good morning, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york at the half hour. here's what we're watching for you. new, the president right now attending a g-7 breakfast on gender equality. he showed up a little bit late this morning after friday meetings with the leaders of france and canada. he is expected to head to singapore in just a couple of hours, leaving the g-7 early. this for his highly anticipated summit with kim jong-un. on friday in quebec, he tried to smooth over tensions between him and justin trudeau after a combative lead-up to the summit.

>> justin has agreed to cut all tariffs and all trade barriers between canada and the united states. so i'm very happy. >> nafta is in good shape. >> we are actually working on it. we are actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries. and we have made a lot of progress today. we will see how it works out, but we have made a lot of progress. >> well, jokes aside, meanwhile, it appeared mostly they rejected the idea of reintroducing russia is after the president suggested that as he left the white house for the summit. joining me now retired general, chief international security and diplomacy expert. admiral, always good to get your insights. i want to get to what the "new york times" has written, sir. when the president arrived for the summit, had had become so

fractured they were calling it the g-6 plus one, with the president being cast as the dangerous outsider. give me your reaction to that headline. >> well, alex, we ought to package this alongside the upcoming summit in singapore with north korea. it is the tale of two sum mitts. and the president goes north and is frosty to our allies and friends. but it is all sweetness and light as we get ready to go to singapore with a brutal dictator kim jong-un. it is almost like the talking points got reversed. what we need is diplomacy in both sumsummits. what worries me about the first one in canada is this growing sense of gaffe. it is not just trade. it is also russia, as you mentioned. it is also iran, where we don't see agreement on the way forward. and it's climate, which is a big

deal for many of our allies. so that widening transatlantic gap ought to really concern us. >> can i focus on russia for a moment. what would prompt the president to return it to the g-8 that it lost and is that a good idea? >> i don't think it's a good idea. because we still have not seen any reaction in a positive way for vladimir putin to the sanctions and being kicked out of the g-8 at the time. it is a g-7 because russia took over ukraine and overtook crimea. there is no reason to suddenly readmit russia. broadly speaking, do we want to find a way to live alongside the russian system? of course we do. it is premature to go in this direction. and you see the overwhelming number of allies rejecting the

idea. >> the video that you were showing at the top of the president meeting with justin trudeau. the president called him out on twitter. he called him indignant. then they are laughing, discussing trade and tariffs. so can you explain that relationship? how it goes from global bickering via twitter. do you have a sense of the real nature of how they feel about each other? >> let's start with just human nature. i've been to a lot of these sum mitts. what happens in the lead up to the summit, alex, think of it as road rage. you're in your own car. you're driving along. you have your steering wheel. you're device and tweeting. easy to be out there and angry. but when you are actually face-to-face with another human being, human nature kicks in. people try to be more pleasant,

de-fuse things with humor. in terms of the actual relationship, the fundamentals are not good between our president and the prime minister of canada. and that will make it very difficult to land this nafta agreement, which broadly speaking, there are certainly things we could fix in it. but broadly speak, that's to the benefit of not only canada and the united states but also mexico. so these are two men who are on very different planets. not only in policy but, as you can see, in personality. it's a good thing they got along well in person at the summit. but frankly, look for a little more road rage before this one is over. >> he ya. beyond the relationship with trudeau, of course you saw before the summit, the president was expressing dissatisfaction left and right with world leaders. he is tweeting looking forward to straightening out unfair trade deals with the g-7 countries. if it doesn't happen, we come out even better. is the president right? are they unfair? is he making a bigger issue out

of something than he ought to be? >> we ought to be very careful in this area of trade, because it's complicated. it's been said that to every complex problem there is a solution. easy, simple, and wrong. and that would be kind of the case here. there are trade imbalances. we ought to address them by negotiating through the world trade organization. there are mechanisms to do that. there are ideas if we build high enough tariff barriers and block out goods from the rest of the world, we will somehow come out better. we tried in the holly-smoot tariffs that broke the global he economy. it led to the great depression. we want to prevent that. we want sensible trade negotiatio negotiations. but creating a trade war is not going to put anybody in a good place. there are no winners in a trade war. >> all right. looking ahead.

