>> we're not go to respond to a letter to the president's outside counsel. >> what's the reason for the discrepancy? >> this letter from outside counsel and i direct to you them to answer the question. >> trump wrote and dictated a statement. >> i would encou to you reh out to the outside counsel. >> it was his father, the president, who dictated the letter. >> can't comment on a letter from the president's outside counsel, i direct you to them to answer it. >> that's press secretary sarah sanders, referring reporters back to the same lawyers who they are directly quoting in their questions. welcome to "morning joe," it's tuesday june 5th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. national affairs lafayette for nbc and msnbc, jon heilemann. jeremy bash and nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of

"kasie/d.c." on msnbc, kasie hunt. the press briefing seemed like sarah sanders is just prng herself? how would you read that? it's frustrating. >> she's not protecting herself if she tells obvious lies, she's not protecting herself if she gets caught telling a lie. either because she knew it was untrue or because the president lied to her. so she's not really protecting her reputation. in fact she's hurting her reputation. by referring it to somebody else. she knew the correct answer, the correct answer was -- yeah either i did not tell you the truth or the correct answer was, i was given misleading information. or you could even polish it up even more than that by saying i was not given complete information during that briefing. you don't refer it to outside counsel in that case. because it's your credibility

that's involved. now speaking of credibility, i found yesterday absoluty fascinating. i know we're going to get to the main manafort story. throughout the day we started talking about yesterday morning, about just how stupid every one of rudy giuliani's arguments, just how stupid doud and sekulow's arguments were, how legally competent every one of those arguments were about donald trump's absolute power. that he had the right to shoot james comey and cldn't be indicted. he had the absolute power to pardon himself. can you go through all of those. and we're going to see, mika, throughout the day, one incompetent argument, one idiotic post after another fell. you know like mid morning suddenly quotes started showing up that, that said that the justice department has alrdy

ruled. they ruled in the middle of watergate, the president does not have the power to pardon himself. and republicans on capitol hill pounced all over him. by the end of the day, what does the president do, when it's obvious that he's been made a fool of aga and rudy giuliani has been made a fool of again and the white house counsel has been made a fool of again, what does he do? he talks about the nfl. how does he do it? it's not like -- he askshe idaho isotope s not to come to the white house or the springfield isotopes not to come to the white house. willie geist, he asks, perhaps -- this side of the pittsburgh steelers, the most important franchise in the nfl, if you're just looking at it for shrewd political calculations, the philadelphia eagles andoh, they have some fans in i don't know if you've heard of them before, the philly suburbs,

well, just elect presidents of the united states. >> it had the feeling of someone who was putting on a birthday party, saw no rsvps coming in and canceled it before he thought everyone else was going to cancel on him. only a handful of the eagles players were going to show up. it should be pointed out that the eagles were not among the player who is kneeled for the national anthem. but were not going to come because theidn't like donald trump's politics. i think you're right, joe, it was at the end of the terrible day for him, he puts something out that he wanted to change the subject. we'll talk about the eagles a little bit. but i think there are much bigger fish to fry here. >> we've got a huge fish to fry. new overnight, prosecutors working for special counsel robert mueller are accusing former trump campaign chair paul manafort of attempting to tamper with witnesses. in his ongoing criminal cases. prosecutors argue manafort has violated the terms of his

release. and is telling the judge to revise the terms or send him to il before trial. prosecutors say that manafort repeatedly contacted two witnesses earlier this year in an effort to influence their testimony. prosecutors say the two unnamed witnesses assisted in lobbying and public relations efforts with the hapsberg group. an organization that manafort created to help promote ukrainian interests in europe and in the u.s. one of the witnesses is alleged to have told prosecutors he understood manafort's outreach to be an effort to suborn perjury by encouraging others to lie to federal investigators by concealing the firm's work in the united states. manafort was hit with a 12-count indictment by robert mueller's office last year. he has pleaded not guilty to all charges, which include conspiracy, money landering and tax and bank fraud. manafort's team had no immediate

comment when reached by nbc news. joe, this is pretty big news. >> it really is. jon heilemann, a guess the question is, why paul manafort hasn't been in jail from the very beginning. donald trump's claims nof collusion every day, 12 times a day. may be a bit more believable if he wrote "no collusion" parentheses, oth tn manafort. you can look at public records and you can see very clearly that paul manafort spent his adult lifeluding and consorting with and making calculated political decisions with russia and russia's allies. this is very big news, and i'm just wondering, since this is the biggest domino to fall in the russian part of the case, why doesn't paul manafort get sent to jail? >> well, i think there's a reasonable chance that he will. except for the possibility they may end up deciding to cooperate

with bob mueller's team turn against the president if he has the capacity to do that. one of the things about the manafort thing, joe, that has always been true is that we all knew what paul manafort's history was when donald trump brought him onto the campaign in the late spring of 2016. his history was not secret. it had not been chronicled in as much debt as our friend frank ford did a couple of months ago when he went through the entire catalog of sleazy machinations that paul manafort was guilty of. paul manafort lived in trump tower, he was a partner of roger stone. donald trump was familiar with paul manafort. his history, for all that time. so it raises all kinds of questions about why paul manafort ended up on the campaign. given what donald trump knew about him. now you're in a situation where manafort's legal jeopardys rising, not just because of new

findings that the investigative team, mueller's team are looking backwards, but in real-time, his potential time in jail is rising now, apparently by the day and by the hour. which all adds up to bad news for donald trump. because the more years that paul manafort potentially faces behind bars, the higher incentive he has eventually to cooperate with manafort and that's got to be freaking donald trump out even more than he's already evidently freaked out. >> jeremy bark, does it seem to be that the accusations leveled yesterday in federal court against paul manafort and the way they were dropped at the end of the day, toward the end of the day with not a hint that they were coming, not a word leaking out of bob mueller's operation that this is one of the contributing factors to the president and his team's increasing anxiety and nervousness about the president's legal position? >> it's possible, mike and it's also a major signal from bob mueller and the prosecutors that

they take obstruction of justice very seriously, what is manafort accused of doing? he's accused of obstructing the mueller investigation by trying to get his story straight with potential witnesses, the origin of this goesack to when manafort was supporting the pro russian effort by the iyanukovyh regi regime. they did it in a way that violated u.s. foreign agent registration laws, possibly money laundering and tax evasion charges as well. the whole effort to follow the russian money to influence the u.s. political scene is what bob mule certificate investigating. here comes manafort to obstruct that investigation. it's a major signal to the president, to rooumg, to the president's other inner circle members, that if you obstruct this investigation, if you lie, if you witness-tamper, we're going after you. >> we got a better window yesterday into how president trump is thinking about this investigation. he asserted the absolute right to pardon himself of any crime. in the past two weeks, the

president has broken several political and lega standards. including the justice department demand the russia probe. sending his lawyer to congressional intel briengnd now the pardon claims. the republican senate majority whip said i wish he wouldn't comment on things like that, it raising questions which have been laid to rest. the fellow members of the judiciary committee were skeptical of trump's claims of the ability to self-pardon. >> i'v read the constitution cofer ko ever to cover. i've rather fond of it. there's not a provision directly on point. and how it would land in the map of the united states supreme court. let's hope we don't get there. >> i think it would be a bad idea. legally i don't ow i know nixon was one of the allegations against him was improper use of pardon powers, as one of the things in impeachment. but i do know this -- one of the limits of a president's

authority is politics. i think the politics would be very bad. >> if i were president of the united states and i had a lawyer that told me i could pardon myself, i think i would hire a new lawyer. >> senator the president says he can pardon hielf. u reh that? >> that is not a constitutional issue i've studied, so i will with hold judgment at this point. >> so kasie hunt, it sounded like ted cruz is trying to outr but couldn't quite get away from you. the reaction on capitol hill to this? we heard some republicans speak up and speak out about it. not all of them, though, and you heard ted cruz sort of equivocate there. he knows better, doesn't he? >> i think he probably does.

i'm surprised he has taken to walking away quickly in most of these situations. so the fact that he did feel as ough he to fill some of that silence, i think is pretty telling. but you know, this is exactly why what you just saw there is exactly why rudy giuliani was on shows over the weekend saying we're not going to do this. he dismiss or tried to walk back claims in that memo by saying this is politically impossible. think it was chris christie who said over the weekend it would be political suicide. and that is why, how if you are republan, who has, these guys who call themselves constitutional conservatives, it's very difficult leap to make. >> incredible. joe, jump in. >> well, you look at every one of these people, mike barnicle, it's interesting that ted cruz claims expert status when he's debating guns. even when he's refusing to

answer a law that is obvious if you just if you've read supreme court decisions over the past decade, and then when you try to point that out to him, he tells you, i'm an expert in constitutional law. i argued before the supreme court. then he's asked a basic ent would know the first- answer to, the president can't pardon himself. the justice department answered that question in 1948 and it's the responsibility of the justice department that if rudy giuliani is suggesting that, he should probably fire rudy giuliani. ted cruz, all of these other guys that just can't answer the question. they just can't answer the obvious question, it is so painful to watch. >> joe, you're right. i think it was within two weeks or maybe a week of former present nixon's resignation that the justice department did issue an opinion, saying that a president does not have the right to pardon himself.

but now all of these years later, i mean in retrospect, what happened in 1974, compared to what is happening today, 1974 was an absolute profile in courage for the republican party, compared to what's going on today. bothe sena and the house where you hear nothing, nothing from the republicans about blatant disregard for elements the constitution. about the norms of our system. and about the functions of our government. specifically the justice department. an the attacks on the justice department by the president of the united states. it leads a lot of people to really believe that this is all going to come down with each passing day with, each passing tweet, this is all going to come down to the judiciary. to see if the judiciary in this country works. we are a constitutional government and is the judiciary going to have to make the final opinion on whether we're living under a republic or a monarchy. >> jeremy bash, i just -- i've

got to believe that i said this last night, at some point in his life, donald trump, a man who doesn't read books, but maybe there's a comic book version "the art of war" that he stumbled across. maybe he had to read the part of it, that said, "when you're at your weakest, appear to be at your strongest." his lawyers know that every one of donald trump's claims of absolute power, on pardoning, on shutting down investigations, on not having to testify, if subpoenaed. they know that's all ridiculous. i'm curious, do you think that a good lawyer would allow them to get to the supreme court and have the supreme court rule against the president of the united states, time and time again. or do you think at the end of the day, they would figure out how to work with mueller and do

the interview. >> i have been thinking for a while, they do want to fight this out in the judiciary because it gives the president the ability to take it to the court of public opinion. where the president feels most comfortable. i think i agree with mike that the judiciary could rein in the executive here. probably on the limtded issue of whether or not the president would be forced to comply with a subpoena from the grand jury. i think the president would lose that case. i don't know that the supreme court would reach the ultimate issue of the power of the pardon. but there's a broader political context, that everyone is arguing it would be political suicide for the president to do that. really? isn't that the time when this president loves to take the fight? he loves to say i've defied all the political odds before. kind of, dare me. i don't know if they're listening to political advisers like lindsey graham or chuck grassley in this context. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump says the special counsel is totally

unconstitutional. but that's not what he said back on the campaign trail when it was hillary clinton he wanted investigated. by first, let's go to bill karins with a check on e forecast. bill? >> good morning once again, i mentioned the word rain in the northeast. but it's only going to be brief, move through quickly, it will be in and out. we have showers this morning racing through new york state. around pittsburgh, heavier showers heading for you and a few diving down out of michigan to northern indiana. so that's the only deal there. today as far as severe weather goes, still pretty quiet. north dakota, south dakota, a chance of seeing isolated tornadoes later this afternoon. here's the timing of the rain in the ohio valley and the northeast. 8:00 a.m. this morning, across the new york state threwway and through areas of northeast pennsylvania and northern ohio. by lunch some of the showers and storms are traveling through southern and central portions of new england. new york city, your timing is around 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. it will be about 30 minutes of showers or a quick thunderstorm and that will be it.

