidelined. she was accused by the conservative review of being an obama holdover and as a result we now have people in the room -- we have people who have been excluded from the decision-making process who are some of our greatest experts on the hardest problems and instead we have people who have devoted themselves to maintaining this

president's personal support. >> john heilemann? >> i'm curious about the -- in the context of the -- there's a big argument about trump's views about the deep state and there are obviously people around trump who have kind of really deep profound kind of ideological convictions about this. i wonder whether you have a sense of whether trump himself understands this argument or whether he kind of looks at the people who are arrayed around the government who he sees as his enemies and sees them as people that are a pain for him. kind of a troublesome but not part of an ideological construct as some of the people who have these views put it forward. >> it's an interesting question. steve bannon talks about the deconstruction of the administrative state. that was an idea that they brought into the white house, an idea that steve bannon brought into the campaign and helped to advance. the reality is there isn't a whole lot that's front page sexy

news about the civil service but what this president understands is that if he's going to try to get things done personally then eventually he's had to try to reorder, reshuffle, and really change the nature of governance so that the voices that are being heard are ones that will speak up on his behalf and dissent and debate will be sidelined. and that idea, that important concept has spread out from the white house and across this vast machine of washington in ways that doesn't often make the front page of the paper. >> evan, elise jordan here. in your piece you have an interesting comparison of the trump white house to the green zone in iraq during the height of the iraq war and talking about how the electricity is still working on the green zone, people are still hopeful things can work in contrast to everyone who's outside of the bubble. can you talk about that a bit? >> this is something that bubbled up in conversations with people who had experience working in iraq in those early years of the occupation, 2003,

2004. there was a feeling inside the green zone that you were chosen for your loyalty to the white house. it was a political operation above all. it was not about the kind of boring details about electricity generation or the recruitment of the iraqi police force. over time, there was a disconnect between what was going on inside and outside and i heard this from people like larry wilkerson who were colin powell's chief of staff. he said at the time our government chose people on the basis of loyalty above all and as a result we ended up with an organization that was in political lockstep but was making huge mistakes and there's a risk we're heading down the same road right now. >> nick? >> evan, this is a story about a vacuum in the senior appointive ranks around the president and a vacuum of bureaucracy. who is filling that vacuum in this washington? in trump's washington? >> we have a lot of empty holes. you're right. right now -- to put this in perspective. of the 656 most important jobs in the federal government, more

than half of them are empty. this is a historic level of -- we're dealing with a historic skeleton crew on important hard issues so what's happened is the lower ranks of the government, people have been bumped up so they are acting in jobs that are higher than they ordinarily would be and they're doing their best but they're very thinly -- they're working on many more issues than they can handle. you're hearing about this from foreign diplomats complaining they don't have enough people to talk to in the u.s. government. there's more work they can handle. >> are you suggesting if someone comes up with a piece of analysis or recommendation that doesn't fit the president's preference that they are therefore then considered disloyal? >> i don't have it in this piece. what you're seeing is that there is a culture that is becoming quite clear that if you are perceived to be in any way hostile to the president's agenda that you're not able to have that conversation at all.

that your data, your analysis is not getting into the room and we have to pay attention because we know what happens when policy making gets politicized at the working ranks of the government. it leads us into bad decisions. >> evan osnos. thank you very much, we'll look for your piece in the upcoming may 21 issue of the "new yorker." coming up, jared kushner's plan to overhaul the v.a.'s digital health program needs to iron out a few kinks, like the part where doctors are afraid they're going to end up killing their own patients. "morning joe" is coming right back. this is your wake-up call. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis,

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the department of veterans affairs plans to install a multibillion dollar digital health program backed by the white house. senior adviser jared kushner is behind it all. >> sounds like a good idea. >> well, he's facing fresh question this is morning. >> about what? >> he got a devastating review about his plans. according to a report obtained by politico, doctors and i.t. specialists expressed alarm about the software system. they described how clinicians at

one of four pilot centers quit because they were terrified they might hurt their patients or kill them. >> i'm going to say, that's one bad i.t. program. >> that's devastating. >> how do you make an i.t. program that's dad enough that it would kill veterans? >> politico says the pentagon evaluation lists 156 critical or severe incident reports with the potential to result in patient deaths. a member of the testing team tells politico that if you have more than five incident reports at that high a level the program has significant issues. politico adds the pentagon report concluded that the new software system is neither operationally effective nor operationally suitable. >> but other than that -- >> and recommended freezing the rollout indefinitely until it can be fixed? >> this sounds like barack obama's health.gov.

they showed us the plan before and as a conservative republican who was not for obamacare i left the white house going, dude, if it runs like this -- >> okay, but it never killed people. >> let's not compare. >> you have to let me finish. i said this is going to -- you're going to have republican converts if -- and it never ran that effectively. everybody from the outside of government thinks they can come into government and they're going to fix the pentagon computer system that is antiquated and they're using computers from 1984, everybody thinks they'll fix the v.a. computer system. it's never that easy and the arrogance of people who come in from the outside and think they can get a couple of their part in friends from silicon valley and fix a government system that is ensnarled in 40 years of technological ups and downs, they're dreaming. >> it's well intentioned on his