what are your expectations to the summit? >> they're pretty low. but that is not necessarily a bad thing. let me explain. kind of on the spectrum that runs from a meaningless photo-op to we solved the entire problem, we're kind of over here at the moment. but all indications are that the two leaders will come up with a road map forward that might ultimately lead to getting nuclear weapons off the korean peninsula. that's a good thing. compared to where we were six months ago, alex, when we were all talking about the potential seriousness of a war on the korean peninsula. we are in a better place. i think the administration has done a reasonably good job? moving forward here. let's see how it comes out. these are two volatile leaders in a very small room together. look for a plan that moves us forward and look for smiling faces at the end of the summit. >> all right. speaking of smiling faces, congratulations to the new addition to your family, granddaughter baby elizabeth.

welcome to her and thank you for your time. best of luck to the new family. >> always great to have a new baby. you are never closer to god than when you hold a baby in your happens. >> i agree. good one. thank you very much. making sense of the death of anthony bourdain. what to do with when a loved one is severely depressed. >> and the role of rudy guiliani in the trump white house. how effective he is and whether he is playing to an audience of one.

freak alert. jaylen. not like a slips-into-baby-talk when-he's-feeling-insecure kind of freak.

not even a wittle bit. jaylen's a freak about hand-slicing all-natural meats for every jimmy john's sandwich he makes. look at his unfettered joy. and not just for ham, you should see him with capicola. thank you, jaylen. your meat freakiness means better sandwiches for all. freaky fresh. freaky fast. jimmy john's. freak yeah. tributes continue to pour in for anthony bourdain, celebrated chef and world traveler who died yesterday. his death shining a global shot light on depression. his ex-boyfriend writing on twitter, it's lonely, magnifies everything into something awful and you don't know when or if this psych will end. so it's also terrifying and embarrassing and humiliating because there's something wrong with you.

dr. john torres has more on how you can spot the warning signs. >> 25-year-old kelly davis simply scrolling through social media this week has triggered suffering she's been trying to forget. >> as an attempt survivor, knowing what that is and knowing that pain is really hard. >> after instructing willing with eating disorders and ptsd as a teenager, she tried to take her own life three times. >> i kind of reached the point where i had done so much treatment and felt super isolated and felt, you know, like a burden on the people around me and was like, i'm done. i can't do it anymore. >> now mental health experts are concerned there could be a surge of copy cat suicides. there were 2,000 after robin williams' took his own life. an alarming 10% increase. >> when it becomes dangerous is

when we talk about suicide in a glamorized, sensational way. >> know the warning signs. changes in behavior, including using alcohol or not sleeping, and differences in mood, anxiety, agitation. >> this is a preventable cause of death. these are treatable brain-based illnesses, and we need to think of it in those ways. >> kelly davis knows she'll struggle with this for the rest of her life. but with treatment she now knows how to cope. >> it doesn't get perfect, but it does get better. >> all right. dr. john torres is joining me here in the studio. i want to ask you, that therapist with whom you spoke talked about glamorizing it. there is nothing glamorous about it. it is just tragic every way you look at it. but does social media make it a more serious problem? >> there is not a lot of research on this. but one that was looked at was in japan.

after a celebrity death by suicide, if it was covered extensive live in the news media like we're doing here not much happens. if it was covered on twitter and people picked it up and started retweeting it, the rates of suicide went up because of that. social media does seem to play a big impact here. >> interestingly, the cdc said 54% of people who died by suicide didn't know they had a mental health condition. >> some of the stressors that pushed them towards this death by suicide they think were financial stresses, relationship stresses, substance abuse issues. those are the big three. mental health conditions are a big player here as well. some people estimate 70% to 80% of those who died by suicide have an established mental health condition or one that hasn't been diagnosed yet. like the expert i was talking to said, it's a brain-based condition. it's treatable. you just need to get them in and get them the help they need. >> how do we on a wide scale

address this problem? >> one, there is stigma. we have to get around that. meaning exactly what she was talking about with anthony bourdain. they don't want to talk about it. it is embarrassing. it is nothing something we typically talk about. both deaths this week are highlighting and bringing to the forefront. >> it sounds like exactly what we're doing. you have to talk about it and say it's okay to get help. >> and that's the main thing. it is okay to get help. it is okay to tell people you're having issues. you're not the only one having issues. get help. >> thank you for the chat. it is so important we do that. and to dr. john's point, everybody, if you have a loved one you think needs help, anyone, call national suicide prevention lifeline. 1-800-273-talk. all right. back up north now to the g-7 summit in canada. the president attending a gender equality breakfast. he arrived a few minutes late. kristen, good saturday morning to you.