so 5:00 p.m., it's over baltimore heading to washington, d.c. so that evening drive home, do be prepared for a little bit of rain. by 8:00 p.m., it's south of d.c., over areas o sthern maryland and right through the heart of delaware. the other story, the heat continues. 101 in san antonio. 94 in denver. some of the great weather is going to be in the pacific northwest once again. so washington, d.c., you're dry this morning, timing for infall will be around 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. what a gorgeous sunrise.

president trump tweeted yesterday morning, he said this the appointment of the special counsel is totally unconstitutional. despite that, we play the game because i, unlike the democrats, have done nothing wrong. that's a different take from

president trump about special prosecutors frk in 2016. when he was talking about hillary clinton. >> we are going to get a special prosecutor to figure this deal out. i will ask, my attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor. special prosecutor, here we come, right? we're going to appoint a special prosecutor. >> good lord. >> right, jon heilemann, he says that's fascinating. he says that's unconstitutional. yet, that was an applause line, every bit of an applause there as "build that wall." also -- haven't the president's republican allies in congress been talking about a second special counsel to investigate hillary clinton's rabbits and cats and goats an chinchillas.

wildly distracting from the first special prose atonald trums bidding. >> joe, i know you're a simple country lawyer, but i think your legal training has been a little inadequate. you were misinformed. there are two parallel constitutions to the united states. one of them is a constitution that covers hillary clinton. and there's another constitution that covers all others. and there might even be a third one just related to donald trump in that universe, the special prosecutors are obviously constitutional with respect to hillary clinton, past, present and future, and in respect to donald trump they're totally unconstitutional. once you get your head around that, it all makes a lot of sense. >> mika, the shamelessness of it is pretty remarkable. and i, i cannot believe, except for the most steadfast allies of donald trump, that they just don't actually line up one

wurngs tweet next to another, one statement after another, at some point and just realize this guy lies all the time. he changes his story all the time. he flip-flops all the time and there are going to be a hell of a lot of great 30-second ads if he ever decides to run for re-election. they're not going to look good and all of these people that think they're going to get away from everything -- wait, see if his name is ever on a ballot again in 2020. just look at the ads, the flip-flops, the lies, the distortio distortions. it's all going to come out in the wash. >> yes and no, because it all is coming out right now, and you look at certain polls across the country and you have to wonder if the lying and distortions and sort of the lack of moral compass in everything that he does, in the deflecting and the race issues, my god any other

politician wouldn't survive a month of this. and yet he more than survives. there's a part of me that worries that the country something so desensitized and that there's a section the population of the voting public, that, that d care. that has been so i think cast away by democrats and republicans from the past several decades, that we're stuck in this weird ne. at the same time, knowing donald trump, knowing him the way we used to know him and knowing his behavior and the way his brain works, if you read those tweets and you look at the way he's acting, this is a guy who feels like the walls are closing in. and that things are getting too hot. and he's -- >> i was going to say -- you look again, again you look this weekend at the tweets and willie, i said yesterday, that i

you know, didn't read the tweets. i decided to be disturbed by watching a showtime series called "patrick melrose." who is benedict cumberbatch. a very disturbing series, based on a series of disturbing books. i looked at that instead of all the tweets, because i knew the tweets were sound and fury signifying nothing. ch of this and recognizing g at that it's sound and fury, signifying nothing. washington, the constitutions that madison and hamilton put together, they are pushing back, in this case, donald trump does -- really does appear to be a man who understands just how cornered he is legally and politically. and you know, yes people may not be focusing on every lie right now. well, they're not focusing on christmas shopping, either.

because they don't focus on that until election time. i, you know i realized when i ran, you wait for the last seven to ten days before really dropping your ads, because people aren't focused until then. >> it is sound and fury, but it is resonating with a lost people, i think because donald trump is laying the groundwork, laying out the predicate for when the mueller investigation incomplete. when he presents his findings, donald trump will be able to point to a certain segment of the population and say -- forget about everything you're reading. remember everything i told you that it was unconstitutional? remember when i told you i had the right to do this and that, i'm above the law? that's what he's doing. not the specifics of the case, but generally to be able to tar what comes out of the investigation. and jeremy, on this question of whether or not the investigation itself is constitutional, this is a theory that we've heard. this is a, first time the president said it was yesterday in the tweet, that the mueller investigation itself is quote

unconstitutional. but on talk radio they've been making this case since the beginning of the appointment of robert mueller. we saw an op-ed in "the wall street journal" in may that made this case and that not all special counsels are unconstitutional, but the argument is that this one is because the powers that bob mueller has assumed are so broad. do you see any relevance, do you see any significance, give any creedance to that argument? >> no, and it's a silly argument, willie, one that's been swatted away by federal judges in the manafort case who have entertained frivolous motions from manafort's lawyer, saying that bob mueller has no power to investigate paul manafort. that's been debunked. the president is throwing out silly arguments. i was struck by "the new york times" reporting over the weekend by the 20-page letter from donald trump's lawyers, they were not very smart legal arguments. they're taking this argument

very seriously it shows how serious the mueller team has been saying to the president, you have a legal obligation to sit for an interview, mr. president. >> mika, to your point, one sentence that stuck out at me yesterday. jim vandehei in a piece yesterday for axios wrote that 501 days into his presidency, donald trump has more party support than any president since world war ii, except for bb bb after 9/11. within the republican party. >> what am i missing here? >> than george w. bush. >> within the republican party, donald trump is stronger than any president has ever been, except for george w. bush after 9/11. that's an incredible fact. >> joe i got to tell you, i own being a litt bit disconnected here and not understanding. i don't get this. i really don't. exit to me. >> well, donald trump still represents everything that

hillary clinton is not. everything that for republicans who didn't like george w. bush, everything that george w. bush isot. everything that the mainstream media is not. everything that academia is not. everything that political correct crowd and the -- the race identity crowd is not. he has become the anti-candidate. and that works really well for you when you're the only one filling up that space. but when there's somebody else that can come into the republican primary and you know we've talked about mark cuban or you can talk about other billionaires, that are -- thinking about running. or hey, i've got a great idea -- how about a middle class woman or a middle class guy? how about somebody like nikki haley? and suddenly, don't tell me if nikki haley and donald trump are

going head to head in new hampshire and knocking on doors -- only nikki haley would knock on doors -- that nikki haley wouldnpen up every one of donald trump's lies and convince of people of new hampshire that hey, guess what, we can do this, you can have the policies without the racism. can you have the conservatism, without the lies. you can have the tax cuts without the constitutional abuses. you can have somebody that will stand up for your rights as a conservative, without also talking down america's allies. there are so many openings for a republican that has the courage to go knock on doors in new hampshire and iowa and south lina, and beat donald trump. i am not willing to look back at a guy, who shocked the world, including himself, including his family, his wife breaking down

in tears after finding out that he had been elected president of the united states, because nobody, including trump believed he was going to be elected president of the united states. who lost by three million votes, who beat a candidate who didn't even go up to wisconsin. who beat a candidate who was chained as we found out yesterday to a husband that prevented her from attacking donald trump at his weakest points. i am not going to say that that man is some political genius along the lines of -- barack obama or ronald reagan or john kennedy. he is not. and when faced -- >> what you're say something that i'm underestimating how angry people are. because they will take anything at this point, unless there is a really good option that hasn't come their way yet? this is a guy who is lying every day to the american people. serving up a batch of lies. undermining our national security by undermining an

investigation into whether or not our elections were tampered with. when there have been 19 indictments. i guess -- that's the part that i'm -- when jon heilemann talks about poll numbers going up -- i just i'm really at a loss. >> when you talk about, i'm not trying to understand the trump voter i. not trying to defend the trump voter. think and i said it, december 7th, 2015, coy never vote for a guy who is a racist, that was going to exclude 1.5 billion people from coming -- all right, fine. i'm just saying, though, if we want to stay in our bubble, we can. we can say, well wait a second, you're saying donald trump lies all the time. what if you're a guy who fought in vietnam, mike barnicle, i'll go to you on this. and you saw the best and the brightest, john kennedy, lbj,

richard nixon, all the brilliant minds around us lie us into vietnam. cause the death of 60,000 americans over vietnamese, tear this country to shreds and you saw the best and brightest get us into watergate. and then, i mean we've walked through before, just in the past 20 years. you know, impeachment of bill clinton. the 2000 recount. 2001, 9/11, weapons of mass destruction, the lies of about getting us into another war in iraq. katrina in 2005, 2006, a complete meltdown of iraq. 2008, september 15th, 2008, more lies on wall street. and an economy destroyed. the middle class ravaged and not a single person sent to jail that was responsible for that. do i need to keep going? because i can keep going.