part. >> well intentioned. >> and it's urgent but i'm not sure why a guy whose experience is a family-owned real estate business, who installed a friend whose experience was a family-owned real estate business to do all this stuff, how he thought he could succeed while everyone else failed and do it while doing ten million other things in the administration. >> like middle east peace. >> this is a herculean task. >> and this is not just directed at jared but it's the attitude of all these people that came in, steve bannon never in government before. all these people that were never in government before. we are going to come in on january 20, 2017 and we are going to remake government forever. the arrogance was breathtaking and you're right, he's going to fix the v.a.'s computer system and going to fix the government's technological problems while managing middle east peace. >> and the department of defense. >> and being investigated. >> i'm not sure what else has come out of the office of

innovation that jared kushner has been overseeing. this seems to be one of the initiatives. the only innovation seems to be cost cutting by killing veterans which is i don't think the direction we want to be moving in. >> that would certainly lessen the back load. i don't think they want to do that. richard, you have been a bureaucrat, deeply brewed in to the american bureaucracy. why is it so hard? . why is it so hard, you hear they're computers from 1984 in the pentagon. why is it so hard to go in and fix all these systems? >> it's so hard because it's almost nothing you can do by yourself. what government is is you have dozens if not hundreds of people all of whom have a degree of power and influence who have their own agendas. so the idea that you can come in -- i don't care what you are -- and somehow make things

happen? no. it takes hundreds of people to either agree to the new policy or implement it. and implementation is often the graveyard of all sorts of policy innovations. it's so hard to get things done given all the overlapping jurisdictions, all the overlapping authorities. >> so politico says a white house spokesman noted friday that jared kushner had no involvement with the defense department contract with the digital health records company that began installing the program in february of 2017. that spokesman said kushner did advise v.a. officials last year to do a contract with the company because the military was already using the vendor. >> again, going -- following up on what richard said, this is a problem not only for this area but you can talk about middle east peace, you can talk about problems on the korean peninsula. we don't put the ambassadors in place we need in place, you have the white house that doesn't --

i mean look at the people that you talked about last segment that are leaving the government. you have to work within the system to change the system. >> except for if your purpose is to destroy the system. so the way in which -- i'm fascinated the way in which these segments were tying in, what evan osnos were talking about and the way we're talking about jared kushner, the notion there would be someone in the white house who would try to do another version of al gore's reinventing government, that's something every administration says we should streamline bureaucracy, make things work more effectively and they're noble efforts as long as they work more or less but set against a backdrop of an ideological conviction of dismantling the administrative state, those are kind of at odds in a profound way and it gets to the question of beyond whether jared or anybody else has the ability or wherewithal to get this done, it's doubly going to

be undermined if the president of the united states and many of his chief ideological architects are saying our real goal is to rip the state down. how do you then -- however well intentioned you are, walk into any part of the government and say we're here to make things better? it's at odds in a fundamental way. >> and even if you want to tear down the government, that's like tearing down trump tower. if you want to tear down a 90-story building, you better have the best engineers there, you better have the best demolition experts there, you better have the best of the best there because it would be far easier to destroy a 90-story tower than it would be to dismantle government. dismantling government is hard, ask ronald reagan's team. >> and when i was at the state department i'll be the first to say the bureaucracy can be incredibly frustrating but it existed for a reason. there was a reason we had to get

input on speeches from various players in various departments and check things with the embassy of a certain subject matter. it happened to make sure that everything continued along the path and was correct and followed a process and you look at how in the national security realm that was what h.r. mcmaster was trying to do, still respecting the process and making the interagency have involvement and you don't see that now, with the decision to drop the iran nuclear deal, there was no process. >> and you look even today. the united states of america is sending a representative to israel to talk about the changing of the embassy to jerusalem and one of our representatives is a man who said all jews are going to held. i've got a feeling they didn't check that out with state. >> the process protects, it vets

things. the whole idea of policy making is to reduce the chance for undesirable surprises. you never want to get bit by something you o.k.ed. oh, wow, i didn't know that was going to happen. the lack of process ensures bad things will happen that will surprise you. up next, a white house staffers callus joke about john mccain was leaked to the press and the administration had a forceful biting response -- not about the joke, but about the leak. that's next on moeblg. liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. hold on dad...

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what? you guys have xfinity. you can do this. what's a good wifi password, mom? you still have to visit us. i will. no. make that the password: "you_stillóhave_toóvisit_us." that's a good one. [ chuckles ] download the xfinity my account app and set a password you can easily remember. one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. there are reports of rising violence in the middle east ahead of the new opening of the american embassy in jerusalem. israeli forces killed at least 18 palestinians during mass protests along the gaza border so here we go. richard, your thoughts. >> a tale of two cities over there right now. >> you've got the juxtaposition of this former event, this israeli government staging with the high level american delegation, people sitting there

drinking white wine and 18 palestinians killed and a thousand injured and the protests are beginning to take on a momentum. the problem is we're beginning to get into that old reaction cycle where the protests get fuelled by the response. and that has got to worry people in israel. >> we'll move on to politics of the day but we'll keep an eye on that breaking news. mulvaney is among the white house staffers who seem more concerned about the leak of the cruel comment. >> that was said in a private meeting inside the white house. it's not like -- you might say something really nasty about me off the air and it doesn't have that much impact. you come on air and say it officially that's a problem. this was a private meeting. it was a joke, a badly considered joke, an awful joke that she said fell flat. >> some are calling for her firing. do you think that's proper? >> i don't.

