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. that's it for this hour of msnbc live. i'll see you at noon eastern. stay where you are. joy is starting now with "a.m. joy." [ crowd chanting "nobel" ] >> that's very nice. thank you. that's very nice. nobel. >> oh, stop. nobel, stop. good morning. welcome to a.m. joy. it was supposed to be his nob nobel-worthy moment. a summit between north korea and the united states to clear the path to peace on the korean

peninsula. there was so much excitement that this smeshl commemorative coin popped up in the white house gift shop putting the american president and the north korean leader referred to here as supreme leader, side by side. just as the coins went on preorder, things began to fall a apart leading trump to fear north korea would cancel the summit first. on thursday morning before kim could break up with him, trump broke up with kim. personally dictating a letter cancelling the meeting. i'd do a dramatic reading. let's let secretary of state mike pompeo do the honors. >> i felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me and ultimately it's only that dialogue that matters. some day i look forward to meeting you. if you change your mind having to do with this important summit please do not hesitate to call me or write. >> that was real. he had to read that. congress and key allies including the south koreans were

kept out of the loop and the confusion worsened when trump on friday suggested the summit could still take place. >> is the summit still a possibility? >> we'll see what happens. it could be the 12th. we are talking to them now. they very much want to do it. we'd like to do it. we'll see what happens. everybody plays games. you know that. >> meanwhile, less than a day after trump's renewed optimism the leaders of the koreas met at the dmz and discussed the renewed possibility of a summit. so will it happen? won't it happen? either way, the trump/kim coin is now on sale for just $19.95. get them while they last. with me now, joe sirinioni, christine ahn of women cross dmz and malcolm nance, msnbc contributor. thank you for being here. christine, i'll go to you first. a note to the audience of a

slight delay. christine, you just returned from the dmz. i want your take on how this thing fell apart and whether or not president moon jae-in of south korea is succeeding in trying to put it back together. >> well, in the last week we saw some pretty barbed exchanges between north korea -- you know, sending messages to the trump administration. i mean, clearly targeted john bolton. there were two things that took place preceding those pretty harsh rhetoric. one was the introduction of b-52 bombers and fighter jets during the war drills. clearly the libyan model that john bolton and mike pompeo later were basically stating that it was the model for north korea. clearly that's not preparing the table for peace talks.

that very much angered north korea. it would anger anybody who is beginning a diplomatic process. north korea sent a clear message and the trump administration used that opportunity to basically unilaterally with draw from the june 12 summit. as you noted, there is so much taking place in the last 24 hours. we organized a delegation of 30 women to be here to support the peace process. today we marched on the dmz, 1200 south korean women marched with 30 women from 16 countries calling for a peace treaty to end the war. it was unbelievable that just yesterday president trump said he would not meet kim in singapore. so we protested outside the u.s. embassy. you know, it's so great to know that while we were at the dmz today that the leaders of north korea and south korea just proceeded. they were un detdeterred by tru

whiplash diplomacy and the peace train has left the station. it's so heartening to see that the two korean leaders are proceeding to try to end the war. >> joe, you know, on the one hand we had fun with this coin donald trump created, but on the one hand you have the trump administration wanting full credit for any progress toward peace on the korean peninsula. full credit. on the other hand, it is the trump administration that seems to be the biggest impediment to getting a peace deal, even a summit. they seem to be in the way. three items -- the washington post to christine's point, about john bolton who has always had this extremely hawkish attitude toward pretty much the planet, but particularly toward north korea. john bolton, the new yasnationa security adviser said the threatening language was a bad sign. that the president told advisers he was concerned kim was maneuvering to back out of the summit and make americans look like desperate suitors because

of north koreans calling mike pence, the american vice president a political dummy. here is why. here is mike pence on fox news on monday threatening regime change if there is no deal. >> this will only end like the libyan model ended, if kim jong-un doesn't make a deal. >> the libya model. gadhafi was dragged through the streets and deposed. we have the nbc report that there is a divide inside the administration between mike pompeo and john bolton. several administration officials say pompeo who has taken the lead in negotiating with the north koreans blamed bolton for torpedoing the process. you have people in the administration that don't want to deal. they want regime change. >> you laid that out beautifully, joy. let's try to unpack a little bit. first, john bolton was dead wrong in the advice he gave the president. he said that north korea was

threatening to pull out. that's not true. you just saw the interest that the north has in continuing this summit process demonstrated dramatically on the korean peninsula today with his meeting with president moon. president moon and chairman kim, not supreme leader, are the ones who have been driving the process since the olympics to try to get the summit to happen. i think they are still both committed to it. so bolton advises the president incorrectly, gives him bad advice. secretary of state mike pompeo and secretary of defense jim mattis apparently aren't consulted in this and trump issues this impulsive letter, embarrassing letter, as you heard mike pompeo read it. okay. then he realizes this is completely unnerved the u.s. allies in asia. this rollercoaster diplomacy has raised serious questions about

the reliability of america and the credibility of our word. then trump appears to be backtracking. now putting the summit process back on. this is a good move. if i were betting, i would bet we are going to have this summit. why? because of what christine just said. the peace train has left the station. there is a tremendous interest in both koreas and particularly the south koreans to see if there is a path forward and have a meeting. it appears north korea has been consistent about its desire to discuss a step-by-step denuclearization of the peninsula. it's been the americans that have been vacillating on this. you see the process and the american side is driven largely by donald trump's insecurities and his vain glorious attitude, the way he smiled when the crowd chants "nobel." he's now putting the summit back on. why? because kim jong-un wrote him a

flattering letter. i think trump, moon and kim are now reinvested in having this summit go forward. i would predict we'll see a summit sooner or later. >> it is interesting to contrast the personality types such as we know it of kim jong-un and donald trump. tony schwartz wrote "the art of the deal," knows trump well and has dark thoughts about him. he said trump has a fear of being humiliated and shamed. this is showing who is the biggest and strongest so he's sensitive to the possibility he would look weak and small. there is nothing more unacceptable to trump than that. you have an american president whose administration is standing in the way of peace. then his own personality seems to be standing in the way, even when the president of south korea is willing to give him the credit to get peace if that's what it takes. >> his personality is driving this entire process. to tell you the truth, i don't

think he will, in the end, get the credit he's looking for. he's looking for a nobel prize. let's put it on the table. ever since 1987 when he took out the "new york times" full page article asking the then bush administration to make him a nuclear negotiator for the star talks, donald trump has been looking for global acclaim. what we have here is a north korea that understands this man's ego must be massaged and can be manipulated. they are manipulating him. there are other regional aspects of these negotiations that are not being satisfied. japan wants the return of people who have been kidnapped by north korea. south korea wants to re-open the relationships between families in north korea and south korea. the industrial center they have and which will, if all of these things happen, create an opening for north korea to get more trade, more money, more resources without the united states. this is a good example of why