like, there is a reason donald trump is where donald trump is. and there's a reason when people like us point out -- that he lies, every day, a guy at a vfw in altoona, pennsylvania, goes, yeah? great, right, at least trump's lies didn't get me sent to the mekong delta. >> joe, the trump voter is the american voter. and the trump voter, many of them, were born when we were told that it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save the village. the trump voter was born when we were at kaeson. and the trump voter has experienced 17-year-long war, the trump voter has experienced losing their homes, their jobs, many of them their children, less than 1% of this country,

who fight this 17-year-old war. that's who the trump voter is. the trump voter is us. and the tru voter bought into donald trump because he was different. because he gave the appearance, lying while he did it, that he was listening to them. and understood their grievance and they have a long litany of grievances that have gone unheard and unanswered for decades by american politics. they thought trump was different. he is different. he's a liar. >> yeah, and mika, he, many people looked at this guy as one of them. they said he's one of them. he was a prophet. but he was a false prophet. a false prophet -- you know, a guy who claimed to be a populist. who has ravaged people's health care. a guy who promised to make health care cheaper, more affordable, more accessible. sin stead, he ravaged it.

promised to rebuild working-class americans, passed the biggest lopsided tax cut and then went down to mar-a-lago the next day and bragged to his billionaire friends sitting around a table, hey, i made you guys a lot of money today. cutting regulations left and right. that are going to disproportionately impact who? the working class. it's the working class who are getting stiffed here and i must say it's the democratic party's stupidity that allows donald trump to continue to rise. how they still do not have a response to this. is beyond me. it is why donald trump is not in the 20s, because the democratic party still is clearless. i, you know we always talk about the republican party. my god, how bad do you have to be, to have a generic ballot test be as close as it is, as this democratic party that just can't find a leader who can craft a message that can tell the truth to working-class and

middle class americans about what a phony populist this man is. >> well, perfect segue, coming up, we will be talking to democratic congressman seth moulten and try to figure out what that strategy is. stay with us. some cash back cards send you on a journey to get to your bonus cash back. first they make you sign up for bonus cash back and it's only on a few categories. and when those categories change, you gotta sign up again. it when end?! with the capital one quicksilver® card, you earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. it's like a cash back oasis. what's in your wallet?

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joining us now, democratic congressman seth mouldon of massachusetts. >> we were just talking about you guys. >> let's pick up the conversation we were having other side of the break. what's the answer to the question of why the generic ballot is as close as it is, and why president trump, if he's as bat as you all democrats say he is, is doing as well as he is right now? >> i think you guys have part of the problem right. which is that we as democrats have to look ourselves in the mirror and say -- where did we lose touch with the american people? why is it that with such a terrible president, in the oval office, we're at the worst position we've been in since the 1920s in the white house, the house, the senate and state legislatures across the country? i think we're a party that needs to have our own vision. it's not enough to oppose trump and tell everybody how terrible the republicans are for not standing up to him. let's talk about our what our

vision is for the economy, for national security when the president is being so reckless around the globe. and how we're going to bring trust back into the government where it's been so terribly lost. >> i know the message has to be tailored district by district. but if you had to summarize what the democratic party standsor right now in the achlk trump what would you say? >> we're still the party of america, where everybody in america has a chance at the american dream. and i think that a the although of americans are feeling left out. a lot of americans. and to trump's credit, he recognized that. he saw that people are being left behind by this changing economy. people aren't making what they used to make. can't support their families the way they used to. but trump's solution is to go back into the coal mines or pretend that people are losing their jobs to immigrants, when tully they're losing them to robots, they're getting automated out of existence. if we can be the party that says here's a way for you to have a meaningful role in the economy of the future. not go backwards, not make america great again, but make

america better than it has ever been. >> his argument to that would be unemployment is incredibly low right now. wages are g up. consumer confidence is very high, do you howe do you answer that? >> he's still early in his term. he's benefitting from a lot of the economic policies that obama put in place. >> he's there make that case. >> i understand he can make that case. but i don't think that anyone believes we're going to solve the economic problems of today and tomorrow by going back into the coal minus. by pretending that we can just ignore all the changes that are happening in the world. we can divorce ourselves from the world. we can cut taxes for corporations so that there's no money left in the united states treasuryth and we have no money to invest in our kids and to invest in our future and to have the courage to solve the tough problems that face americans today. >> congressman, kasie hunt has a question for you. >> my question for you, it's a little bit about nancy pelosi. after connor lamb won the special election she said i'm a

master legislatorings, i'm a shrewd politician and i have a following in the country that apart from the presidential candidate, that nobody else can claim. do you agree with her self-assessment? >> i don't. i have great respect for leader pelosi. she's had a lot of legislative achievements, we wouldn't have obamacare without her. but look at her popularity ratings do not comport with the description that she just had. i think what i hear, as i travel around the country from democrats and republicans alike, is that we need new leaders. we need a new vision, we need a forward-looking vision. it's time for a new generation of leadership. >> who is the leader of the democratic party? >> who is the leader of the democratic party? >> yeah. >> does my silence say something? >> yeah, it does. >> this is the challenge that we have right now. i don't think that people are looking at leader pelosi with all due respect and saying here's the future of our party but this is bigger than one

person. you know, it's not just about pelosi or schumer, whoever you want to choose. this is about being a party that can lead again. this is about being a party that has vision. this is about being a party that cannot just complain about the other side, but say this is what wee going to do for our country. here's our tax plan, here's how we're going to help small businesses and growing businesses, as opposed to the biggest businesses in the world that republican plan helps. here's how we're going to be smt and strong with our national security. when we have a president who lies and is fundamentally weak. he can't stand up to our biggest adversaries. that's leadership from our party and i think there's a new generation coming that are going to provide it like some new candidates, mikey show a navy helicopter pilot truly inspiring person, someone that people are going to vote for, not just because she's a democrat, but because she's a leader. people like that are coming up. some of them are already in the house, and they can take our party forward. >> i'm going to ask you to really, really use your imagination here.

i'm a 45-year-old guy, i've got a factory job, i belong to a union, i've got three kids, and a son who just graduated from high school. joined the marineor because couldn't affor t tuition at the state school where we live. i got hammered in 2008 and 2009. i want to know, i voted for trp. i want to know -- what are you going to do for me? what programs have i lost? what have i lost under trump? and what can you give me? >> first of all i'm going to start by listening to you. i don't think democrats have done that enough. by saying i want to understand why you're hurting and what's gone wrong here. trump may be the least empathetic person on earth, but sometimes he was able to connect with americans like you, who are hurting. and the second thing i'm going to say is what do you think you need? but in terms of your question,

what has trump done? trump has pushed a tax plan that might get a little bit more money in your paycheck today, but is going to cause big problems for our countrynd for kids down the road. and don't think that if you lose your job you have any opportunity to get a new job. because we're not investing in infrastructure. we're not investing in education. we're not actually having a trade policy that is going to bring jobs back to america. we're having a trade policy that's going to hurt. do you know that the price of lumber is going up 32% right now because of tariff war with canada? what if you want to -- i was painting my fence this weekend. need to row place a piece of wood in that fence, i got to pay 32% more than i did yesterday. that's, that's not good policy for american families, for working families, struggling to make endsmeet >> congressman seth moulton, thank you very much for coming up on the show. coming up, "hardball's" chris

matthews joins the table. and republican senator rand paul and former adviser to president obama ben rhodes take us inside the time days >> you are my hero. >> i want to talk about you for a minute. tell me what happened?

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we got a new trump tweet just moments ago. quote, what is taking so long with the inspector general's report on crooked hillary and slippery james comey? numerous delays. hope report is not being changed and made weaker. there are so many horrible things to tell, the public has the right to know. transparency. i'm going to let that marinate. we're going to go to break right, now everyone think about that. just how many things are wrong with that and this is why i am confused about why some people -- anyhow. coming up, prosecutors ask a judge to revoke paul manafort's bail, meaning he could end up in jail. we'll talk about the new

allegations against him. plus, the president t ddisinvit the philadelphia eagles. mark leibovich has been covering the intersection of politics and sports. and chris matthews joins the set as well. "mort back.

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because we have two things put out as truth and they're opposites and as a resulthe fact that they're opposites, one of them is untrue. not really sure whato do with is, john, because the lawyers say one thing, the white house press secretary says another. it's one of those days where somebody is lying. somebody's lying to us? >> it's a discrepancy. you have the white house -- >> if one person says one thing and another person says another thing on the exact same matter that are opposites, somebody is not telling the truth. i mean, we clearly don't like using this word but it seems to be -- i mean, these inconsistencies seem to be among the most consistent things we live with now. >> well, that's right. >> it is right. the white house is not telling the truth and fox new s news'shnews's shep smith is having none of it. welcome back, we have mike barnicle, host of khazay kasie

kasie hunt. chief national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine mark leibovich. pulitzer prize winning columnis "washington post," eugene robinson. and host of my favorite show, msnbc's "hardball." i watch it every night. i can't wait for the first line. chris matthews is with us, his book "bobby kennedy, a raging spirit" is timely again. shortly after midnight 50 years ago this morning bobby kennedy was shot moments after claiming victory in the california presidentialprimary. >> what i think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis and that what has been going on within the united states over the period of the last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions, whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more

affluent or between age groups or in the war in vietnam, that we can start to work together. we are a great country and a selfish country and a compassionate country and i intend to make that my basis for running. [ applause ] so my thanks to all of you and now it's on to chicago and let's win there. thank you very much. >> wow. joe, incredible. 50 years ago. >> the images are still -- for anybody that was there, for anybody that's read about it growing up reading about it, it continues to be -- continues to seem as much of a tragedy today as it was half a century ago. you know, mika, we tend to look when we're close to them these tragedies as singular events, the assassination of jfk followed five years later by the assassination of bobby kennedy

but the further we get away from them and the more we look at exactly what's happened over the past 50 years, it seems to me that these are markers. these are historical markers that have impacted the past half century every bit as much as the day we celebrate and remember tomorrow june 6, 1944 instead of 1968 and that is the d-day landing. it has impacted us in a way that we still haven't completely recovered from and chris matthews, you've written such a wonderful book and i've read everything i could get my hands on about bobby but one thing that stays in my mind, an image that you talk about, an image that everybody talks about and it is the train, the train ride

down to washington, d.c. where you had people on both sides of the track coming together crying, mourning, saluting, poor black americans, middle-class white americans, working class white americans alltanding at attention all paying homage to th passing of this man, the passing of that train and the haunting images that stays with me is the description of that train as it moved past those people brought together by this one man seeing the train going out of sight and then turning their backs to each other tative worlds and never having another politician come alg that tried to effectively bring them together, working class whites, working class blacks, working class hispanics

making the argument that much more united them than divided them. we are a long way from that trride, chris, 50 years later. l, joe,ou said it as well as i could and i think the -- if you looked at bobby's last sort of political image which is the thumb's up on to chicago, think about what we think of as what happened in chicago that august as to -- compared to what happened if bobby made it to chicago, to the democratic convention instead of students throwing literally crap at copsnd cop rampaging against them, instead of that scene of hell which continues to that day, a tribute of the anti-war movement and youth and minorities that walked into that convention in chicago, on behalf of those people that were disenfranchised, what a different country it would have been. so i think it's -- i once read