you have to have freedom to speak candidly in a private meeting. weave all said things in private that we would never say things publicly. i think she handled it appropriately. i understand she called the daughter but i think she's handled it appropriately. i. >> we're really disappointed that you would suggest that the leak was worse than somebody saying that senator mccain was dying and making a joke about it, and then not apologizing publicly about it. >> i don't know who would say -- that -- this comes after communications aide kelly sadler mocked senator john mccain's brain cancer diagnosis during an sbeer internal meeting last thursday. after the leak of the callous remark a visibly furious sarah huckabay sanders scolded the white house communications team on friday calling the leaks

quote, disgusting. mccain's daughter meghan said that had her called and privately apologized for the comment but there's been no public apology from the white house. cohost sat down with megan mccain who said this about her father's legacy. >> so now it's like as you've said during these debates he's still tweeting but your sense is at that time when he does pass that you think his presence will continue in washington. >> well, i think that my career is so -- it speaks for itself, 30 something years. and i think he's going to remain forever and i'm going to make damn [ bleep ] sure that his voice stays forever with his institute and you know, it's been weird to even like, you know, talk about this, but yeah, people will always remember him no matter what as long as i'm still alive and breathing. >> the remark is at this point

that was made in the white house, i mean, there are things that people say off the air as mulvaney who continues to disappoint every single day that he's in the white house said. i can't imagine though how something like that would come up and she must have been horrified. >> i don't know. we talked to meghan before the comment was made so the interview took place before that. we didn't get her reaction to that specifically. i think she is obviously going through a very difficult time as are the whole mccain family, whatever you think about it's perfe perfectly fine to talk about his voting record or whatever you want to talk about, but with a little bit of respect given where they're at right now. i think meghan is holding up extraordinarily well and has been a model of grace at this moment and under pressure. >> and generosity. sharing the story. >> and they have not come out and trashed the white house for -- or the person who made the comment the other day. it would be so easy for the white house to -- >> so easy.

>> so solve this problem. it would be so easy to come out and say tfrs a snarky comment made in interest, m -- jest. the unwillingness to apologize has made it so much worse. >> again, we all say really stupid things. i'll put it on myself. >> i can't imagine. >> on an hourly basis, but if you say stupid things you apologize for the stupid things that you say. >> listen, someone who says dumb things all the time i apologize a lot. just say i'm sorry. >> still ahead we're going to go live to jerusalem where the u.s. is set to open its new embassy this morning. our nbc team is on the ground there and in gaza where 18 palestinians have reportedly been killed amid mass protestsments back in the holy

city, an american delegation including ivanka trump is set to celebrate the embassy opening just minute frgs now. also in the news, michael cohen was apparently telling anyone that would listen that he was donald trump's lawyer and that includes some hugely important companies. was the president's lawyer/fixer also a secret lobbyist? morning joe is coming right back. rig. wakey! wakey! rise and shine! oh my gosh! how are you? well watch this. i pop that in there.

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this morning the united states is open its new embassy in jerusalem a move praised by israel and condemned by palestinia palestinians. we'll have live coverage from the scene and full analysis here at the table. meanwhile rudy jil giuliani is the press again. we'll have the latest on that and also where the michael cohen case stands today. good morning, everyone and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, may 14th. with us we have the president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "a world in disarray." political writer for the new york times. former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments now an analyst.

and author of the new book "the soul of america," jon meacham. >> so rudy confused again. >> he's always confused. >> he gets confused a lot. >> he gets mixed up. >> interesting. jon meacham, rudy will be the first to tell anyone who asks he has been knighted by the queen of england. >> that's right. >> have you been knighted by the queen of england? >> i have not. there's a -- you'll appreciate this, joe. there was a police commissioner in chat kntanooga when i was growing up who was tried and found innocent and he ran on the platform he had been declared innocent by the court of law. >> well, he's smarter than you and you put together. >> all of us. >> i know it. >> i have not been knighted. i'm available to be knighted if

they want. >> you are the soul of america, jon meacham. >> lord meacham. >> he has the soul southern gentleman. >> you know n the south -- >> harvard of the south. >> well, i thought alabama was heart of the south. >> okay. >> all right. let's get to the top story this morning and stop talking about how smart rudy is. might get to his head. he's smarter than you though. >> very accomplished. president trump says he's working hard to save jobs. >> told you he would. >> well, those jobs are in china. the president tweeted yesterday morning that president xi and i are working together to give massive chinese phone company zte a way to get back into business fast. too many jobs in china lost. >> hold on. hold on. nick, i'm confused. so many jobs in china lost? i thought he was campaigning about how china was taking too many of our jobs? >> i am also confused.

>> too many jobs in china lost. i will be ordering my federal government, the u.s. government to help save jobs. >> congress department has been instructed to get it done. >> he wants to save jobs in china. like, this is not why we elected him to save jobs in china. >> i applaud his concern but it does seem like somebody mixed up two of his standard tweets and mixed them up and put china for america. and you know, it's just as important to remember why we kind of moved to remove that company from doing business in the u.s. because of national security concerns and were those components creating a risk for american agencies so why he would want to flip that it seems inconsistent with his long important desire to protect us from foreign intervention. >> i'm a little confused. now, last time i went to

mississippi nobody was down there saying joe, you know what i think the biggest problem is? that there are too many jobs lost in china. >> i'm worried about job growth in china. >> i am worried about china. so i don't think people in hat tigsburg or moss point are worried about making china great again. >> it's kind of a globalist move,even. i wonder if brietbart is going to brand trump a globalist now. >> it's looking a little mysterious. >> hey. hey, hey, hey. thank you. >> no, look -- >> they have to love him now. >> one assumes -- >> seriously. >> you go up to the large trade negotiations, the u.s. delegation went to china, it was a fiasco. china's chief economic minister is coming to washington this week. this is obviously part of that. exactly what the details china's going to give the president remains to be seen, but this is part of that kind of thing.