kim jong-un's plan to actually retain those nuclear weapons has propelled him back into the normal routine of states. he's never giving up the bombs. he's going to get something out of this and trump is going to give it to him. >> i think that's a good point. donald trump has given him the legitimacy on the world stage he craves. he treated him as an equal which kim jong-un wanted. it feels like the koreas are driving everything. to be blunt, they are blundering and he's just revealing his own insecurities daily. in this letter cancelling the summit, trump is said to have dictated the line, you talk about your nuclear capabilities but ours are so massive and powerful that i pray to god they will never have to be used. then you have the atlantic quoting officials on the north koreans literally not picking up the phone. when the americans are trying to call they are not picking up. who they are picking up the phone to -- china. nbc news reporting china,

beijing is the hidden hand behind the summit's derailment as xi jinping became increasingly anxious about the potential. here's president trump claiming the change happened because china changed its attitude or kim jong-un changed attitude. it's personality driven but donald trump doesn't seem to be driving any of the actual kwo developments. >> if we go back to the letter not only is it a bad break-up letter but it had serious personality disorders. it's like your 6th grade boyfriend saying, it's over, my stick is bigger than yours, but call me maybe. i know this is crazy. here's my number, call me maybe. on a much more serious note, it's unbelievable the president of the united states wrote that letter. the letter was nuts. things changed in the past 24 hours. what's crazy now is kim jong-un

looks like a stable, mature leader. he's taken over the talks and made the u.s. irrelevant. it is supposed to be the u.s. and south korea are allies getting to the table to talk to north korea. now not only is the u.s. left out of the process, but donald trump, the master negotiator, is at home tweeting. >> christine, we have already pulled out of tpp, so pacific trade is in the hands of china. china seems to be the big player other than south korea in sort of deciding kind of what the future economically is in the region. how important is china relative to south korea in making sure that a summit happens? >> i think everybody in the region is pretty supportive of the korea peace process. i think the only one that's really driving a wedge between the u.s. and rok is the u.s. when the trump administration threatened to destroy north

korea there would be devastating consequences for the entire korean peninsula. so i think it is really important to remember when we were walking today in the dmz, i was walking with women whose siblings are still in north korea. when we were overlooking the river across into north korea through the telescopes, i heard a father tell his young son those are -- we are the same people, but we can't see each other. i think we have to bring it back to this is about the korean people. this is a conflict that's lasted for seven decades. this is a strip of land that's the most symbolic manifestation of a long-term division. let the korean people see peace on the korean peninsula. that's what they want. the international community should support it. so this is not about who is gaming who. this is about the will of the korean people, millions of families remain separated. they don't want to live in a

perpetual state of war. the international community should support it. moon and kim should get the nobel peace prize. we shouldn't allow peace and the korean people to be held hostage by trump or the u.s. at this moment. >> well said. the world should listen to what you said. the point is that the people of the korean peninsula deserve peace. maybe the trump administration should get out of the way. thank you all very much. up next, the latest on trump's attacks on the department of justice and the horrific policy separating asylum seekers from their children which trump now blames on democrats. he just tweeted put democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from their parents once they cross the border into the u.s. catch and release, blah, blah, blah, build the wall, et cetera. democrats, ms-13, all of the greatest hits in that one.

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one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. nothing we heard today has changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the fbi or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and

protocols. >> donald trump's attempts to launch a new distraction this week, an episode of his white house reality show focused on a supposed spy in his campaign, fell apart on thursday as democrats characterized a classified briefing by the department of justice that up until the last minute was only open to republicans as containing zero evidence to back up trump's claim. also president the white house chief of staff and trump's lawyer which made an already unprecedented briefing that included the kind of highly sensitive information that's never released to the subject of an investigation even more unprecedented director of national intelligence dan coats said both men left before the substantive part of the briefings began and they were there only to relay the president's desire for as much openness as possible under the law. we have only his word on that. meanwhile rudy giuliani tells the a.p. he wants his own readout of the briefing. doubling down on what he told nbc news last week that he wants

to see files on the informant before trump sits down with mueller. joining me now former watergate prosecutor nick acker man, nbc analyst danny savalos and professor of law at georgetown law school paul butler. nick, you have rudy giuliani saying he wants to see the classified information for one purpose only -- to show it to donald trump's attorneys and derail the mueller investigation. >> exactly right. this is precisely what happened during the watergate investigation. john dean sat in on the fbi interviews of approximately 14 white house individuals. the whole point behind that was to get what everybody was saying so they could give it to nixon and others so they could come up and concoct their stories so they would know where the pitfalls are and how they could get around what people were saying. >> yeah. >> this was a way to keep tabs on the entire investigation and

be able to basically mold their stories around what other people were saying. that's what this is all about. that's why rudy giuliani wants this. i know rudy giuliani. i served with him for six months when he was u.s. attorney. he would never in a million years have ever, ever allowed this kind of information to be given to a defense lawyer. this is total buffoonery right now. it's just another example of this administration trying to obstruct the mueller probe. >> danny, you know, there are two ways to look at it. on the one hand it is a direct attempt to give a heads-up to the defense about the prosecutor's case, even if that means exposing classified data which is norm-breaking and should be terrifying to every lawyer in the country whether you are a prosecutor or defense lawyer. on the other hand, it's also taming the jury. this is also trying to say no matter what mueller comes out with, there is a certain amount of the public who won't believe anything because they only believe what donald trump says

and tweets. there is a group called the global strategy group which put out a word cloud asking people to describe the russia investigation. look at that word cloud. do you see the biggest word? witch hunt. that donald trump just keeps saying it over and over again in order to get people not to believe. if you go through this survey which i was in a wormhole in the makeup room going through, people, including independents, have a lot of doubt about the investigation and think it's a witch hunt. they have tried to add spy to get it in your head so people won't believe it. how much damage could that do to the actual case mueller is doing if you now have a portion of the public that is going to say witch hunt. >> you could make an argument which is the largest scale seeding of a potential jury pool we have seen. you have to give trump credit. he expertly creates a dialogue where you have catch words that

become part of the national discussion. if you start substituting the word spy in your head for the more cumbersome confidential informant or human source or cooperating witness, all of the sudden you say, oh, yeah, well, spy, confidential informant, sort of the same thing. going back to what you said earlier in the question, when you talk about releasing data, included within the data that the defense is trying to get in a situation like this is those confidential sources. the human sources, confidential informa informants. look, i'm a defense attorney. confidential informants are the bane of a defense lawyer's existence. yet, i understand if we have a system where c.i.s do not feel safe coming forward then the entire justice system is in peril. >> absolutely. paul, meanwhile what they are trying to obscure including this morning. donald trump and his team go on tweet storms to get us to say the buzzwords to substitute for the news.

you had in the last 24 hours the "new york times" coming out with a report that michael cohen met with an oligarch to discuss russian relations. they discussed a desire to strengthen russia's relationship with the u.s. this happened 11 days before the inauguration. days after the inauguration the ump firm gives cohen a million dollar contract. you have michael isikoff coming out in yahoo! news that the fbi has obtained wiretaps of a putin ally who met with donald trump, jr., an anti-corruption investigator from spain. he was asked if he was concerned this guy alexander torshin who is connected with the nra and on the sanctions list, if that

should concern the trump administration. grinda said mr. trump's son should be concerned. at the time we are getting information about more contacts with more trump people they are distracting the country with the spying ruse. >> yeah, joy. things got high this week because james clapper, former chief of national intelligence said but for russian interference donald trump would not be president. it got dangerous because rod rosenstein had a bad week. when rosenstein has a bad week the rule of law has a bad week. he and special counsel mueller are all we have now to protect our democratic institutions. so, yes. donald trump, jr., meets with this person who has been sanctioned for russian interf e interfering with the election. donald trump meets with this guy.