michael collins, the hero of the irish revolution killed in the civil war back in the early '20s had the same birth year as dwight eisenhower. we don't know what we losend what lives they could have led, at bob could have been in his '50s and '60s. ike turned out to be a good president and he lived a normal stretch of life into his 70 a bobby was shot down at 42 and we don't know. joe, you said it so well, the way they looked at each other the way the train passed in the distance and white and black not necessarily together but allied. not hanging out together, let's not overdo this. but allied politically in one hero -- by the way, we'll talk about the eagles in a minute. i don't want anybody salutes by irent, i want spontaneous salutes. you put your hand over your chest, i want to know it's for real, not some rule of the nfl and i think we have enough of that pro forma crap in this

country. we ought to have realspontaneitk people, 20,000 of them out of nowhere started singing the battle hymn of the republic, the people around them were crying. they couldn't believe it that there's this kind of emotion going on and nobody told anybody to do there. there weren't prayer books handed out. >> social media. >> no, look at them all. on a hot summer june day. look at them packed in like sardines because they wanted to be there and they wanted to be affectionate in their salutes and they were not just middle-class whites, they were dirt poor whites a lot of those people on the tracks. actually dick goodwin wrote nd this, mike barnicle, for bobby kennedy in his capetown speech in south africa two years to the date before he dd a h it's easy to look at the

injustice before us and despair, one of the things about bobby kennedy for me and one of the reasons i've always had such a remarkable fondness for him is chris was talking about imagine how chicago would have been different if he made it to the '68 convention. those aren't hollow words. you can look at bobby kennedy's life. you can go to april 4, 1968, martin luther king assassinated, bobby kennedy said he wanted to go into the center of indianapolis. the police said no,'t ther 's too dangerous. he said i'm going, that's where i need to be. the cops said there was going to be rioting, we'll drive you to the edge of the neighborhood, we won't go in, bobby kennedy went in and he mdifference. there s rioting in about 100 cities that night, indianapolis went to sleep peacefully because mike int this was a man who

suffered such incredible who lost brothers, who lost sisters and when he sad there and said i understand you lost a friend, it a brother, let's come together. peleelie him. >> joe, you just touched on one of the core aspects of robert kennedy, both his life and his career as a politician. people get authenticity. they get it. almost always they get it and the discussion about the train. i was on that train and i can remember almost every moment of that trip on that train vividly as if it occurred this morning. i can republican the heat outside st. patrick's when we came out of the cathedral. the buses lined up on route from penn station, the train emerging from the darkness of the tunnel out into a harbor or a river in

newark, i don't know what it was and a fire boat there with firefighters and a flag at half-staff on the fire boat and the crowds along the way, phia and we were talkinga while ago about the trump voter. well, take a l at these people. those are who became trump voters, the aggrieved, people with grievancesho believed in robert kennedy. they believed in what he said, what he wanted to do for this country. they believed. they believed because he came at them with truth, honesty, candor, and, most of all, hope coulhope for a better future for themselves and for america. that's what was lost. and it's somehow been lost for a long time in this country. and my god these pictures, the memories, what we lost then, what we're still in the grasp of losing today, it's incredible.

>> tomorrow we're going to have a big conversation about this. tom brokaw, we're going to hear from tom brokaw about this, our senior producer on "morning joe" wrote a great book this as well and we'll talk more about chris's book and this incredible moment in hiy. the conversation will continue here on "morning joe." >> we were talking in our last fr massachusetts, about who at the democrats should be right now in the age of trump and i'm struck listening to you all talk about bobby kennedy, he was a very different kind of democrat than many we see today. is there a lesson for democrats to learn about politics, about public presentation, about how to defeat donald trump that they can take from bobby kennedy? >> well, you know, i read the interview the other day, this kid, he was a 16-year-old busboy who held bobby kennedy's head up when he was shot. juan romero and he said when kennedy walked into his

when he was delivering room service that kennedy didn't look through him but he looked at him. he said "i felt like i was ten feet tall." you and i knew tip o'neill tunnel, they're real liberals and they're phs. e pien the sky, always looking into the distance, they think they're everybody, they went to yale law and whatever they got they claim they're better than anybody. a true democrat lower case d thinks they're no better than anybody else. that's what a democrat is. and the party regains that with white, black, hispanic people, everybody. starts to think of themselves as one of them instead of being better than them, they'll get back to the party of the people and they're not there yet. there's too many elitism in the democratic party. it's so outrageous. and it comes down to this notion of the meritocracy being entirely academic based. you don't want to hear about a master plumber being an elite. he is or she is but it's all academic but it's a game they played with themselves and it's self-saluting and the people feel it. there's a party going on and

they ain't invited to it and a big part th it's not just economics. i don't buy the whole marxist argument it's about economics, it's not. it's about sensing your leaders give a damn about you personally. i see pele liket in the democratic party today but they have to keep a low profile. to stay down. there's too much self-saluting, too many events that seem to be about saluting them. too many galas, people are tired of it. i'm sick of them and i'm rooting against them even though may agree with their policies. i think they have to get over it and it's too much talk into fund-raisers because the people they talk to are the people that they want the money from and they're the elite. and hillary had a finally had a bruce springsteen concert the last night. a little late in the game. identify what the regular people identify with. just my speech, there are others but that's one.

that's something bobby would understand and joe biden would understand and a few other people would understand today and i think it's a real problem. >> tough landscape to navigate though. >> we have a story fit for you, chris. the super bowl champion philadelphiawi b nored at the but without the team. president trump abruptly canceled the planned visit for eagles personnel and said he will hold a celebration with eagles fans instead. a written statement by the president reads in part "the philadelphia eles are unable to come to the white house be their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. they disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the national anthem. the eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation but the 1,000 planslanning to attend the event deserve better." but we should point out no eagles player took a knee for the national anthem during the regular season last year and the cancellation could have more to do with what white house officials told the "new york times," that fewer than ten members of the team were planning to attend. former eagles wide receiver torrey smith tweeted this "so many lies, here are some facts,

number one, not many people were going go. number two, no one refused to go simply because trump insists folk stand for the anthem, and number three the president continues to spread the false narrative that prsre anti-military." and the president just tweeted on this matter, quote, we will proudly be playing the national anthem and other wonderful music celebrating our country at 3:00 p.m. at the white house with the united states marine band and the united states army chorus honoring america. nfl, no escaping to locker rooms. that is a tweet a moment frag the preside -- ago from the president of the united states. >> wow. >> he's loving this. >> that's what i going to say. >> it's the off season. this is not a surprising story but a stunning story and this has never happened before. how would you like to be the advance guy who has to make sure that a thousand fans show up without any aua players at the white house? can you imagine if they have empty seats? >> that you can,ood use of

taxpayer money. >> what do nfl owners do who signed on to this preposterous -- >> the bob is thproblem is they sign on, they didn't even vote on it. weakened but wel paid commissioner and a few powerful owners said , we'll just push this aside and this will settle it. this issue had receded, there were people who were very angry at football yeand dald trump was clearly going to bri this up again but this didhe exact opposite. it would be one thing if the nfl was in on this but largely thanks to what happened a few weeks ago there is no sign they are remotely united. >> and gene robinson, if you read into this, it looks above all else that psident trump didn't want to be embarrassed to have eight, nine, or ten eagles stanng there without marquee guys at the podium. in your newspaper today, there's a piece that has the incredible detail toward the end of it that last year when the president heard tom brady wasn't going me to the patriot celebration

he was furiously making phone calls aboardir force one to bob kraft, to his aides saying we have to fix this, we can't have this event without tom brady. he felt it would make him look bad so obviously the president is worried about appearances here. >> >> that's the whole thany sii trump is about donald trump and how donald trump looks a whether donald trump is -- looks bad or by his l lks good. and according to the "new york times," if only 10 players were going to show up, that would be embarrassing for him. so rather than be embarraed he reignite this is whole story which, as mark said, had certainly receded before the nfl action and where does he take it now? . now he's taken the position that in fact the -- what the owners

thought or those few powerful owners who ran these things through thought was a compromise and perhaps acceptable that they could just move on and have this thing over with that the players stay in the locker room. now the president says that's unacceptable, no hiding in locker rooms and you can't do that so he has created yet another problem for the nfl owners who were trying to placate him in a ham handed and totally unwise way and he's given the high ground to the players in my view. it's ridiculous and it's about ego. >> chris, itundercuts his argument about what a great deal maker he is, how he can bring people together. we've seen over the past couple of days, he's got the french upset with us on these trade tariffs that the kochs and

others are upset about. he's made horrific insulting mistakes in germany, the canadians. you can go all of our allies that were shoulder to shoulder with us all at d-day, they're all offended with us. if you're in the suburbs of philadelphia and a guy that voted for barack obama eight years ago and you voted for trump this year becse thought he could get things done, he'll be sitting there going wait a second, my team wins the super bowl and this guy can't even run a white house ceremony with my team. sn't seem like the greatest political move for donald trump. >> a lot of us who lived in big cities and nfl towns like philly in washington with thekins and

the one powerful unifier even in cities that could be congest and turbulent on ethic grounds is football. but you go to a washington red skin games with the guys painted up red, the connection people have with each other on sundays and then monday talking about the game and it used to be you get in a cab and talk tor cab driver, one thing you could talk about is the game, everies expect of the game and there was no racial distinctions, you could be a white guy with a red face and cold day in minnesota but he's rooting for his team that's mostly african-american running backs, he likes it. it's a unifier. here's donald trump. he goes into the one aspect of american life that does unite people and let's trash it. it's a sick seens you.

>> it is true. th is -- football likeso market itself as as repitts from politics, from the division and you're right. you go to the a redskins games it's one of the experiences in authentic integrated experience. >> try to find a restaurant like that. >> democrats, republicans, they're all united in disliking dan snyder but also in rooting for the redskins or -- but no, it a very, very huge dynamic. >> you are so right. the president of the united states has a twisted brilliance in that he knows how to hone in on resentment down to the level of theational football league. >> twisted brilliance is what it is. >> who wants to watch a guy do this under law? required by law? who wants to do that? >> about 50% of the population. >> mark leibovich, thank you, appreciate it, good to have you on. chris matthews, please stay with

us. still ahead on "morning joe," new overnight, paul manafort accused of witness tampering. prosecutors working for robert mueller are asking a judge to revise the t manafort's release or send him to jail. and a supreme court win for religious freedom advocates and justicesav ruled that a colorado baker cannot be forced to make a cake for a same sex wedding. we'll go live to pete williams at the supreme court. you're watching "morning joe." i'll be right back. feed the line. push the button. and get back to work. with an industry first, carbon-fiber shaft... lawn care has never been this easy... ...or this powerful. the new ego power+ string trimmer with powerload™ technology. exclusively at the home depot and ego authorized dealers. her salon was booked for weeks, until her laptop crashed this morning.