>> so jon meacham, donald trump is learning a year and a half in that being president of the united states actually isn't as easy as it seems to be and sometimes there are tradeoffs that you have to make and it's not as easy as just going out and throwing red meat into the crowd saying we're going to destroy china. >> absolutely. and one of the things i think -- i hate to introduce a serious note here, but one of the things the country's going to have to figure out is the people who are skeptical of the way the president's conducted himself. rightly skeptical and unhappy, is if he does demonstrate a capacity to do the right thing and does it, how do we talk about that? and what is the -- what is the vocabulary? what's the vernacular of you know what, the job is

complicated. there are difficult tasks, politics is the art of compromise. it's not just the art of being donald trump, and if he does in fact -- if the entertainer in chief becomes the commander in chief, what does that look like? >> yeah, well, it's pretty simple. we'd say that's good. i -- >> that would be great. i mean, we're all for him doing something positive. >> we have time to practice. >> definitely. yeah. >> you know, richard, i do think that if donald trump didn't make such a habit of insulting our allies then i do think there could be a really good conservative liberal debate around iran, for instance. and there has been some -- some discussion about that. the problem is that everything, you know, at every move whether you're talking about trade deals or whether you're talking about

the paris accords or whether you're talking about iran, whatever you're talking about, there are ways to frame all of those decisions and all of those -- all of those moves but he does it by tweet, by insult. and that's part of the problem. >> two things. one, you take all those things collectively and this is the united states abdicating its role as the foundation of the world order as we knew it. you can't show the headline on family television, the cover, but it is essentially a german saying this is the end of the atlantic alliance to u.s. european relations. they've given up on donald trump and you're right. if you're going to disagree you've got to go the extra mile on process. because we always disagree with our allies but then you've really got to work the process and the consultations hard. what's so bad with this administration is you disagree on the policy and they feel that they -- they've simply been ignore, not taken seriously and

the come bination of the two is what's so deadly. >> ronald reagan had policies for eight years that not only our allies disagreed with but 95% of the national media agreed with. the national media was saying poor reagan, the dupe, i mean, i remember the reports, you would have thought that you know, america's future was forever compromised by it while there were others of us who thought no, that's actually the move the man had to make. so there can be disagreements, and you don't expect the liberal media to go along with you every time, but the one thing reagan always did, james a. baker the iii owould be over there. we would be working with -- you know, always five steps ahead. >> always. and one of the things that's so interesting about kind of the universal claim, nearly

universal claim president reagan has in historical terms, most of the press thought as reagan himself once put it that he was a combination of the mad bomber and ebenezer scrooge in real time. yet i've always thought and this is why the character is destiny point is so important. i've always thought that we never fully appreciated that ronald reagan's most significant life experience coming into the presidency was less his actual movie career and more his labor union career because he negotiated that contract for what, 6, 7, 8 years and somebody once said what's it like dealing with the soviets and he said you've never dealt with jack warner and so he was able to you know, come out in that first press con for instance in 1981 and say the soviets lied and cheat but after he shot he write as letter by hand, you know, he gets a marvelous partner .

and he's literally in red square kissing babies and that kind of one prays that there's some sort of method to this madness. i don't think there is, but we do have, i think you have to have some hope that we stagger through. >> we do have prayers. all right. moving on, the wall street journal reports michael cohen took an aggressive approach to profit from his relationship with donald trump. >> who would have ever seen that coming? >> they report that cohen also offered consulting services to ford and uber, which both rejected his overtures. the journal and detroit free press report the special counsel robert mueller's office contacted ford requesting information on cohen's outreach and has interviewed ford's head of government affairs. the journal reports that uber cited new york eers taxi business as a potential conflict of interest when rejecting his offer and that he then modified

his approach to remind the company that he was quote, the president's lawyer. cohen's overall pitch was blunt, telling perspective clients that they should fire whomever was advising them and saying quote, i have the best relationship with the president on the outside and you need to hire me. according to a person familiar with cohen's approach. >> so nick, this is not how business is usually done among lobbyists. i know people love to knock lobbyists but there's a way to do things and a way not to do things. for people at home to think this is how it usually happens, it is not. this is -- this is irregular and it is -- it is wrong. >> it's a parody of how washington works in real life. right? so yes, relations of certain things in washington and lobby u byists cloak these discussions in expertise and they say i'm an expert on the process, on legislation and there's some truth in that. it's rare to get the hard core

play of simply i have a relationship and if you want in, you should pay me. he ran around in this really hand fisted way, we hearing about it in 2017 and saying i have the president's cell phone, i'm his friend, i can get to him. you don't usually see it that boldly stated and in a one sense it's refreshing to actually hear the proposition stated so clearly. >> pay to play, baby. >> but on the other, it kind of runs counter to the way the lobbying community has tried to cloak the way they do things for years and years. >> and if not a lobbyist, a lawyer, or fixer and what's the word before? bumbling lawyer? corrupt lawyer? bumbling fixer? corrupt fixer. >> okay. thank you. >> i have this image of michael cohen just looking, going through linked in and just looking at all the different businesses who have interests in d.c. and it's like oh, maybe