also has a meeting he conveniently forgets with not russians but others. donald trump should have called the fbi. instead he took the meeting. you know, the conventional wisdom has become collusion is no longer a thing. it's about obstruction. collusion is very much in the picture. it's in special counsel mueller's cross sights so donald trump, jr., jared kushner, these guys still have exposure not for obstruction but for conspiracy to defraud the united states. >> nixon could not have dreamed of having this much assistance, foreign and domestic, to support that he should not have been taken down. you have a story about an israeli intelligence firm that

put out an analysis of the investigation that robert mueller is also interested in. they have a presentation prepared by an israeli firm which outlines ways the donald trump administration was helped by fake news, fake social media and all of the stuff in the tweets, the disinformation has had an impact. global strategy group put out the same survey they talked about earlier. asked whether or not the mueller investigation has uncovered crimes, only 41% say yes. the perception of six in ten people polled is there have been no crimes uncovered. there have been multiple indictments. >> lots of indictments. this is a result of don the con man. that's what he's doing. this is a typical con man routine where he makes things up, lies day after day. he's directed in his con in trying to get people to believe something that is just not true. i mean, he's got three cooperating witnesses already

who have pled guilty, a series of indictments that have come out. there is real criminality that's been uncovered. the idea that this is a witch hunt when a series of wizards have been indicted and some pled guilty makes no sense and is part of don the con's pattern of lying. >> can we put it up for a second? michael flynn who was the national security adviser of the united states. he pleaded guilty. george papadopoulos pleaded guilty. paul manafort. have you ever been in a legal case with this many cooperating witnesses' guilty pleas where the perception is it is all a fake scandal with nothing to see? >> let me play devil's advocate or defense attorney's advocate for the argument. when we talk about the indictments obtained by the mueller team you could see how

one would argue there isn't a big smoking gun we expected. that's why you see the poll numbers. for example, consider the fact that at least two of the defendants were indicted for section 1001, making false statements which is arguely -- i'm just playing devil's advocate to nick here. when you have a section 1001 false statement case that was created after the fact. it was created by the mueller investigation. you have the manafort case where he's arguing, look, none of this stuff had anything to do with russia. it had to do with way before the campaign. when we look at the numbers, six out of ten, you can see how the argument might go the other way. >> but you can't argue with the fact there are indictments out there and a grand jury concluded at least prostate canc and probable cause. >> the problem with my buddy's argument is all of the

consciousness of guilt. all of these lies and deception by trump and his cronies about forgetting about these meetings with the russians and when they offered to help trump get elected, that's incriminatincri. there is never going to be a smoking gun videotape of donald trump and vladimir putin getting together and agrees that putin will help trump get elected. that's not how it works. that's not what the law requires. conspiracy to defraud the united states has to be proved by all of the kinds of circumstantial evidence that we are seeing. >> the defense lawyer and the prosecutor have weighed in. i leave it to the hands of the jury watching the show to parse it out. nick, paul, danny, great discussion. coming up, nfl owners join donald trump's crusade to silence protest. yay. that's next. (vo) why are subaru outback

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i told you to back up because you were going to try to get in the car. i'll do what i want. i own this. >> you don't own me though. >> taser, taser, taser. [ groaning ] >> on wednesday the milwaukee police department released the body cam footage showing the arrest and tasing of nba rookie sterling brown over what began as a mere parking violation. it's just one of the all too many examples of aggressive police misconduct directed at black americans that prompted nfl quarterback colin kaepernick to take a knee during the

national anthem before games in protest of that very misconduct. yet, the same day this video was released the national football league announced it had made a unanimous decision that all nfl players on the field must stand during the national anthem or their team will be subjected to a fine. a dear friend of many of the almost exclusively white billionaire nfl owners took an opportunity to praise the decision which just happened to line up perfectly with his own nationalistic demands. >> i don't think people should be staying in locker rooms but it's good. you have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing, shouldn't be there. maybe you shouldn't be in the country. >> joining me is sage rosen felts, jameel smith of rolling stone and dante stallworth, journalist and former nfl wide receiver. first of all, sage, before i go to you, the idea that this vote was unanimous is not even necessarily so.

the raiders owner mark davis confirmed he abstained from the anthem vote contrary to roger goodell's claims it was unanimous. also the 49ers owner jed york also abstained. it wasn't unanimous. but you have been prolific in tweeting about your thoughts on it. why don't you share them with the audience? >> well, i think my number one concern is that this is a management versus labor issue and i think it should be kept as something the players and owners work together to come to a resolution. the greater concern, i think, is the president of the united states is now injecting himself into a private business. i don't remember that any time in my life or in the history whether it is obama, the bushes, reagan, the clintons that the president can interject himself into a conversation to hurt somebody else's business for some sort of leverage for himself.

>> dante -- and i will come back to the issue about management and labor, but i mentioned the owners who abstained. the chairman of the jets christopher johnson told the washington post there will be no repercussions for his players if they protest during the anthem. no club fines for us is pensions. if the team is fined he'll pay the fines. to the management/labor issue, as a former player, the player association wasn't consulted. there is a collective bargaining agreement. the nfl chose not to consult the union in the development of the new policy. the vote by nfl club ceos contradicts statements made to our player leadership. our union will review the policy and change any aspects inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement. your thoughts? >> i think the players should have a say obviously into what goes into any planning dealing with the nfl.

they just weren't asked to come to the table. the nfl made the unilateral decision to change this new rule. you know, bringing it back to the forefront. the president comments as we saw earlier from the video where he says the players maybe shouldn't be in the country. come on. the president of the united states talking about american citizens who are kpr sipeaceful protesting during the national anthem and that's what you're saying about these men? that's dangerous. i think it's something that alludes to a disturbing pattern from the president. >> you said the nfl caved to donald trump. there have been pieces about them being afraid of him, afraid of what he might do, tweet, take their value of the teams, et cetera, et cetera. the first amendment argument is complicated. it's not the government preventing speech. it is private organizations which also happened to get a lot

of money from the department of defense. what do you make of this question of whether or not this is actually a response to donald trump's nationalism rather than the teams just making an independent decision about their clubs. >> i think it is clear that they are responding directly to trump's bullying, you could say. they have bought into his rhetoric. they have adopted his framing of the issue. these owners know the players are protesting racial injustice in this country. they are protesting police brutality and other forms of racism. they know this. the players have said this publically. yet in the policy they adopt this orwellian language that says players must stand up and respect the anthem. respect the anthem. that's not what this protest is about or what it's ever been about. i think by adopting that framing, they are essentially

giving in to not just the pressure from the president but also the pressure from white fans who have chosen to view this in the exact wrong way. they have chosen to misinterpret what the players have been protesting. in doing so they have chosen to ignore the core issues. i think when you say they are responding to the bullying from trump you have to look at the fact that he's now again even in the fox news sound bite pressuring them to a certain outcome. he's continuing to move the goal posts further and further toward awe authoritarianism. >> i can't help but think that now the players are going to, in a sense, particularly the black players are going to look like hostages forced to stand there. will they be told what pose to adopt? it's hard to imagine grown men, adults being told what they have to do with their bodies during the national anthem. that apparently is what the league thinks is a compromise. >> i think it is interesting. it's important to note that the

nba has a similar rule where they make their players stand. but the nba has stood by their players, i would say a lot more than the nfl has on other issues throughout the course of their season. you know, going all the way back to trayvon martin. the nba was there with lebron james and dwyane wade when they stood up against what happened to trayvon martin. obviously a number of other african-americans over the course of the last couple of years. when you look at the players last year, you know, a number of them held up fists. are they going to do it again this year? players are looking for new ways to protest. i think they are going to find them. the players are creative. they don't want this issue to go away. the issue isn't about patriotism. it's social inequality. >> you didn't have very successful nba players being delisted from the franchises and not signed because of protests. big difference between the nba and the nfl.