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now to that high-profile case involving the christian baker who refused to make a wedd cake for a same-sex couple arguing that it violated his religious beliefs. yesterday, the supreme court sided with the baker. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams joins us live from the supreme court. pete, take us through the decision. >> well, the court did side with the baker but on the narrowest possible grounds that are unique to him.

so we're going to have to wait for other cases that are working their way up here that raise the sameal question in this continuing battle over the right of same-sex marriage. a washington state florist is wondering what the ruling means to her. refud to provide servicesor a same sex wedding saying it would violate her religious freedom. >> it's not about the money, it's about the principle of being able to have your beliefs and act upon them. >> reporter: but the court didn't provide an answer, instead ruling narrowly in favor of a colorado baker, jack phillips, who said having to bake a cake for a gay couple's wedding celebration would violate his religious freedom. that couple sued saying his refusal violated a state law that bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. while they called the ruling a disappointment, they say their legal battle raised awareness about discrimination. >> what happened to us wasn't an isolated incident. it's something that happens to people everyday in every kind of business imaginable.

>> reporter: the supreme court says colorado didn't take the baker's religious claims seriously enough, that's why it was a victory for jack phillips only and said nothing about the bigger issu whether florists, photographers and other businesses have the religious freedom to refuse service to same-sex couples. justice anthony kennedy said those disputes must be resolved with tolerance to sincere religious beliefs without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in the open market. the supreme court will decide whether to take up the appeal of the washington state florist or wait until another case comes along to rule on this issue of religious freedom versus gay rights. joe? >> yeah. pete, it seems to me, and i know you follow this far more closely than us but you can tell there are times -- certain areas of the law where the supreme court is not going to, as my old torts

professor would say, grab the coals out of the fire for those arguing the cases, that they will dg their feet bit by bit and go only as far as they have to go. they did that here but i don't think anybody expect ed them to do much more than that, did they? except talk about this particular case and the fact that this guy was an artist of sorts and it would be far different than serving food or selling flowers to a gay couple. >> yeah, a couple thoughts about that. it was obvious for from the time this case was argued way back last fall that justice kennedy felt jack phillips got a raw deal from the colorado human rights commission. he seemed to be very concerned about some of the comments commissioners made so you can tell there was a possible off ramp for that decision. the second point is that jack phillips mounted his case on a first amendment claim about free

expression. his argument was that by being forced to make this cake he was expressing an idea that he opposed. in the decision, the supreme court doesn't really engage on at issue of whether cakes are expressive and that's been a problem with this case all along because if you think about it most wedding cakes don't say anything and he never got to the point of discussing with the two gay men what they wanted the cake to look like or say. so this whole expressive notion of this case was troubled and then thirdly i would say it was always a bit of a mystery why the supreme court took this particular case given all of these peculiarities about it. the colorado human rights commission, the whole question about whether cakes are expressive when a couple years ago they turned down perhaps a purer case about new mexico photographers and you could surely see that was more expressive. so for whatever if reason this isn't the case that's going to decide it.

they're going to talk about whether to take up this florist case because we'll see whether they wait a long time until another comes up or whether they come back to it next term. >> finally, pete, didn't it seem -- kennedy had some language i think in the landmark ruling on marriage equality back a few years ago that he was sort of throwing a bone to those who had religious objections to same-sex marriage and said, listen, we're going to be tolerant, we understand that there's some people that have objections to this. could this have been the court's way to show that the 2015 decision -- i think it was 2015 was not an all inclusive decision, that there would be limits to how far the court would move. >> i'm not sure whether justice kennedy was thinking about limits but he was thinking about being tolerant and that was why i think the core of his

decision, he didn't think the colorado human rights commission was top rant. one interesting thing here, som against the same-sex marriage right in 2016 decision signed on with justice kennedy about giving gay couples the dignity they're due. now obviously it's a settled decision but the fact of that some of the conservatives are signing on saying you have to respect their rights, that's an interesting development. >> nbc's pete williams, thank you very much. now to the overnight developments involving former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. prosecutors are working for special counsel rtueller and accusing manafort of attempting to tamper with witnesses in his on going criminal cases. prosecutors argue manafort has violated the terms of his release and are asking a judge to revise the terms or send him

to jail until trial. in newly filed court documents prosecutors say that manafort repeatedly contacted two witnesses earlier this year in an attempt to influence their testimony. prosecutors say the two unnamed witnesses aisted in lobbying and public relations efforts with the hapsburg group, an organization manafort helped create in order to promote ukrainian interests in europe and the u.s. one of the witnesses is alleging to have told prosecutors he understand manafort's outreach to be an effort to suborn perjury by encouraging others to lie to federal investigators by concealing the firm's work in the united states. manafort was hit with a 12-count indictment by robert mueller's office last year. he has pleaded not guilty on all charges which include conspiracy, money laundering and tax and bank fraud. manafort's team had no immediate comment when reached by nbc

news. >> let's bring in a former justice department spokesman now. matt, good morning. manafort was indicted in october so all this alleged witness tampering took place while he was in fact under indictment which calls into question certainly his judgment but what's the larger significance of this development beyond the fact that he may go to jail. >> i think if you look at what the prosecutors are alleging, this is the type of thing that would offend any prosecutor. you have manafort who's under indictment since october, these actions happened after he was indicted a second time in february, he's been indicted multiple times in the district of columbia and the eastern district of virginia. any prosecutor who saw a witness under indictment trying to reach out and convince witnesses to lie at his upcoming trial would be offended and take some kind of action like. this but there's another thing going on, too. bob mueller's team have just heaped every bit of pressure on manafort that they can. i don't know if they know that

manafort has something to give up but it's clear they're trying on to beg grossly swer so in offended by his actions here, this is another way for them to put pressure on him, to potentially put him behind bars. he's been sits al home for the last nine months. he's not allowed to leave home without permission from the judge, he's got an ankle bracelet. and if they put him behind bars it puts more pressure on him to cooperate with prosecutors and tell them anything he knows about the president or anybody else. >> so the president is just now as we speak tweeting about the russia investigation. he writes "the russian witch-hunt hoax continues all because jeff sessions did not tell me he was going to recuse himself. i would have quickly picked someone else. so much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined and sessions knew better than most that there was no collusion. gene robinson, second time in a

week that president trump reminded us he wished he picked someone else to be attorney general. >> unbelievab unbelievable. you keep saying we've never seen anything like this before the president of the united states continues to rake his attorney general over the coals for not recusing himself, which means for not protecting me and ending this investigation into my campaign's collusion with the russians and i call it just n ut because of the meeting in trump tower. that was collusion. it didn't produce very much but that's the only thing you can call it. it's extraordinary, almost predictable, i guess but the manafort thing is crazy that he would try to communicate over these encrypted messaging apps with witnesses.

and think prosecutors would somehow miss this, that this would alllip past them? i just -- there's a certain says prags there th don the that s me wonder and i think prosecutors probably smell that vulnerability so they will continue to exert maximum pressure on him. clearly they think he's got something to give up. >> certainly desperation but also stupidity. >> yeah! >> you had his biness partner when he was making his proffer to mueller lie to mueller. made his situation -- gates made the sti even worse and everybody that's gone in and been interviewed by robert mueller have said the same thing, they've said you know, he wasn't really asking us questions to get our answers because he already knew the answers. he was just going to see whether we were going to lie and gene in this case it's -- it is

remarkable that these guys are so stupid that they don't understand, like the president, who they're dealing with. and think about his tweets over the past week and a half to two weeks. he is manic, he is frantic. this is a guy who is cornered with every single tweet about russia, about mueller, about no collusion, he protests too much and shows just how cornered desperathe is. >> way too much, you look at the pattern of tweets. eyome out in the morning and they're all over the map and there is this sort of frantic -- again, desperate is a word i use for -- aboutanaft but that's what you get from the output of the president's twitter feed these days.

he's protesting at the top of his lungs and you have to wonder if he's reaching some sort of crescendo in which he makes another attempt, perhaps restrained by his aides to fire mueller to end the whole thing, to do somethin dramatic because he thinks something bad might happen soon. >> so a couple things. reaching a crescendo and reaching a lot ofeopl who don't care how bad he acts which is where we are politically which i hope you can touch on. but knowing donald trump as i know him, i do feel that he feels the walls closing in and whatever he does he does somethin riculous to deflect which is what he did with the philadelphia team and this pattern is pitch perfect donald trump really paranoidt this point, paranoid to the point of spinning out of control.

>> i said this last night but i have to say it again. it goes to when your par is in huge trouble and you have to throw the long ball. when ronald reagan had that first debate with walter mondale and he lost badly and the "wall street journal" top of the fold said this guy mayosing it, howard baker said this is the guy we meet in the office, there's something wrong here. lee atwater, the dark prince of this thing said if we lose one more debate this president could be finished so if he loses the second debate we'll create the fog machine. we'll get all the facts off the table, it's going to be what side on are you on, boys and girls, what side are you on? so they want to change the question from the evidence of these cases, whether it's manafort or any of these guys and change the questions to do you like trump or do you like these democrats a tend media? that is what they're doing because they can't win on the facts. >> what's interesting, at least

to me, the legal aspects of this are beyond my pay grade but the human nature aspecut thpresident's behavior with thet tweet about jeff sessions, it has the ring of the guy who s theops are knocking at the door. >> i feel like if you look back over the course of maybe the last six weeks there's been a mounting sense of panic and you see -- and i think it's not just bob mueller, it's the developments of the michael cohen case, there's stuff we learned yesterday about the degree to which cohen's private communications, how much will be entered into court and how little will be held back under attorney/client privilege, i think the president sees that the walls are closing in on both sides and his jeopardy increases on a daily basis on both sides and he is crazy in some ways but not stupid and his eyes work well enough to see it.

>> i wouldn't underestimate the fog machine and the damage he's doing to our institutions and the pillars of our democracy where things can get s broken down he can continue. i'm just saying it's happening, he's doing rnow. chris matthews, the book is "bobby kennedy, a raging spirit." we'll be catching "hardball" tonight on msnbc. my favorite show. >> thanks, mika. >> your thoughts? >> you ewe geugene robinson, we read your op-ed, "his majesty czar donald the first claims impeer yum." and mat miller, we appreciate it. up next, someone who has a lot to say about donald trump's desire to erase his pdecessors legacy. ben rhodes, his campaign speech writer and later his deputy national security adviser. ben joins us on set next.