i'll put out a feeler there and reaching out and you know, i mean, it honestly is a microcosm for just a level of ineptitude. i guess we should maybe be heartened that he's that inept at legalized corruption and trying to get in there as a lobbyist but it's a sad reflection on how everyone involved with the trump administration, they can't even do the things that corrupt people have been able to manage, he gets caught. rudy giuliani says trump's recent conversations with michael cohen were all about politics and maybe a little bit about the russia investigation. the latest on the former mayor's defense of the commander in chief. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> good morning. unfortunately it doesn't what i want to talk about but already near florida possibilities of tropical development. hurricane season doesn't start till june 1st but sometimes in may we get a weak storm that can

flare up. hurricane center says 30% chance of development the next two days and this is going to move to the north and soak the state. i'm not concerned with winds or rain even if it does get some they've been in a drought in florida and here's that development zone up total has s -- up to tallahassee. we'll get a good dose of thunderstorms. chicago has gotten nailed and now they're diving just south of chicago. we'll track a lot of thunderstorms under what we call our ring of fire. a big area of high pressure and around that you get this huge arc. wind damage is going to be the biggest threat and if you're not getting the storms you're baking in summer like heat from the 90s. dallas at 90. record highs will be widespread throughout the south and southeast a we go through the afternoon. only the west coast is enjoying a nice quiet beautiful monday out there. washington, d.c. you're included in our thunderstorm threat for

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and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. president trump's newest lawyer, rudy giuliani kept up his rapid pace of comments this weekend saying he was unsure when or even if michael cohen has stopped working as the president's personal lawyer. as far as we know, he's not. >> he's not stopped work -- okay, wait, we're back to this. >> he told that to politico on friday. he added that the president's current legal team has never really determined a precise day when cohen stepped away. the president referred to cohen as one of my personal attorneys after the raid on cohen's offices on april 9th and then tweeted attorney client privilege is dead on april 10th. the white house has side stepped questions on cohen's status. the wall street journal reports

that cohen bragged about his relationship with the president. a source said cohen told lawyers at the firm he could call the boss at any time. but giuliani characterized trump and cohen's conversations as being all about politics and early on, maybe about the russia investigation before cohen came under scrutiny. of cohen's business deals giuliani says the president said to him, quote, i had no idea he certainly never lobbied me. here is the president late last month telling fox what he knew about cohen's work. >> michael is in business, he's really a businessman, a fairly big business as i understand it. i don't know his business, but this doesn't have to do with me. michael is a businessman. he's got a business, he also practices law. i would say probably the big thing is his business and they're looking into something having to do with his business. i have nothing to do with his

business. >> i love how -- i love how he -- he writes -- he writes one word or a phrase in front of him before every interview, sometimes it's no collusion. we're going to light the no collusion christmas tree later this after no collusion, noon. this time it's business. he is's a businessman. michael has a business, it's a big business, i think i don't know but it's been told it's a big business but most of the stuff he does has to do with his business. not my business and i understand it's a fairly good business because i don't know what his business is so we got that from fox and friends and now we have rudy, right, taking his medals off. >> well, there's so many. >> from the queen. and. >> his sword. >> yes, taking his sword and saying oh, wait, he can still be his lawyer, maybe it's not about

business. >> look, the entire problem for the president and for cohen is this question mark around his business and where it overlaps with the president's business. so cohen is a guy who is flipping real estate in suspicious ways. he was buying taxi medallions. he was being a fixer, he was settling claims for the president. he was paying off affairs for the president, so obviously part of his big, big, big business was working for the president and part of his big, big business was telling companies he could get to the president, so yeah, it's not like there's the bright line between cohen's business, he was going to companies that were in trouble with the administration and pitching himself as a fixer to them. and you know, it's still unclear exactly who that money was for, who was getting paid. was it lobbying? was it something else? we don't know. >> but this is trump and giuliani just sort of winging it and it's something that the staff has been complaining about for some time, jon meacham, that

trump and giuliani just get into the room and sort of wing it. they both live in their own alternate realities at times. trump especially. and what's unbelievable is nobody's sat down in a room and said okay, let's figure out what happened, when it happened and even if they don't want to do the right thing they're not even sitting down saying okay, what's our story? what do we tell people? giuliani has been just spitting out words now for the past two weeks contradicting himself every day. this would be as if, you know, we talk about past administrations, this would be as if jimmy carter had billy carter as his personal lawyer. >> well, i think two tributaries are emerging here. both are used to be being the biggest person in the room. and they both think they know better. one became president by the most

unconventional means possible. the other has been a worldwide celebrity. >> coming up on "morning joe," the white house is leaking about its leaks. we're here with the axios scoop on that and we'll be joined next on "morning joe." what? directv gives you more for your thing. your... quitting cable and never looking back thing. directv is rated #1 in customer satisfaction over cable. switch to directv and now get a $100 reward card. more for your thing. that's our thing.