we'll hold everybody over after the break. coming up in the next hour, the trump administration is ripping children from their parents at the u.s. border. the woman who is vying to be georgia's next governor, stacy abrams will be here. over the last 24 hours, you finished preparing him for college. in 24 hours, you'll send him off thinking you've done everything for his well-being. but meningitis b progresses quickly and can be fatal, sometimes within 24 hours. while meningitis b is uncommon, about 1 in 10 infected will die. like millions of others, your teen may not be vaccinated against meningitis b. meningitis b strikes quickly. be quick to talk to your teen's doctor about a meningitis b vaccine.

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i don't think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still i think it's good. you have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing. you shouldn't be mr. maybe you shouldn't be in the country. >> wouldn't you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody dis respects our flag to say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now. out. he's fired. he's fired. >> this week the nfl caved to donald trump's war on football players who take a knee sparking a backlash off the field and on the court. here is steve kerr, head coach of the golden state warriors. >> i think it's just typical of the nfl, you know, they're just playing to their fan base and they are just, you know, basically trying to use the anthem as a fake patriotism

nationalism, scaring people. it's idiotic, but that's how the nfl handles their business. >> sage, jamil and dante are back with me. sage, i think it was you who pointed out or maybe dante pointed out that the nba does have the same policy that the players have to stand but it's played out very, very differently. why do you suppose the atmosphere inside the nfl for these players is so different than the atmosphere is for this other league? they both have roughly the same demographics, about seven in ten players in the nfl are black. why do you suppose that the atmosphere is so different? >> well, their fans have a different demographic for one. in the nba the relationship the players have with the ownership, they believe they work together to try to build that league up as much as possible. the players do feel for the most part the ownership is on their side, they're trying to moment the things that the players want, try to help with the

change that the players are looking for. in the nfl the players may not feel that way. the nfl players have a very short window in their career and they're trying to use that platform in all different ways and this is one different way they'd like to use that platform, try to maximize social change in this country. it does not seem the nfl owners want to work with the players, you know, on making that change nearly as much as the nba owners. >> and i think that's a good point, dante, it does feel like nfl players are more vulnerable, a shorter career, a more violent career to your bodies. these guys do have a short window. it's not like a lot of them have family congenital wealth to fall back on if they get thrown off a team or locked out like colin kaepernick has. are the nfl owners taking advantage of that vulnerability here? >> i think so. i think that's how the business model is set up, to be blunt. when you come out of college, i can speak personally myself, you come out of college and you

start to understand that it is a business first before it is a game and you see guys in and out of organizations all the time and so these players know that they do have a short window. i think one point, too, to also mention is that these players have been in the forefront of working with members of congress, they've been speaking to state attorney generals, they've been going on police ride alongs and so they've been doing this for years. that work is not -- or that work is going to continue, it's not going to stop. >> jamil, you know, the irony is that republicans who have been very vocal about free speech on campuses, being very angry when conservative speakers are tossed off, you had ran na romney mcdaniel the head of the rnc cheering this policy and saying she's glad to see it and at the same time two days before that talking about the thought police in silicon valley being mean to diamond and silk. a lot of irony there. >> yes, i think free speech is, i guess, where you find it when you are a conservative these days. i think that, you know, their

hypocrisy aside, i think an important point to make here is that the nfl is trying to, along with donald trump, redefine what pay tleechl is. i think patriotism to these folks seems to be standing in front of a flag, listening to a song, putting your hand over your heart and taking your hat off. if that is the case then i think they should look at their own fans. i think, you know, frankly if you go to an nfl game or frankly any american sports contest, during the anthem you will see a lot of fans, you know, googling stuff on their phones, you know, messing around with their kids, yelling out and trying to actually participate in a fun way, going to the concession stand. i think that, you know, if we want to talk about what's disrespectful to the anthem i think certainly kneeling to advance this country's promise to african-americans to say that we want this country to live up to what it has told us that we are going to be equal citizens under the law, i think that's certainly less disrespectful than doing what a lot of its own

fans are doing in the stands. >> or in the case of donald trump, not knowing the words to the anthem at all. or at least not all of them. sage, jamil and dante, have a great memorial day weekend all three of you. and more app"a.m. joy" afte the break.

we have the worst immigration laws of any country anywhere in the world, but they

exploited the loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors. they look so innocent. they are not innocent. >> welcome back to "a.m. joy." nowhere is donald trump's disdain for immigrants, even the youngest ones, more clearly reflected than in his administration's draconian new policy of separating undocumented families crossing the border, putting the parents in jail as they await a deportation or asylum hearing while the children, babies included, are sent to sthelters. in the words of white house chief of staff john kelly put into foster care or whatever. but there is a reason to be very concerned about what happens to those children. as "the new york times" reported last month, the government lost track of nearly 1500 migrant children that it placed with sponsors in the united states. meanwhile, trump continues to use a particular cue to signal to his base that animosity towards immigrants is warranted.

when he insists on repeatedly conflating ms-13 with any and all immigration issues. >> we are here today to discuss the menace of ms-13, it's a menace. i called them animals the other day and i was met with rebuke. they said, they're people. they're not people. these are animals. >> and we now have even more evidence that that kind of rhetoric is indeed by design as a way of keeping trump's fans engaged and entertained. an extraordinary report in the "washington post" recounts a conversation between trump and his adviser steven miller and jared kushner on the night before his first address to congress. in february of 2017. in which he reluctantly agreed to soften some of his immigration language in the speech. then according to the