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>> i hate to tell you, puerto rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on puerto rico, and that's fine. we saved a lot of lives. >> that was president trump back

in october talking about hurricane maria in puerto rico. now a group of congressional democrats is calling for an investigation after a report wk dramatically revised the death toll upward. the government put the official number at 64 but a harvard study says it's 73 times higher. over 4600 people killed. while there are questions about the methodology, it is without question that the island and the millions ofmericans who call it home are still suffering in the wake of the category 5 storm. it's incredible, joe. we've heard personal stories of the suffering and those numbers are staggering. >> they are staggering. willie, you look at the challenges that remain, whether you're talking about health k care, electricity, water, whether you're just talking about the basics, the basic

necessities of life there seems to be an attitude in this administration and you saw in the that old clip of donald trump speaking with contempt about how much money it's cost to help puerto rico, he said they've saved a lot of lives. if you believe some recent studies, actually, they haven't saved enough and this is a crisis that could cost twice as many as 9/11. >> there's some dispute about the harvard study, what the figure is, but if it's close to that this is more deaths than 9/11, this is a modern katrina, 12 years after katrina we had another one, it was in puerto rico. let's underline these are american citizens, these are our brothers and sisters and they're dying down there joe. i was married in puerto rico, i've been going down there for 25 years, i talk to people down there all the time, they are dying down there. they don't have power in many parts of the country. they don't have water, they don't have clean water, people

with dialysis machines are literally dying. a lot of the deaths we're hearing about didn't happen in the initial storm but because people don't have methodical care and water and electricity they need to survive and the fact the president has timed a tweet endlessly about the russia investigation, about the nfl, about the philadelphia eagles and can't conjure a single thought for puerto rico is frankly disgraceful. >> it certainly is. all right, who do we have on now, willie? >> joining us now at the table, former deputy national security adviser under president obama, now an nbc news and msnbc political contributor ben rhodes, the author of the new book "the world as it is, a memoir of the obama white house." >> and willie, he's got to be thrilled. how smooth we operate here. >> he dives right into the nbc family, we've taught him the secret hand shake. ben, just broadly, to ask about

your reaction to the decision by president trump to pull out of the iran deal, something you helped orchestrate. in your view what are the implications of that? >> well, first of all, this is something that took seven years to put th. years of sanctions with our allies, years of negotiating these painstaking restrictions on the iranian nuclear program. now you'll see a gradual unraveling of the deal. it's likely iran may restart elements of its nuclear program and that will leave us between a choice of taking military action or acceding to a nuclear capable iran and that' the situation we're trying to avoid. the strangest thing is he's about to embark on this summit with kim jong-un where getting something that looked like the iran deal would be success and so he's essentially created a crisis around nuclear weapons with iran at the same time he's trying to solve a problem with north korea with a deal that would resumebly try to look very much like the iran deal. >> ben, i'm curious.

the first they were just talking off camera a bit about the book came out a few days ago even though it's on sale date today. there was a big "new york times" story that talked about president obama's reaction talk obama's reaction to donald trump's winning. talk about that a little bit, but talk about the reaction to it. i'm not sure how to characterize it but kind of detached and above the fray in a way that she kind of pummelled him for over the weekend. >> actually, what i was conveying, what i described in the book is after the election, president obama went through the same process that a lot of us did in trying to figure out whacwhat happened here. he called me and was just kind of stunned. that happened. how do we pick ourselves up and he went through the theories, you know, russian meddling or

the comey letter or did the democrats not run a good campaign. in that vignette we were in the limousine coming to air force one on his last trip and what if trump's on to something, the desire of the people have to retreat back into their tribe, that politics he'd soaked. he was trying to work through understanding -- he has a very analytical mind. and on the criticism, what i didn't -- actually it was the opposite ofarroga. he was expressing some real self-questioning. how did what we did end in trump? so i actually thought this was a portrait of somebody who is working hard to try to understand this and willing to question everything. >> you seem to have understood something pretty early that became quite clear within a few months after wards that there would be a big question about whether president obama and your team did enough, were forceful

enough, spoke out enough about the russian intervention in the election, whether that was -- people would look back and say you caugt early and talked about it with him. talk about whether you or he looks back on that with some regret. >> well, you know, i think he -- he really does believe very firmly that you know, we had a duty to warn the public about russian meddling. we did do that. we would have liked to have done that in a bipartisan way, but mitch mcconnell refused but if he had been out there every day talking about this. the people consuming that fake news or the p disinclined to believe him in the first place and trump would have said the election was rigged and he wasn't the messenger who could have permeated that bubble. what i look back on with some regret and wish we had another shot at it is if you look at the october statement that we put out, it's about the hacking.

it's not about the information operation. and you know, i describe in the book in ukraine we saw this emerge. we started to see them releasing intercepted phone calls from american officials. we started to see them just, you know, lying, putting out different story lines and pushing it on rt and all their media channels and the fact is the u.s. government doesn't have even to this day tools to deal with that. what do you do with an adversary who's willing to flood our information channels with literally fake news, not the term that it's taken in our politics and i don't think americans fully appreciate the sense we're not equipped to do that. the government can't become the editor in chief of your facebook feed. >> i'm wondering too on the political side of this when you talk about president obama's self-reflection, potential regrets about the 2016 election, was there any reflection about

how he kind of pushed behind the scenes to put hillary clinton at the forefront of the democratic nominating process, kind of encouraged joe biden to step back and out of the way? >> no, i mean, i think at the end ofhe day, you know, vice president biden has spoken to this better than anybody. i love president truvice presid. he had this tragedy in his family and really, you know, we can't -- sometimes i think people assign more agency to the white house, we can't engineer a democratic primary and hillary was clearly the front runner. what i did describe in the book is you know, we had a confidence that she would win and a lot of people shared and that was what a lot of the analysis was. when i was thinking about the next day after the election what i realized, what i could have

seen personally coming is essentially trump had repackaged obama's message from 2008 that she's part of the establishment, she can't be trusted to bring change. he wrapped it up with a lot of toxicity in my view, but it was a changed message and it was horrifying to see how that message had been repurposed, the inspiring message in 2008 to a trump elect rate in 2016. >> did you trust them too much? >> there are things in our foreign policy that we could have done differently but the iran deal was not supposed to solve every problem with iran. it was supposed to solve one problem. that they can't have a nuclear weapon and you don't want to -- you make thoradeals with your adversaries, not your friends and you don't want a country to

get a nuclear weapon. my concern now is that's off the table and we could be headed for a much more dangerous world and the consequencesantpparent in the news cycle. it's going to be two years from now. >> thank you very much. the book is "the world as it is" and you can read an excerpt on our site right now, joe point msnbc.com. >> bob mueller accuses paul manafo of witness tampering. will he now go to jail while awaiting trial? and the president drags the attorney general through the mud again on twitter. plus, the new york times reports that over the last decade facebook struck deals with at least 60 mobile device makers allowing them deep access to vast amoushts of its users of personal information. all that plus senator rand paul

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>> he certainly didn't dictate, but like i said, he weighed in, offered suggestion like any father would do. >> president trump dictated the misleading statement. >> you said he did not dictate. the lawyers say he did. what is it? >> i don't know. i can only respond from a lette from the president's outside counsel. >> what's the reason for that discrepancy. >> this is a letter from the outside counsel and direct you to them. >> trump wrote and dictated a statement. >> but it was his father, the president who dictated the letter. >> i can't comment on a letter from the president's outside counsel and i direct you to them to answer it. >> wow, that's press secretary sarah sanders referring reporters back to the same lawyers who are they are directly quoting in their

questions. welcome to "morning joe," everyone. it's tuesday, june 5th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. and john heilemann. former chief of staff and cia and a national security analyst jeremy bash and nbc corresnde correspondent kasie hunt. but the press briefing seemed like sarah sanders is protecting herself or how would you read that. >> >> she's not protecting herself if she gets caught telling a lie either because she knew it was untrue or because the president lied to her. so she's not really protecting her reputation. in fact, she's hurting her reputation by referring it to

somebody else. she knew the correct answer. the correct answer was either i did not tell you the truth or the correct answer was i was you know, you could even polish it up even more than that by just saying i was not given complete information during that briefing. you don't refer it to outside counsel in that case, because it's your credibility that's involved. now, speaking of credibility, i found yesterday absolutely fascinating. i know we'll get to the main manafort story, but you saw throughout the day, we started talking about yesterday morning about just how stupid every one of rudy giuliani's arguments were, just how stupid dowd and sekulow's arguments were, just how legally illiterate and incompetent every one of those arguments were about donald trump's absolute power that he had the right to shoot james

comey, an fbi director investigating him and he couldn't be indicted. that he had the absolute power to pardon himself. you can go through all of those, and we're going to see, mika, that throughout the day, one incompetent argument, one idiotic pose after another fell. mid-morning suddenly quotes started showing up that said that the justice department has already ruled and they ruled in the middle of water gate. the president does not have the power to pardon himself. and republicans on capitol hill pounced all over him so by the end of the day what does the president do when ice obvious he's been made a fool of again and the white house counsel has been made a fool of again? what does he do? he talks about the nfl. but how does he do it? it's not like he asks the idaho isotopes not to come to the

white house or t springfield isotopes not to come to the white house. willie geist, he asks perhaps this side of the pittsburgh steelers, the most important franchise in the nfl if you're just looking at it for political calculations, the philadelphia eagles and oh, they have some fans, i don't know if they've heard of them before, the philly suburbs that will just elect presidents of the united states. >> and it had the feeling of someone who was putting on a birthday party, saw no rsvps coming in and cancelled it before they cancelled on him because only a handful of the eagles players were going to show up. the eagles were not among the players who kneeled for the national anthem but they weren't going to come because they didn't like some of the politics and i think you're right at the end of this terrible day for him

he put something out that he wanted to change the subject but there are much bigger fish to fry here. >> new overnight, prosecutors working for special counsel robert mueller are accusing former trump campaign chair paul manafort of accusing to tamper with witnesses. prosecutors argue manafort has violated the terms of his release and are asking a judge to revise those terms or send him to jail until trial. in newly filed court documents prosecutors say manafort repeatedly contacted two witnesse earlier this year in order to influence their testimony. prosecutors say the two unnamed witnesses assisted in lobbying and public relations efforts with the happensburg group, a group manafort helped create. one of the witnesses is alleged to have told prosecutors he