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should the president himself apologize? >> i'll leave that up to him but if something happened like that in my office, somebody in my haufs sa office said such a thing about somebody i would apologize on behalf of the office. >> that is senator lindsey graham weighing in on the fallout after white house communications aide kelly sadler mocked the arizona republican's brain cancer diagnosis during an sbeer internal meeting last thursday. why does that happen? >> i understood she called meghan mccain and apologized. >> i have that axios reports. >> she said she would go on the air and apologize but. >> yeah, she's not doing it. >> after the leak of callous remark a visibly furious sanders

called the leaks quote, disgusting. at one point in the meeting white house strategic communicator interrupted and said she stood with sadler. >> about mocking a man who's dying? >> what's wrong with them? >> wait, is that -- but, weren't they the ones that rushed out of the white house -- the dinner? correspondent's dinner because they were so offended by the jokes? so they rushed out of course get in their liam seen amousine ande after party. let's go to this msnbc effort. >> yeah, let's go work it. >> now they're standing by someone who actually makes fun of a man who has committed his

entire life to serving the united states of america, who has brain cancer and a white house aide mocks him and they interject that they stand with the person mocking john mccain for having brain cancer fighting for his life what's there to stand with there? i don't really -- >> so as joe indicated -- >> what exactly, jon, does that -- you stand with somebody who -- who mocks an american war hero who is dying of cancer, who had the opportunity to be released while he was being beaten so badly that he would never raise his arms above his shoulders again but said he wouldn't leave until all of his band of brothers went with him? what does that mean, she stands with kelly sadler. >> she felt she was targeted by a leak. go ahead, jon. >> it's exhibit 7812 or whatever

and these people are on the wrong side of history and they're on the wrong side of decency. we all make mistakes. we all say stupid things. apologize. >> we all say stupid things. >> apologize and move on. and -- >> actually when they're really stupid -- >> stand with -- stand with someone? i mean, that's -- you know, they're in this bunker, it's a bunker of their own making because their chiefton is the one who has decided quite consciously and deliberately not to govern as an american president buzz t to govern as t tribal leader of his base. >> and he's the leader of saying insulting things. >> history is going to be very harsh here because everything we know about the history of the republic is that the presidents we remember and he should know this because he's going to be worried about those ratings someday too, the presidents we remember and want to commemorate are the ones who reach beyond and represent all of us, not

just this small base of people who stand by people who insult people like john mccain. >> fit's rotten to the core. as joe indicated mccain's daughter meghan said that sadler called and privately apologized for the kmencomment but there h been no public comment from the white house. >> like we've all said, everybody says stupid things. i don't know sadler but sometimes people say stupid, sometimes we say stupid cruel things. but you apologize. why can't she apologize? is she not apologizing because donald trump would be angry if she apologized? >> i think meacham hit it on the head. i think you sit in the bunker especially in this white house's bunker and it corrupts your thinking. it's us against them and now it is a standoff against the media. easily could have been put behind them by saying listen x i said something stupid, i'm sorry for it. in fact, she should probably

have volunteered to get out of the white house when you say something that stupid and the white house would have stood by her. this whole episode over the weekend just illustrates the level of dysfunction in the day-to-day operations of the place. that meeting that you're talking about over the weekend, sarah sanders calls a meeting about a leak, about the leak about what the woman has said and says i know this meeting is going to leak. furious that it leaked in the first place, within minutes, you know, several people in the room are leaking it. it ends up on our site within hours. >> what is that? why do they leak absolutely everything? >> a few of us especially that have been watching this for a long time you learn more about this presidency than you'd learn in a year. so jonathan swan asked the prolific leakers why they leak and they proud my leaked why they leak. a lot of it was about score settling. a lot of it was going after

people internally who didn't share their views. a lot of it was killing ideas that they don't like. some of it was let's shape a narrative in a way that's positive for the administration. >> coming up on "morning joe," just a short time from now the u.s. is set to open its new embassy in jerusalem amid cheers from israelis and protests from palestinians. we'll have a live report from on the ground straight ahead on "morning joe." at ally, we're doing digital financial services right. but if that's not enough, we have more than 8000 allys looking out for one thing: you. call in the next ten minutes...

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there is a split scene playing out in the middle east as palestinians in gaza protest the opening of an american embassy in jerusalem. at least 28 palestinians have reportedly been killed today by israeli forces. ivanka trump is in the holy city as part of the u.s. delegation marking the embassy's move and we'll go live to jerusalem in just a moment. we'll go to richard, the president of the council on foreign relations right now on the set with us. what do you make of this

remarkable split scene? >> it somewhat captures the essence of these two realities. it's a tale of two realities. the israelis' successful modern technological society, here's a milestone that many have wanted for decades and here are the palestinians are nothing. you can argue to what extent it's their own fault but be it as it may they have nothing and what they're doing is they are doing human wave attacks trying to cross the border into israel. israel is responding with deadly force, and you have this where we were just talking about it, israel has a modern access to things like drones, the palestinians are lighting kites, putting kites on fire and sailing them over into israeli territory. so it's almost like you've got israel in the 21st century. palestinians in the 19th century there and they're fighting it out and -- >> look at this photo of the palestinian protesters, running

from tear gas and gunshots. it's actually a reuters photograph along the israeli/gaza border while again, this ceremony where people are, you know, sipping wine and dignitaries are together talking about this wonderful day, seems like this seemed to undercut the trump administration's indistance that the reaction to moving the embassy to jerusalem has not been so bad after all. >> well, look, in one sense the decision to move the embassy was a ratification of reality. but in another sense it is hugely symbolic importance and we're seeing those protests, but you know, also with the celebration here how important it is for both sides in totally contrasting ways and i just have to say, i hope that the administration is seeing it and understands what the consequences are going to be if they do actually want to restart the peace process or even have a