"washington post," trump, quote, acting as if he were at a rally he then read aloud a few made up hispanic names and described potential crimes they could have committed, such as rape or murder, and then he said that the crowds would roar when the criminals were thrown out of the country as they did when he highlighted crimes by illegal immigrants at his rallies according to a person presently exchanged and another briefed on it later. according to that report miller and kushner laughed. joining me now to discuss, maria, president and founder of the futuro media group, kareem anypierre and jason johnson. maria, that story is extraordinary because it reveals the fact that donald trump even if he has these deeply ingrained attitudes towards immigrants himself which going through his history he clearly probably does, he also understands that his core base has some gut feelings, too, and he wants to

keep stoking it and keep them thinking ms-13, gang members, all immigrants are rapists and criminals, keep that in your mind and he wants to keep that live. >> i'm going to speak now less as a journalist because although i was hearing that comment as it was coming in i was listening live to the president on long island. this is really more a statement as kind of as a human being, right? as i was reading that particular quote and, remember, i don't hide the fact that i was born in mexico. >> yeah. >> i'm an american citizen now. but i was just like the rhetoric feels like are we in the coliseum in rome now and people are cheering and roaring as they're ripping people apart, in this case from their kids, from their families, and people are roaring. this language, the problem with the language, joy, as you know, is that there are real consequences now. >> yes. >> so if you take it from these people are illegal, now the

president's term we are infiltrating, every single child that is border seeking refuge is a gang member. you take that language and you move into, oh, wow, we lost 1,500 children we can't find -- what does it matter? they are a bunch of illegals, gang members -- >> animals. >> animals. so we have to make the country has to make a connection with what -- it's not just dog whistles. this is actual policy being made with this kind of rhetoric and there are deep, deep consequences. this is a sad moment because it's real. we are living through this dehumanization, it's real. >> and it's direct, coreen. when he says these aren't people, these are animals it's a way of signaling to his base no matter what you hear next about what i'm doing you don't have to worry about sympathizing with those people. they are not really people, they are all conflated.

in the case of the parents being ripped apart from their kids they aren't ms-13, they are asylum seekers, they are mothers for the most part, mothers and fathers, but these are parents being separated even from little kids. chris hayes did a report that everyone should watch, it's been retweeted a lot, hopefully everyone has gotten to see t it's on my twitter feed, probably on the show feed. i want to play a little piece of that interview last night, it was on -- her name is laura st. john, she is a legal director at the florence project, a nonprofit in arizona that provides free legal services to keep in immigration custody. take a look at this clip. >> what's happening right now is really unprecedented. what we've seen here in arizona is actually since january over 200 cases of parents being separated from their children and some of these children are extremely young, as you mentioned. we've actually seen children who are two years old regularly and just last week we saw a 53 week

old infant in court without a parent. >> a 53 week old infant without a parent. >> i can't even -- like my heart is beating so hard, so fast right now, just listening to that because it's so heart breaking to hear that. look, what we're seeing right now, joy, is just an immoral abomination, it's another black eye on this country that's going to take decades to wash away. you know, what donald trump is doing is very much like a dictatorship, authoritarian regime. it's what human rights violators do and it is incredibly heart breaking as i was mentioning, but, you know, thank you so much for talking about that. thank you for chris hayes last night talking about it, thank you to you to talk about it because we need to talk about it more. i understand we have to cover russian oligarchs and we have obsessed with porn stars, but we have to talk about this because if we don't when we look back we know that the trump administration is not going -- the history will not look at him

kindly, but we can't sit back and look away. we need to he can to us, we need to speak up and call out our congressional members and if they don't do anything go out and vote in november because this is atrocious. we were talking about the language. this is dehuman niize k languag. it's a bull horn to his base and he's saying these people don't matter. they're animals. therefore, what he's signaling to them is it's okay to be violent, it's okay to not care about them because they are not real people and it is -- it is just abhorrent. it is just morally bankrupt and just reckless what's happening. we just have to continue to speak up and not be silent on this issue. >> and, jason, people -- and very well said, coreen. people are really shocked when they're hearing this policy. if you had a cursory reading of american history you know this country has had a history of separating parents and children

to enslavement, over a century of separating native american children from their parents and putting them in what they thought were better white american homes to try to change their culture. so we know that that is a thing that has happened in america, but we also know a thing that has happened in america is there are masses of people who are indifferent to that suffering, who do not empathize with those people and we are seeing the process of ensuring that there is at least a percentage of americans who will not be moved even by the idea of a 53 week old infant in court. for some people that's actually working. >> yeah, joy, i mean, look, we have to remember there's always a 25 to 30% core of americans who have no problem with white nationalism. i mean, these are the people who sat by for a century and a half and watched jim crow laws and american apartheid and didn't care one way or another. we have been talking, you know, on the air and in writing for the last year, this is what white nationalism looks like as policy, it means leaving people

in puerto rico, it means kicking people who have been in this country out for 25 years without due process, it means taking children at the border and throwing them into camps or whatever, it means separating children from their families under the guise that that's going to prevent people from coming here. but it's even worse than that and this is where the real dehumanization comes into play. 1,500 kids are lost. we can find isis in the caves of north pakistan and afghanistan, but we can't find 1,500 kids and the same time -- at the same time we have the white house now giving i.c.e. permission to destroy documented reports of abuse, isolation and sexual abuse of minors under their control. this is a problem. these children need to be found and everybody in congress regardless of stripe who cares about our national reputation and the lives of their children should be on this issue every single day. >> maria, 1,500 children are just gone. >> it's important for us to think about the data, right? right now border patrol is the

largest federal enforcement agency in the country. border patrol is the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country. what does that signal? that signals that immigrants, latinos and all of us, are targets, right? we are absolutely targets. i also want to say, joy, to just name it, right? this -- the powers that be dehumanized native american children, this he dehumanized the children of people who were enslaved, then they dehumanized black children and seeing them as criminals and season to do that. they dehumanized japanese american citizens, they dehumanized lbgtq, they are now dehumanizing latinos. at least we're talking about it. the crazy thing is this is what i feared, joy, as a little girl. i was like, no, it could never happen that there would be like massive round ups of people. how did that happen in the 1940s? how did that happen?

it's like -- it was happening while people were having bunch, while people were watching the news, while people were going shopping. we cannot -- and i'm so glad that everybody is saying at least the silver lining is that we're talking about this. i just want to tell you in north carolina i was just there, in asheville, north carolina, women are helping women and families, they are taking their kids from homes and walking them to school if the parents are afraid to do it. they are buying groceries and taking them to them in their home. so i agree that there is a moment of a lack of empathy. there's also opportunities right now to actually step up and show who are we as people in this country and, remember, this is not just the due process of these 56-week old children. it's not just their due process that's being violated, it's all of ours. >> yeah. >> what does that mean? people are like, oh, you lost your children. no, no, no. you are a mother and your child is taken by a government that is not yours.