understood manafort's outreach to suburn perjury. and concealing the firm's work in the united states. manafort was hit with a 12-count indictment by robert mueller's office last year. he has pleaded not guilty all chargesch include conspiracy, money laundering and tax fraud. manafort had no immediate comment when reached n news. this is big news. >>on heilemann, i guess the question is why he hasn't been in jail from the very beginning. donald trump claims no collusion every day, 12 times a day, it may be a bit more believable if he wrote no collusion, other than manafort. because you can look at public records and you can see very cl that paul manafort spent his adult life colluding with

and con sorting with and making calculated politicalis with russia and russia's allies. this is very big news and i'm just wondering, since this is the biggest domino to fall in the russian part of the case, why doesn't paul manafort get sent to jail? >> well, look, i mean, i think there's a reasonable chance that he will except for the possiby at he may end up cooperating with mueller's team and turning against the president. one of the things about the manafort thing that has always been true is that we all knew what paul manafort's history was when donald trump brought him on to the campaign in the late spring of 2016. his history was not secret. it had not been chronicled in as much depth. but donald trump did not just suddenly stumble upon paul

manafort in early 2016. he lived in trump tower. he was a partner of roger stone's.donald t was familiar w paul manafort, wittory for a tt and so it raises all kinds of questions about why paul manafort ended the campaign given what donald trump already knew about him. they were not strangers and now you're in a situation where manafort's legal jeopardy is rising not just because ofew foundings that the investigative team are looking backwards, but in real time, his potential jail -- his potential time in jail is rising by the day and by the hour which all adds up to bad news for donald trump beuse the more years he faces behind bars the higher incentive he has to cooperate with manafort and that's got to be freaking him out even more. >> does it seem to you that the accusations levelled yesterday in federal court against paul manafort and the way they were

towa the end of the day with , t a hint that think were not a word leaking out of bob mueller's operation that this is one of the contributing factors to the president and his team's iing anxiety and nervousnessbout the >> it's possible. i think it also is a major signal from the prosecutors that they take obstruction of justice very seriously because after all, what is manafort accused of doing? he's accused of obstructing the mueller investigation trying to get his story straight with potential witnesses. he was trying to corral european politicians and lawmakers to be pro-russian and they did it in a way that violated u.s. foreign agent registration laws, possibly money laundering and tax evasion c a well and the whole thing to follow russian money, that aft all is

what bob mueller is investigating and now here comes manafort to obstruct that investigation. it's a major message to the president and rudy giuliani, that if you lie, if you witness tampering we're going after you. >> still ahead on "morning joe," ted cruz isn't often short of words but when asked about the president's power to pardon really quiet.exas rubcan was like silent. those surreal 17 seconds are next on "morning joe." 25% of your mouth. virtually 100%.

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we got an even better window yesterday into how president trump is thinking about this investigation. he asserted his quote, absolute right to pardon himself for any crime. in just the past two weeks the president has broken several political and legal standards including demanding the justice department investigate the

russia probe. sending his lawyer in the investigation to a congressional intelligence briefing and now the pardon claims. john cornyn said yesterday i wish he wouldn't comment on things like that because then it raises questions that have really been laid to rest. corps anyo >> i've read the constitution cover to cover. i'm rather fond of it. there's not a provision directly on point and i haven't researched it. ultimately an issue like that would land in the lap of the supreme court. let's hope we don't get there. >> legally i don't know. i know nixon was one of the allegations against him was improper use of pardon powers. that was one of the things in impeachment. i think the politics would be very bad. >> if i were president of the

united states and i had a lawyer that told me i could pardon myself, i think i'd hire a new lawyer. >> senator, the president says he can pardon himself. would you agree with that? >> that is not a constitutional issue i've studied so i will with hold judgment at this point. >> so sounded like ted cruz is trying to outrun you guys in the senate but couldn't quite get away from you. the reaction on capitol hill to this, we heard some republicans speak up and speak out about it, not all of them though and you heard ted cruz equivocate there. he knows better, doesn't he? >> i think he probably does. i'm surprised he has taken to walking away quickly in most of these situations so the fact

that he did feel as though he had to fill some of that silence i think is pretty telling, but you know, this is exactly why -- i mean, what you justaw there is exactly why rudy giuliani was on the shows over the weekend saying there's no way -- we're not going to do this. he tried to walk back some of the claims in that memo by saying look, this is politically impossible. i think it was chris christie over the weekend who said it would be political suicide and that is why -- i mean, how, if you're a republican who has -- these guys would call themselves constitutional conservatives. it's a very difficult leap to make. >> few people like the idea of a special prosecutor more than donald trump at least back in 2016 when it was hillary clinton feeling the heat. we'll show you the tape, next on "morning joe."

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president trump tweeted yesterday morning. the appointment of the special counsel is totally unconstitutional. despite that we play the game because i unlike the democrats have done nothing wrong. that's a different take from

president trump about essential pros que prosecutors back in 2016 when he was talking about hillary clinton. >> we are going to get a special prosecutor to figure this deal out. i will ask my attorney general to appoint aci prosecutor. special prosecutor, here we come, right? if i win we're going to appoint the special prosecutor. >> good lord. >> that's fascinating. he says it's unconstitutional and yet that was an applause line. i mean, every bit as loud of abapplause there as build that wall. also, haven't the president's republican allies in congress be talking about a second special counsel to investigate hillary clinton's rabbits a cats and goats and whatever?

i mean, just wildly distracting from the first special prosecutor, but doing it at donald trump's bidding. >> i think you're -- i know you obviously are a simple country lawyer, but your training and your legal training has been a little inadequate. you were misinformed. there are in fact two parallel constitutions to the united states and one of them is the constitution that covers hillary clinton and there's another that covers all others and there might be a third one related to donald trump. and in that universe, the special prosecutors are obviously legal with hillary clinton, but with president trump they are totally unconstitutional. once you get your head around that it makes a lot of sense. >> the shamelessness of it is remarkable and i cannot believe except for the most steadfast allies of donald trump that they just don't actually line up

one -- one tweet next to another, one statement aft another. at some point and just realize this guy lies all the time. he changes his story all the time. he flip flops all the time and there are going to be a heck of a lot of great 30 second ads if he ever decides to run for re-election. they're not going to look good and all these people tha think donald tru igo get away with everything, wait. ef his name is every on a ballot again in 2020 and just look at the ads, the flip flops, the lies, the distortions. it's all going to come out in the wash. >> well, yes and no, because it all is coming out right now in real time, and then you look at certain polls across the country and you have to wonder if the lying and distortions and sort of the -- like lack of moral compass in everything that he does and the deflecting and the

race issues, my god, any other politician wouldn't survive a month of this. and yet he more than survives, so there's a part of me that worries that the country is being so desensitized and that there's a section of the population of the voting public that doesn't care, that has been so, i think, cast away by democrats and rlicans from the past several decades that we're stuck in this weird zone. at the same time, knowing donald trump, knowing him the way we used to know him and knowing his behavior and the way his brain works, if you read those tweets and you look at the way he's acting, this is a guy who feels like the walls are closing in and that things are getting too hot. coming up on "morning joe," senator rand paul knows the constitution backwards and forwards so what does he make of the president's claim to absolute power?

the kentucky republican joins us next on "morning joe."

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all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters. packed with goodness. we've all seen these. these like buttons and share buttons and these comment fields. well, it turns out these can be used to track you, whether you click on them or not, and so this year we are shutting that down. >> that's at an apple conference yesterday. apple taking another swipe at facebook as it rolled out an undau update to its browser. the jab comes on the heels of a new york times report that over the last decade facebook struck deals with at least 60 mobile device manufactures allowing deep access to personal information including

relationship status, religion and political leanings even from those who had setting to prevent that information from sharing with third parties. arguing those agreements were intended to help the device makers to create their own versions of the facebook app before it was widely available. contrary to claims b the new york times, friends' information like photos was only accessible on devices when people made decisions to share information with those friends. we are not aware of any abuse by these companies. the authors of that report for the new york times, what exactly was facebook doing and why did they not tell those people who were facebook users that their information was being shared with a third party? >> facebook was trying to get the facebook experience, pieces of facebook on to every phone and device it possibly could. from tvs to game consoles to phones. and so they shared the data with

device makers and said, take the data and use it in different ways that you want. if you want to have a like button on your own app, that's great. if you want to pull someone's contacts into your contact book that's great. this is not the app on your phone. it'sot a facebook app on your phone. this is a direct pipeline into these devices so that people on the devices can get their data, but it also means that the data is moving on to tens of millions of devices that they can't control. so they say that's okay because if you s intoacebk on your device in anyway, you are consenting to sharing the information that you have, but also your friends' information through that device and that's the slight of hand there. they're saying contrary to our claims, it's not true. >> there oonosomoment when a facebook user can say i want to opt out? >> the only way for you to opt out is if you knew all of the

device that all of your friends chose to use and not share that with your friend. you can't see the device at all. it's invisible. >> so the question is repeatedly over the past year, why is it that facebook cannot come clean? why is it that they cannot tell the complete truth about their access, their ability to access all of our personal data or most of it? >> i think there is an attitude that the company has an attitude that it's actually their data. it's not what they say publicly. they say it's your data, but what facebook is is a company that watches what you do on facebook and tells add versailleseve -- advertisers what you do. and there on the net, it's their information to sell against and they're now catching up with people who are like, i'm not sure i like that.