peace process. the decision to recognize the capital and have the presence of american people be -- in jerusalem is going to create this kind of problem. it's -- look at that. >> i mean, you're looking -- >> human wave attacks. >> it is human wave attacks and this is -- we shouldn't pretend that the promise of moving the embassy to jerusalem has not been uttered by just about every republican president and quite a few democratic presidents while they were running for office, but once they got in there, for one reason or the other, they didn't follow through on that in part a grave concern about how it would undermine the middle east process. >> well, we're seeing this with a number of donald trump's foreign policy decisions. you know, the politicized version that he campaigned on he has been sticking to and

following through on and for a while it looked like he had been tempered on the iran nuclear deal and somedaying in that deal but then, you know, he lo and behold was going to get out despite not having a process, decided to do it. tpp. then with this you have other presidents that said oh, let's move the embassy and they look at the conditions on the ground, maybe not, maybe now the times isn't right but donald trump goes ahead and does it and he sees it as fulfilling a campaign promise but does the action actually make us less secure. >> and think about it, timeframe, we talked about all the disruption, whether it's with north korea but also last week the iran, getting out of the iran deal, this week jerusalem. an awful lot for that region to absorb. >> so that's it. today's relocation of the u.s. embassy in israel is the second in a series of three major foreign policy moves by the trump administration in a very short period of time. the first was ripping up the iran nuclear deal as you

mentioned. the third is next month's summit between president trump and north korean leader kim jong un. and there is news this morning on that front. let's bring in our white house correspondent. lathest on that? >> hi, mika and joe. the white house starting to set the stakes for that historic summit with north korea even as it monitors all of the different foreign policy issues you all are talking about like what's happening in jerusalem today. national security advisor saying over the weekend that that face to face is going to give president trump is ability to size up kim jong un and determine whether his commitment is real. now, north korea eager to at least show they're serious, who knows if they really are, but they announced over the weekend plans to dismantle a gnaw clenu testing site next month. explosives will be used to collapse the tunnels and journalists including those from the u.s. will be allowed in to witness it, but here's the thing. there's a let of skepticism

because it's believed that site is not fully functional. president trump moderate in his tone, thank you a very smart and gracious jegesture. pompeo says there won't be a deal unless they agree a total denuclearization. take a listen to what he had to say over the weekend. >> i have told him that what president trump wants is to see the north korean regime get rid of its nuclear weapons program completely and in exchange for that we are prepared to ensure that the north korean people get the opportunity that they so richly deserve. >> so what does that of tunety look like? pompeo also prepared to roll back sanctions and even to make private investments in the isolated nation but the big question is of course can north korea really be trusted? >> all right. >> thank you very much. and up next we continue to follow the breaking news from israel, jerusalem celebrates

while gaza erupts. >> we'll also be talking about kristen welker's report and some surprising lank waj used this weekend regarding north korea. >> a live report ahead and we'll bring in former u.s. ambassador nick burns. go someplace exotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermuda. i hear it's nice. yeah, i'd like to see it. no judgment. just guidance. td ameritrade. when did you see the sign? when i needed to jumpstart sales. build attendance for an event. help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage. and got them back on track. get started at fastsigns.com.

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♪ ♪ wait, i have something for you! every stay is a special stay at holiday inn. save up to 15% when you book early at hollidayinn.com i'm all-business when i, travel... you book early even when i travel... for leisure. so i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade in the aisle - without starting any conversations- -or paying any upcharges. what can i say? control suits me. go national. go like a pro. joining us from jerusalem, cohost of morning joe first look ayman, also with us, former u.s. ambassador to nato and former

state department spokesman nick burns. he's professor of diplomacy and international relations at the harvard kennedy school of government. >> before we move forward to jerusalem, let's finish the kri just talking about, and that is north korea. just remarkable that the president of the united states was talking about their kind generous gesture. >> yes, first he does it when they return the hostages. they took them. then he does it when they're now talking about dismantling their nuclear site because the nuclear site has become dysfunctional. it's also quite possible this tells us something. they have reached a point in their nuclear development they feel pretty content and they can pause it for a while and it's going to be very interesting, if we walk into this summit and say you've got to give up everything that has the word nuclear in front of it and they say actually that's not our definition of due nuclearization, look out. >> elise, just as they did with the nuclear site, they did with

the hostages that they took. trump is thanking them and talking about them being gracious. >> how is it gracious to have americans imprisoned and in forced labor camps? it's really just a poor choice of words from the president, from a president who is famously careless with his words. that was a real low. >> ambassador burns, i mean, aside from the stupidity of it and it just may be that they're incapable of understanding the concept and using words that are totally inappropriate, is there a danger to misstating a chain of events as they happen? >> the president's done well to get this far. the language has not been right. you discussed that. he set this up well. the chinese right now are supporting us. i think the problem for the president's going to be when he puts full denuclearization on

the table, the north koreans are not going to say yes and will drag this out for years. will the president have the patience to stay at the notch degree yating table. when you think about iran, it took ten years to get to the end of those negotiations. it may take three, four, five years in north korea's case. i don't know if he has the strategic patience to stay with something over a long period. >> well, they've done a deal with either bill clinton or george w. bush or become obama that -- it wasn't a smoke screen to continue their development of their nuclear program. and why should we take them on their -- on good faith now? >> and we shouldn't, and it's not a question of trust, it's a question of verification. you're right, president clinton in '94, president bush in 2006, we had clear arrangements and we were burned twice, so obviously pompeo knows this. i hope president trump knows