gone. how do you feel? that's the kind of rage that everybody should be feeling right now. i'm kind of -- you know, i'm like it's a crisis so does, you know, not to point any fingers, but does president barack obama or michelle want to visit, does john legend want to go visit? does anybody of huge stature want to go into these places to see where these children are being held separated from their mothers because this is an american crisis. >> and, you know, assuming they can find where they're being held. korecor when i was living in miami there was the story of unaccompanied haitian children being held without their moms and dads. and the dehumanization isn't new. do you remember -- hole countries, we had to talk about that on the air, that was said as well. i do remember at what point you can cover the empathy of people if the president of the united states is signaling that they do not need to have any. >> and that's just the place

that we are today. we totally went from barack obama, someone that many of us felt safe under and, you know, knew that he had our interest at heart to a donald trump who we knew from the beginning, from 2011 that he believed in birtherism, from the day he started -- he kicked off his election, talking about horrible things that he said about mexicans. like we knew he was a white nationalist, we knew he was a white supremacist and we still allowed him in the white house and he is still in the oval office. we can argue about how he got there and all of those things, but he's still there and he's not going to back away from that and he has steven miller, jared kushner, john kelly, he has an administration that's not stopping this, that's actually adding to it and it's really -- it's just really -- it's just scary to see. that's why i keep saying we have to stop this in november. >> you begin to lose the words. >> a hard liner from the center

for immigration studies ronald more ten son has been added for oversight role. jason, you are out there covering elections. is this resonating at all on the campaign trail? are people talking about this where they vote? >> yeah, actually there was someone running for a congressional seat up in new york, i was tweeting about this earlier this week, you have people now and in particular with this issue with i.c.e., we have to focus on i.c.e., it is the largest government agency. i.c.e. is asking our government permission to erase and destroy documentation of abuse. you have children who were placed in homes who ended up being trafficked and now i.c.e. is saying, white house, can we get rid of that information and white house is saying, fine, what of time line that you want. members of congress and people running for office and paying attention it needs to be a national moral issue everyone is paying attention to in the midterms. >> everyone needs to not pay attention to donald trump's attempt at distractions on this. these are parents and little kids that are being dragged screaming away from their moms. this is happening in america

right now, right now as maria said as you're having brumpnch. all of my guests will be back. thank you, guys. up next, the democratic party's next rising star stacey abrams will be here to talk about her prospects for november. stay with us. it took guts to start my business. but as it grew bigger and bigger, it took a whole lot more. that's why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy.

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let me tell you i am so grateful to the thousands of you in this room and around the

state and around this country who have joined me on this drive to history. we are writing the next chapter of georgia's future. where no one is unseen, no one is unheard, and no one is uninspired. >> georgia democrats made history tuesday night by selecting the first black woman to be a major party nominee for governor in the united states. stacey abrams. but of course the fight is far from over. in nova brams will face off against georgia lieutenant corner kagy cagle or secretary of state brian kemp, depending on the outcome of the republican runoff in july. if she wins abrams will be the first black governor elected in the deep south since reconstruction. wow. joining me now is stacey abrams, the new democratic nominee for governor of georgia and author of "minority leader: how to lead from the outside and make real change." well, stacey, congratulations to

you. i don't know whether to be depressed that we have not had a black woman be a major party candidate for governor up to 2018 or to just, you know, be just -- give you a hallelujah for having accomplished it. i guess the first question was you won big, you won 76.5 to 23.5 against stacey evans but can you win in november, that's the big question. >> absolutely. >> how? >> first of all, i wanted to say thank you for the congratulations. i want to go with excited, i'm okay with history. here is the reality, georgia has changed dramatically and we have a pathway to victory. we have enough democratic leaning voters in our state and enough independent thinkers that if we stay with our message and with our ground game we can win. >> let's talk about that. we just put up the black turnout numbers in georgia, i know that when you were the minority leader there in the georgia state house you were embarking on a project to try to produce the number of unregistered african-american voters which

particularly high in georgia. 69% of registered african-american voters turned out to vote in 2016, that was way down from # 6% who turned out to vote for president obama in 2008 whereas white voters vote at a much higher level, 80% turned out to vote for donald trump, to vote in the donald trump election, versus 77% who voted in 2008. how do you change those dynamics and make them more like what we saw in alabama, for instance, where doug jones was able to win? >> we know it's a combination of the right message, the right ground game and the right candidate. i think we've established the candidacy. i know the message is working. i talk about women like pam, a woman i met in macon who has never been asked what she wants for her life. who wants to create a day care center because she has two daughters who are going off to college and one of them has recently given birth. she's going to raise her grandchild but she also wants to believe that she has the capacity for more. so i'm going to talk about economic issues, about education

issues, about making sure government is working for everyone. and then it's the ground game. we know we can win when we have the right message but we actually invest in our voters and that's what we did from the beginning of this campaign. knocking on doors, making those phone calls and really pulling people into this campaign and what we intend to do is scale that up because it's not that we can't do it, it's just that we haven't done it. my campaign will be the one who gets it done. >> what percentage of the white vote can you pull off? we know that the formula nationwide is you need four in ten white voters because we presume that democrats usually get north of nine in ten black voters. can you get to 40% with white georgia voters? >> i think that's the wrong cal lieu lus. in georgia we are nearly at parity white to people of color so the calculus has to be different. the goal is to hold the white voters we have had, to add more but to also turn out those voters of color who have been discounted as potential voters. i believe that if we bring everyone to the table, if we build a true coalition that

reflects the diversity of our state we can win and the challenge and the opportunity here is that we will be the only campaign that is doing that work. as we watch the republicans try to skrout trump each other with their xenophobia, we know that by having real conversations about their lives, about their economic opportunities, about how their children can get a good education, we can bring voters to the table from across the state. what we saw on tuesday was that i won voters from across the state of georgia and i think we can scale that up. >> let me play first attack ad, it's already out against you from the republican governors association, it came out on election night. here it is. >> meet stacey abrams. she wants to be president only using georgia as a stepping stone. wants higher taxes on working families, but can't pay her own taxes. stacey abrams, out for herself, not georgia. paid for by rga georgia 2018 pac. >> one of the ways they're coming after you is going after your personal finances. how do you respond to that? >> i spend a lot of time in my

book, minority leader, talking about how money matters and the fact that we have real lives where we have to make choices. it's easy to be a millionaire and not have to make decisions, but those of you who lead real lives in georgia know that debt is a part of how we deal with things. our responsibility is to never shirk our obligations but to meet every responsibility that we have. so i've been able to pay my taxes, but also take care of my parents, take care of my niece, take care of my grandmother and be able to run for governor. that kind of ability to manage all of thigh responsibilities is what we need in our next leader. i will say this, during my tenure in the legislature i blocked a $150 million tax hike on working families proposed by republicans. so i look forward to using that record and my history of good leadership to lead the state of georgia. >> do your student loan debts, any of that, is that relevant in this campaign? it will come up if it's out there. >> it's absolutely relevant because it let's people know i know what they're dealing with.

when you are sitting at your kitchen table trying to figure out do you pay your light bill or do you pay the interest payments on your student loan. i get that. when you're trying to figure out how defer your taxes or pay for cancer treatment payments for your father, that's the life i live. and i want every georgian to know i understand their lives and what they will see in this campaign is authenticity, honesty and transparency because that's how we have to elect leaders going forward. we have seen what happens when we don't know the whole story and they will know the whole story with me. >> you're either going to face casey cagle who went against delta airlines for deciding to drop the nra dispensing for gun purchases. he got 39% of the vote or brian kemp. let me play his ad about how conservative he is. >> i'm so conservative i blow up government spending. i own guns that no one is taking away. i've got a big truck, just in

case i need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself. yep, i just said that. i'm brian kemp, if you want a politically incorrect conservative, that's me. >> wow. is that more of what georgia is right now or is the coalition that you put together more representative of georgia? >> i believe my coalition absolutely represents the real georgia. the republicans are going to be duking it out trying to prove who can be meaner and more spiteful and while they're doing that we're going to be having conversations on the ground in all 159 counties. we know that there are georgians who simply want a leader who looks out for their interest, who understands their concerns and who doesn't try to turn georgia into a national stumping ground for donald trump's xenophobic policies. i'm running for real georgians who need someone to help them and i'm not running against any republican, i'm running for the people in our state. >> stacey, we hope to have you back on as this race unfolds. good luck in november. i want to remember that lucia

mcbath, jordan davis' mom who is a gun reform advocate also won, she got more votes but is headed for a runoff for a georgia house seat. lots of historic election results for women of color in georgia. stacey abrams, good luck. >> thank you so much, joy. >> thank you very much. and coming up, more on democrats chances of riding a blue wave in november. and later, one of the stars of the royal wedding takes on trump, bishop michael curry will be here, he joins me live, don't go anywhere. ♪ most people come to la with big dreams. ♪ we came with big appetites. with expedia, you could book a flight,