>> what are they saying in response to your story? >> they're saying it's no big deal. the facebook app is the main thing now and the facebook app on your phone is kind of a wall garden for facebook. but these partnerships were in operation until april. and they're telling brussels and london about their privacy issues. >> let's bring in rand paul of kentucky. thanks for joining us. where does facebook stand from your perspective? have they come forward enough to folks in washington like you in terms of what they plan to do to rectify the problem and what exactly has gone wrong? >> you know, i think there are two different questions we can look at. one is a legal question when you signed your agreement, your conditions to use facebook, did you agree to all of this and that's a real legal question.

i think there is legal exposure for them in determining whether or not you've agreed to things they're doing with your data. the second thing is do you want to participate with a group that does share your data. people have to decide are they okay with it or not. i separate the private world of facebook though from the government in a big way because facebook's obviously not going to put you in jail and can't hold you in legal jeopardy so i've been more concerned with government snooping and loss of private government entities than i have to facebook. but did you sign, did you agree to all of this and i think there's still potential legal ramifications of all this. >> did they agree to everything that you've just uncovered sm did users agree to where their information went. >> there is no explicit consent for users with these devices. what facebook says if you agree to share something with your friend you have agreed to share it with your friend on any

device they use which is not how the fdc consent order they signed is supposed to work. >> that seems concerning. >> i want to ask you about some of the news related to donald trump and the various aspects of the mueller probe that he addressed that have been reported on in the last 24 hours. the president obviously his lawyers and he asserting that he has the right to pardon himself, that he can't -- that he can ignore a subpoena from bob mueller and so on and so forth. are you at all concerned with the rather extreme, if you take it altogether, the rather extreme vision of executive privilege and executive authority that seem to be -- that the president is asserting and his lawyers are asserting on his behalf? >> you know, i think it's unknown whether a president can pardon themselves. if you read the constitution it's pretty wide open. it's never been tested. i think it will be universally

condemned if that were to happen and the president said i don't plan on doing this because i'm innocent. but we have a jockeying back and forth because we have a powerful prosecutor that's bbled by this and it's really why i've become very much opposed to the idea of special prosecutors really no matter which side we're on. if we do after every election we're going to become more like a banana republic that we're prosecuting the party that lost or won back and forth and i think it's very important whether or not we're at war in seven different places around the world and whether or not congress should decide that versus a president and somehow i think that's more important than all of this jockeying back and forth that has their political questions not necessarily questions of which direction we want the country to go. >> let me ask you this one quick followup, sir. if the president were to move to fire bob mueller, your reaction

would be to do what? >> i think it would be a mistake for him and i think he understands it would be a mistake as well. there are a lot of questions about whether or not you can be indicted, subpoenaed, forced to answer questions and there are arguments on both sides of the question for this. i think a lot of americans have a bad taste in their mouth when they see the government going into your private attorney's office looking through all the papers and the ramifications of that invasion of the attorney client privilege i think worries people. i think peopl are concerned about how much power that a prosecutor has. you rebel yomember elliot swits i'm going to tell your wife unless you help us in the investigation. prosecutors have too much power throughout our system and there are a lot of people who disadvantaged by this, not just presidents but also minorities and people in poverty are being

manipulated by a system where prosecutors have too much power. >> you were talking about the 17-year long war. i mean, world war ii was over in the snap of ager december of 1941 to august of 1945. you're holding a hearing tomorrow on the authorization of use of military forces which i think was first enacted in 2001. where are we on that and how long are we going to continue with this open ended authorization for war? >> in 2001, we voted to go after those who attacked us on 9 s/11. we're now involved in civil wars and you know, three different continents on africa, the middle east and in asia and none of it has been authorized by congress.

so senators came up with an authorizati authorization. the problem with their authorization is, it actually transfers the ability or the power from congress to the president and the only way we could stop war if it passes is to have a two hirds vote by congress to stop the president. so i think their authorization is a mistake. it's a real mistake because it transfers authority from congress to the president. but i think we've been at war for too long. we're at war in too many places and i'm for stopping the afghan war and i think the debate over this new proposal will give us a forum to talk about whether or not we should still be at war in afghanistan, and all these different pl. >> all right. really appreciate your being on the show this morning. >> thank you. >> up next, from madmen to mathmen, our next guest takes on the crisis facing the

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the greatest thing you have working for you is not the photo you take or the picture you paint. it's the imagination of the consumer. they have no budget. they have no time limit, and if you can get into that space, your ad can run all day. >> our next guest says that

ile madmen once ruled advertising they've now been eclipsed by math men. we're joined now and his new book out today is entitled frenemies. tell us about the book. what's the biggest problem? >> the biggest problem is the public which basically hates those ads, hates being interrupted particularly on cell phones and has grown up accustomed to netflix and youtube and hbo which don't have ads. >> or we can scroll through ads now. >> 55% of the people who record a show on their dvr skip the ads. >> joe, jump in. >> yeah, it's really interesting that even for an old guy like me who's 55 who grew up watching happy days and these things where you would sit through

30-second ads for a good 8-minute chunk of a 30-minute sit com, even i become kpas phas per rated. it's newspapers and magazines and facebook, 97% of their revenue comes from advertising. google almost 90% comes from advertising. what advertising does, you have a lot of casualties. >> so networks like this are now competing with outfits like netflix or amazon which has a subscription model, doesn't have to prove anything to advertisers, so what happens with a company like nbc or abc or cbs that has lived forever

for generation on the ad supported model. >> the networks have done, wrote a book in '91 and they were totally dependent on networks and advtising a i said if that continued they were doomed. what has happened since is government regulations, they gave retransmission consent from the cable company so the cable companies pay you for you programs and they had fenced in rules suspended so they're allowed to own the programs. so they have alternate revenue sources and they sell to netflix. cbs, i know their numbers, i don't know nbc's numbers, but cbs went 100% relying on advertising to 40% but if that advertising goes from 46% to 25%, they have problems. >> so we're talking about facebook and the advertising business. they collect data on you and use

it to make an incredibly precise targeting which is then squeezing these guys on the other side. facebook has a better way to target them and so what happens next for the industry if they're squeezed like that? >> well, the industry basically is saying, it dove tails with the reporting you've been doing the last several days and beyond that. the industry says if we could target we can get rid of the 30 second ad which you don't know who watched your target and we could basically say i know you bought a sport jacket at bar neo's and if you walk in we'll give you 20% on another sport jacket. so the customer then says hey, wait a second, who gay you permission to know all this? and what you're in is a seesaw. as targeting goes up, privacy goes down. as privacy goes up targeting

goes down and that's the cono problem. they agree with facebook. >> maybe the ads need to be better so we want to watch them. >> then they say we'll do 6-second ads instead of 30 seconds. but you have 20 six-second ads? who wants to be sandwiched. >> so three blind mice, there were three networks and now the whole stage has changed. the players on the stage has changed. first print, then electronics, where are we going to be in five years? what are people going to be watching? >> i don't know whateople will be watching. murdock has made an interesting bet by selling his studio production facility. he couldn't sell the network, but he has the network and it suggests that he's going to get out of the scripted business,

that he can't conflict with the prices and so he'll go to sports, news, and maybe reality shows. that puts pressure on the other networks saying can we really compete we have to get into, you know, that too. so that's one of the questions out there. i don't dare to say the answer to that. >> the book is "frenemies," the epic disruption of the ad business and everything else," out today. congratulations. thank you for being on. coming up, we'll read from "the new york times" editorial boards piece titled trump wants to pardon himself for blowing the midterms. plus, it's a busy morning in the white house. among the eight tweets sent by the president so far today, willie. >> he's gone from north korea to the national anthem to nascar, jeff sessions, border security, hillary clinton, the economy, and james comey, just a few of the topics. if you are looking for a house,

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"the new york times" editorial board is out with a stinging op-ed this morning entitled tmp wants to pardon himself for blowing the midterms and it reads in part this. more troubling is the president's emerging effort to preemptively place the blame for what promises to be a tough election cycle for congressional

republicans on what he now regularly denounces as the partisan rigged unconstitutional machinations of mueller and his team. message to the nation, don't blame m if my party takes a beating in november. the witch hunters are busy manipulating the system. when this presidentens that prevailing winds may not be blowing in his favor, he has basically one response, trash the system. at the core of what mr. trump is selling is the idea that all of government in politics are culture and rotten. and only he can be trusted to get things back on track. but on those occasions when he fails to deliver, don't look to him to accept responsibility. he'll just find another reason to blame the system. he blames the system but he also deflects wildly and ubss race at times to deflect. so he either blames the system or he finds a shiny penny to

wave in front of everybody. >> we saw it with the nfl yesterday. he and his lawyers took an absolute drubbing. the institutions pushed back. the smoke screene spews, you know, at the rule of law just bounces off the marble walls and goes back into his face, so then he changes his subject and race baits. "the new york times" brings up a great point, he trashes else institutions, from nato, the nfl, his own attorney general, meryl streep, his own fbi-appointed director. to allies like france and britain and canada. i think "the times" nailed it. it desperately deflecting every minute of every day. >> certainly that's true. this is also someone who, you know, has not -- haer in been -- he's like

anti-institutionalist, as you point out. he's not very subtle about it. you know, this tweet, trying to -- already trying to set out the notion that the inspector general general's report, they place so much hope in at the justice department, that that might not come out the way he likes it. he's trying to sew seeds of doubt around that. all -- on a variety of fronts, he's laying groundwork for things not going his way and the easiest way to do that is to assail the institutions around him, whatever they may be. >> k.c., bring us the capitol hill perspective on this, because i think it leaves republicans in a very difficult position again. >> you're already seeing the political kind of fault lines emerging here. my question after rudy giuliani was on after the weekend talking about how, well, you know, we're never going to pardon ourselves, that would ultimately lead to

impeachment is, hey, is this the first political red line there's ever been for this president. we started with p.o.w.s and he's been saying things everybody has insisted would be the end ofis career has known should be top. i wonder where that red line is. we have tread cruz saying he doesn't want to study this question because the president has done nothing wrong. that's exactly what sarah sanders said. rand paul said i don't know if the president has the power to pardon himself. i think it all goes back to the point that john heilman made at the top of the show, which is that, you know, republicans are with this president like we've never seen republicans be with a president before, with that one exception of 9/11, and george w. bush, and until these midterm elections -- and we'll see if they show that the country is really not with him, maybe we will see some of these guys break. >> so as chris matthews called it, the fog machine was turned

on high this morning with all these tweets on all these different topics. let's not get lost in the fact that again this morning the president of the united states says he wishes he'd chosen someone other than jeff seions. he saysed russia investigation never would have reached this point if sessions hadn't recused himself. >> forget the fo the president has told the country and his party that they can choose between their institutions and him. and at every juncture when his own power authority has been threatened or challenged, he has sought to undermine the person or institution doing the challenging. he wants a no limits presidency. he has effectively dared his own party to impeach him. that is the world and the presidency he wants to accomplish and be in a it's up to his party right if he can do it. >> all right. we close by getting ready for tomorrow, 50th anniversary, joe, of bobby kennedy's death. and we will have tomorrow a big show, an incredible piece by tom

brokaw. it will be great to hear tom brokaw and hear from his voice on this. our senior producer has a book out. and michael beshlosh wille joining us. a big show tomorrow, looking back 50 years. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika, thanks, joe. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today, starting with in hot water. paul manafort accused of sending encrypted notes to potential witnesses encouraging them to lie. mueller now looking to revoke his bail. >> somebody who is willing to tamper with witnesses is not rationally thinking enough to understand that cooperating is perhaps his best end game here. >> tired of winning? the president cancels a visit from the super bowl champion eagles after reports that less than a dozen players were going