this and they have their eyes i'd open. >> ammyman, the situation seemso be unfolding in a violent way right now in jerusalem and gaza. give us the latest. >> yes, joe, mika, guys, you know, it's a very real backdrop, the -- about 60 miles further south at the border, a very different story. protests have been very violent in the sense that marchers have been trying to breach the fence between israel and gaza. a lot of the people there, last night we talked about this with our correspondent there, the people on the ground of gaza have been living under a stifling blockade for the past 12 years both from the israeli side and the egyptian side. they've gotten to a point as they described to our correspondent that life is

almost meaningless. we asked them, why are you trying to breach this fence when you know it is a suicide mission, why are you trying to do that? and they say because of the desperation their lives have become. it is an example of the utter diplomatic failures that have tried to take place in changing the situation there. we know from the gaza ministry of health today so far, it's only about 4:00 p.m. here, the death toll is 37 palestinians have been killed. about 1,700 have been injured as a result of what they say is live fire coming from the israeli side. yesterday, save the children released a report saying about 500 children, some as young as 8 years old, have been shot with live ammunition. there's also a lot of serious questions about whether or not the israeli military is using appropriate force here and whether or not they're violating any kinds of rules and regulations. the u.n. secretary-general, you probably know, has called for an independent investigation. >> gaza is the most miserable

place on the planet earth. it is the highest population density. it is beyond miserable. these people are hopeless. they are doing what is essentially suicide. i think for israel, this is in some ways an unsustainable narrative. you can't have israeli soldiers using deadly force against protesters. i'm not saying some of them are not using violence. but the disproportionality of it is unsustainable. this is all taking place in a diplomatic vacuum. it would be one thing if there were some diplomacy under way that gave people a sense of possibility but right now there is zero diplomacy going on. there's no alternative to what we're seeing at the gaza border. >> i don't understand why this particular day. >> it's the 70th anniversary of the creation of the stat of israel. >> that is the reason, but --

>> on the palestinian side, what they see as the catastrophe of their history and that's what's bringing people to the streets. >> talk to us about the future here. the trump white house has tried to knit together israel and the u.s., has kind of taken sides essentially where obama tried to hold himself back as the arbiter of this conflict. so what credibility can the trump administration now have going forward? >> they're not going to have a lot of credibility going forward. it's important to remember on a day like today that every american president, some have campaigned to move the embassy but nobody did. because it's a mistake. because it diminishes our credibility. crewm truman's inside was don't try to impose yourself and decide who gets jerusalem, whose capital should be where. the palestinians and israelis had eventually to work that out.

they hadn't done it. it doesn't mean it's smart for the united states to intercede the way it has. today is this momentous day for israel. 70 years. give the israelis credit for building a strong and great state. tomorrow is actually the great catastrophe. it's not surprising you see palestinians coming out the way they are. they've never -- they've never liked the fact that the united states is a strong supporter of israeli security. but they've always thought that the united states could be the mediating party that brought them together. i think a lot of palestinians don't believe that now. that's what we've lost today with this decision by president trump. >> ayman, we had a shot of robert jeffer, the evangelical preacher that donald trump sent to represent the united states there. we saw him actually sitting next to two rabbi clerics who he has said are going to go to hell. he of course also said that

muslims were pedophiles and is one more example of just how reckless this president and this administration is, as it goes into the middle east peace process and basically breaks all the china in the shop. >> yes, and to pick up on the point that ambassador burns was saying, you know, there was a lot of skepticism about the u.s. government throughout the peace process, if you want to call it that. nonetheless, people believed the u.s. could be an honest broker. what you see today, the opening of new embassies in countries, it's a celebration of culture, a celebration of value, a celebration of interest. what we saw with the lineup from both the right wing israeli government, which has been described as the most right wing government in israel's history, and the representation from the american side to have religious figures who do not even believe in a two-state solution, who do not even believe in the stated american policy of a two-state solution, it raises questions as

to why american taxpayer dollars are being used for an event like this because at the end of the day, you have, as you pastor a in settlement expansion, don't believe in the two-state solution, and used inflammatory words to talk about both countries, those who live in israel, as well as those who live in the united states. >> ayman, we will see you at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow more "morning joe first look" hosting again from jerusalem, thank you very much for being on today. ambassador nick burns, thank you as well. >> richard haass, final word, final thought? >> hard to watch these images on the screen and just not be worried about the future. >> yes. >> i see none of the seeds of progress there. what you see are the seeds of growing confrontation and violence. bad for the palestinians, bad for israel. what the united states is not doing is helping the situation. >> also not helping our closest

ally in the region israel. we have an interest in israel's security. we have an interest in their long-term health. this is -- this undermines that. >> there's a concept of medicine where doctors intervene and make patients worse. the middle east is a dying patient at the very worse. american diplomacy in the middle east could be fairly charged with being iatrigenic. >> we will continue this conversation tomorrow, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage now. >> hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle. the opening of the u.s. embassy in jerusalem getting under way at this moment. at the same time, a violent reaction from palestinians along the israeli border. dozens of people have been killed in the past few hours alone. i want to start first with nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard angle who's