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ithe race for governort. has turned into a scam. gavin newsom's trying to elect a republican who was endorsed by trump. and villaraigosa's being bankrolled by a handful of billionaires. it's everything that's wrong with politics. and none of it is helping struggling families. here's my pledge to you. i'll keep our budget balanced. invest in affordable housing. fight for universal healthcare. and stand up to donald trump. as governor, you can trust me to do what's right- because i always have.

coming up, democrats are hoping to surf the blue wave. and from the royal wedding to the white house, bishop curry and other religious leaders lead a protest in washington. keep it on "a.m. joy." over the last 24 hours, you finished preparing him for college. in 24 hours, you'll send him off thinking you've done everything for his well-being. but meningitis b progresses quickly and can be fatal, sometimes within 24 hours. while meningitis b is uncommon, about 1 in 10 infected will die. like millions of others, your teen may not be vaccinated against meningitis b. meningitis b strikes quickly. be quick to talk to your teen's doctor about a meningitis b vaccine.

six months ago political pundits and establishment insiders didn't think we could pull this off. did you ever show them? yeah. >> we are resisting the xenophobia that's coming out of d.c. we are resisting any conversation that says we have to go backwards. we win with a message of progress. >> i am the candidate of the every day texan and i will never, never, never stop working for you. thank you very much. >> tuesday's historic primary wins for women in georgia, kentucky and texas may be the scene setter for november's midterms, with diverse progressive nominees like stacey abrams, lupe valdez and amy

mcgrath do democrats have a better chaps of taking over congress and red states in november. joining me to discuss a howard dean and ra rihn any-pear and jason johnson. >> the democrats who won in arkansas, kentucky, georgia, lupe valdez running for texas governor, gina ortiz running for the 23rd district in texas and lizzy fletcher running for the seventh district in texas. a bunch of diverse, progressive candidates, lots of women winning this past week tuesday. there we go. we are looking at it right there. what does that actually mean for november? does it mean democrats are in good shape? does it mean it's going to inspire more turnout? what does it mean? >> it means all of those things and it also means that a change that was inevitable in american politics is now happening and getting faster and faster.

let me take one second to thank the other stacey, stacey evans, as soon as stacey abrams won stacey evans was on twitter congratulating her and giving her support. that is a really important thing to do and we saw a lot of that in these elections. so i think we're in great shape. we're unified. stacey abrams' theory of the case i think is the right theory of the case. she believes that instead of doing what we used to do, which is to sort of placate, you know, the conservative whites and hope we get enough of their votes and get our african-american and hispanic base out, that's not the way to do it. the way to do it is to excite the daylights out of people about a new candidate, bring everybody together and run for what you believe in and i think we have the right candidate. i think she's terrific. >> jason johnson, you've been covering the stacey versus stacey race, you call stacey abrams' campaign the who go wart's school for black girl magic. you have to explain that. >> i think that's somebody

else's quote. >> no, jason said it. >> i'm remote so i couldn't see it. >> jason said it. >> you just saw -- joy, you just saw in the last segment like when you can say that i went into $200,000 worth of debt taking care of my parents, taking care of family members and flip that into something that en grayish yates you to voters that's black girl magic, that is something that single women across america can understand. what single professional women don't understand that when you may be the best and most consistent breadwinner in your family those are the kinds of debts you go into. i think what's key, this is what's important about georgia and why i think a lot of people are excited about the abrams campaign, this he picked up a new strategy. it's like the former governor just said, it wasn't just let's try to get conservative whites, they went into counties that had small numbers of minority voters and put them from 2% turnout to 10%. she won 152 out of 159 counties, some of those counties had no brown people. when you talk about issues like, hey, they're going to close your rural hospitals, when you talk about financial issues, you can

be a candidate that everybody can be happy with. if that pattern is taken to other democratic campaigns across the state, they will be very, very successful this fall and abrams won't just be an outlier. >> let's go to you, karine. you know black women will turn out. she's going to get 98%, who knows percentage of it. how does she then get out the other x pham for women's votes. white women's votes tend to go more to republicans, this he even did in alabama. she has to eat into that somehow. what are the issues that stacey abrams -- that stacey abrams can use to get past that usual feeling among white voters, is it medicaid expansion? what do you think it is. >> here is the thing that was amazing going back to what dr. johnson talked about with georgia and how people turned out. she won by 76%. if you look at the counties, well over 200 counties, she did

well in places where people didn't think she would do well in, in very white rural areas. do you know what stacey did, she -- here is the thing about democrats right now running in 2018 is that we are on the right side of issues. the economy, the tax cuts that republicans did for the wealthy, that is completely unpopular, healthcare, protecting healthcare, republicans tried to take healthcare away from 32 million people. we are on the right side. what she did is she went into those rural areas and said, hey, guess what, republicans are going to try to take away your healthcare, we want to protect medicare, medicaid, social security. she had a nice amount of issues, many issues to talk about between jobs and education, she talks about education a lot, too. and it resonated with people. i mean, i think she lost maybe four or five counties only and that is -- i think she already has the formula there, now it's a numbers game. she has to go back out there,

knock on the doors, do the grassroots, register people to vote, really go -- double down on women, women issues, talk to women, young people. really look at -- look at alabama, look what doug jones did in alabama and try to replicate that because that would be -- that is a winning formula for her. >> i'm going to go to mr. 50 state strategy, we called him hodo, howard dean. i want to broaden it out from georgia. you have amy mcgrath beat jim gray, in texas lupe valdez, i want to more about her 53-46 is a decisive win for her, she would be the first latina, lbgt governor. you've got in arkansas you have jared henderson very decisive win over a candidate leticia sanders, in idaho a progressive native american woman who won the gubernatorial primary.

she would be the first native american governor of idaho. what do democrats need to do differently in 2018 that will get them past that low ceiling of turnout among their base that we saw in years like 2010 and 2014? >> well, here is the interesting thing, joy, about this one. it looks a lot like the victory we had in virginia where we had 15 new beam coming into the virginia legislature. that was the first election i think in my lifetime where the base looks exactly like the people who got elected. the base of our party, african-american, latino and women, that's the core base of our party. guess who just took over for the democratic party in virginia? well, this is now going on all over the country. women lose some of these races there is no question about it but what we've done is transformed the democratic party for the future. we are ready. the republicans are in deep,

deep trouble because they are catering to a group of people that are getting smaller and smaller and smaller every year and they have a champion who 87% of the people in america including his base think is a liar. that is a problem for them. >> and dr. jason johnson, the key as howard dean just said is black voters. if you go through the states that have the highest numbers, new york is first, florida is up there but it's a lot of southern states, states like north carolina, states like georgia, states like texas. why have democrats been unable to translate that high concentration -- look at the map. those are the raw numbers. look at the percent. the south is where the black voters are. why has it been so hard for democrats to translate those kind of numbers into what you saw in alabama and virginia? >> well, because up until alabama and virginia, and this is a lot of people who i talked to in the article you heard when i was down in georgia, this he actually started hiring black women as consultants.

i know this is a quiet thing that a lot of democrats don't want to talk about, but they like spending their money on the same group of democratic consultants and pollsters and people who keep failing in south. the abrams campaign said how about with he hire new consultant, how about we bring black women strategists and pollsters into the conversation, latino and asian women. when you hire consultants who know what they're doing and can get out on the streets and speak to different voters you can be successful. this is across the board. you saw some of this in the clinton campaign, but i think that's where the real difference s when you have different kind of strategists, somebody in your ear who is like, look, i understand this demographic, i understand how to turn them out, that's how you can end up being successful, you can't keep keeping the same old people in there and think you're going to have a different result. >> amen. most important thing that's been said today. amen. >> a certain ba rrack obama hir

karine jean-pierre back in the day. >> thank you all very much. have a great memorial day weekend. up next, a dynamic duo, the star of the royal wedding bishop michael curry and bishop william barber, leader of the for people's campaign will be together joining me live next.

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when love is way, poverty will become history. when love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. dr. king was right. we must discover love, the rede redemptive power of love. >> michael curry took a star turn at the royal wedding last week, in this week he's back to agitating for progressive social policy in the united states staging a protest with other faith leaders on thursday outside the white house. joining me are the most reverend michael curry, presiding bishop of the episcopal church and bishop william barber, co-chair of the poor people's campaign. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you so much, joy. >> bishop curry, my pastor in

miami was named bishop curry, too, so i always smile when i say "bishop curry." it's great to meet you. your speech, your sermon at the royal wedding was so moving and inspiring and so unexpected, did you give them any sense of what you were going to say before you took to that pulpit? >> oh yes. yes. i actually submitted a manuscript a week before. anybody who knows a preacher knows a manuscript is a wonderful outline, but i stuck to the basics of the outline but i submitted that and they were very gracious and very kind and gave me the freedom to say what i thought and prayed god would want me to say. >> one of the things that did strike me about it is that your meditation on the importance of caring for the poor sounded familiar to me, because of the gentleman sitting next to you, bishop william barber has been talking about centering poverty and centering the poor and that's the core message of the

monday's campaign and the current poor people's campaign. why, bishop curry, do you think it is important at this time to recenter the poor and why take that message to the white house? >> well, it's important for a variety of reasons. one, as dr. king once said, we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools. those of us who are christian believe in following the way of jesus, and jesus was the one who said blessed are the poor, and blessed are the poor in spirit, that the way we show and live love in a practical way is through our compassion, through our works of justice, through our work of taking care of each other. when jesus was asked about judgment day, which was a way of asking what does god care about, he said, did you feed me when i was hungry? did you clothe me when i was faked? all of that parable in matthew 25 is about human beings taking care of each other, because we are all children of god. >> yes, indeed. bishop barber the episcopal church which bishop curry leads

has signed on to your poor people's campaign the revival of dr. king's poor people campaign. you'll be giving a sermon at the national cathedral sunday june 3rd. give us a preview. the royal family got a preview, we want a preview of what you intend to say. >> well, part of what i intend to say is what bishop curry said and new yorkive if you follow jesus. he started out the spirit of the lord is upon me to preach the word to the poor, and it means those who have been made poor by policies. so the real question is with 140 million people in american that are poor, what would jesus say and what would jesus do in the congress not just as a matter of personal charity. 37 million people without health care, what would jesus say, what would jesus do? 73 million women and children in poverty, 13 million children that are in poverty, 250,000 people dying every year from low wealth, thousands of people dying without health care in the wealthiest country in the world,

what would jesus say, do. 2,000 scriptures in the bible says he would be talking with justice, talking about poverty and challenging the system to build policies on how you lift the poor and guess what? if you lift the poor, everybody gets lifted. >> absolutely. >> that's the way of love. that's the way of love. >> absolutely. there is a statement put out bishop curry and other christian leaders asserting that the u.s. is in moral crisis "we believe jesus when he tells us to go into all the nations making disciples. therefore, we reject america first as a theological heresy for followers of christ." bishop curry, you directly challenged the theme of the president of the united states, america first. why, and do you think that his followers will outnight reject it because you've done that? >> well in all honesty we hope all people of goodwill and religious traditions and faith

will be in conversation with us. it is our hope that for those of us who are christian as an example, we believe that jesus is lord. th we believe only god is god. the ten commandments say i am the lord thy god, if god is god and jesus is lord no ruler, no political authority, no nation, no empire ever in history is lord, only god. that's a fundamental truth of our faith and we love our country. i love this country, but i love god first, and that's what we were saying, that we must never be confused about that order. because if we truly love our country, we will love god first, and follow the ways and teachings of god the ways of love. >> and bishop barber, there is this irony that donald trump's among his strongest supporters are white evangelical christians who profess to believe the same thing you gentlemen believe. how can there be that much of a disconnect between two groups of

people both calling themselves followers of the same god, the same bible. >> some white evangelicals, a whole lot that are not and some of the leadership, the we've always this strange reality in america, you had some who believed in slavery, and some who didn't, that's why frederick douglas on independence day said to love the religion of jesus is to hate the religion of the slavemaster, to say any time you try to use faith particularly out of the gospel on the side of greed or on the side of hate, on the side of meanness, we have to stand and say that is not the gospel. that is a form of heresy and has to be challenged and we do it in love and with truth. >> indeed. two very dynamic men who are leaders of a moral movement, and we wish you all the success, because boy, do we need one in this country today. new friend of the show, bishop michael curry, our long time friend bishop william barber, thank you both and god bless you both. have a wonderful weekend. >> god bless you..

>> thank you. more "a.m. joy" after the break. who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 5 times more detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com ♪ ♪

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kyle, we talked about this. there's no monsters. but you said they'd be watching us all the time. no, no. no, honey, we meant that progressive would be protecting us 24/7. we just bundled home and auto and saved money. that's nothing to be afraid of. -but -- -good night, kyle. [ switch clicks, door closes ] ♪ i told you i was just checking the wiring in here, kyle. he's never like this. i think something's going on at school. -[ sighs ] -he's not engaging.

that's our show for today. we'll be back tomorrow 10:00 a.m. eastern. before i go to alex witt i wish my boss lady evote miley's birthday today. happy birthday. she shares a birthday with pam greer, alex. >> she looks fantastic. >> isn't that a fly picture. >> great picture. happy birthday, yvette. those guys, bishop curry and bishop barber i feel like i