do we know why the president was about 15 minutes late or so? >> reporter: hi, alex. good to talk to you. i just spoke with an administration official who said the president was huddling with some senior staffers discussing g-7 related issues. when i pressed on what those issues were, one of them, the possibility for what is known as the communique. that, alex, is basically like the big joint statement that all of the countries put out at the end of these types of summits. there's been a lot of questions, uncertainty whether there will be such a group statement because there has been so much tension and so many differences, frankly, at the back drop of this g-7. some of it coming after president trump announced new tariffs after a lot of these countries infuriating them. and yesterday throwing a bombshell into all of this by saying, hey, russia should come back and rejoin this global group. and that was met with a fierce backlash by amount of the other leaders. in terms of him being late,

though, alex, even though you have this official excuse that's coming out, you know because we on air covered a these different summits, optics are everything. the president late to today's breakfast. he arrived late yesterday. and he's leaving early today to head to singapore to get to his next historic summit with kim jong-un. now, the prime minister of canada, who started the breakfast, of course the host country, weighed in on the fact that a few people were late. take a look at what he had to say earlier today. >> we are somewhat limited on time. so i think we will have to carefully get moving. is and any stragglers will come in as they arrive. but i know how hard everyone has been working on this. so i'm really so excited to get into this gender advisory council.

>> now, some of these events, alex, are more for malties. they are discussing gender equality, issues critically important to these democracies and economies. so, again, the optics of this very important. we know a number of leaders will hold news conferences today. there is no such event on the president's schedule. again, he's set to leave in just a few hours from now. we know they are setting up for a potential briefing. who will that be? will it be an administration official, someone else? will it be someone representing the president? we're all waiting to see if that briefing does, in fact, take place. but, again, alex, this has been an extraordinary g-7 summit. typically a lot of formalities go along with the summit. there have been sharp differences. yesterday sitting down with the prime minister of canada for a one-on-one with president macron of france. remember, the two had that

"bromance" going. that sort is of started to un f unravel because of the sharp differences over issues like tariffs, like the iran nuclear deal. they joked about it in front of the cameras. there were a lot of smiles. but the reality is they are still is very far apart on a range of these issues. so we'll be tracking to see if someone does in fact, brief us today. we hope so. president trump later today heads to singapore for his face-to-face with kim jong-un. >> can i just ask you. this gender equality breakfast, we know that conversation is continuing in a working session scheduled to start about 45 minutes or so from now for about an hour. will the president be attending that session before he takes off? >> the understanding is that he is planning to attend that session, alex. what he is going to be missing this afternoon are some other sessions that deal with the environment and, another critical issue. the president infuriated these

leaders when he pulled out of the paris climate agreement. they were pushing him for months to stay in, say, look, this is something we have got to do together as world democracies, as the strongest economies on ed he pulled out of that. i go back to the word optics, the fact that he's not going to be in these afternoon summits that are dealing with that critical, thorny issue, i think underscores the fact that you have these sharp differences on these critical topics. our understanding that he is going to be attending the next working session that you referenced and at about 10:30 taking off for singapore. >> kristen welker, thank you so much for joining us from canada. this meeting comes as the president is pushing this demand in his meetings with world leaders, take a listen to this. >> we're going to deal with the unfair trade practices, if you look at what canada and mexico, the european union all of them have been doing, for many, many

decades, we have to change it. >> let's bring in msnbc political analyst sir lierline maxwell. joe watkins and rick tyler. my saturday morning family. thank you so much for joining me. rick, to you first here, this nbc news article had this summary of the president's first day at g7. look at the headline. come late, leave early. offend host, alienate allies. ouch! then the president arrives late to this morning's breakfast meeting. how much of this do you think is strategic? how much of it is the president just going off-script? >> i think it's very strategic, it's not surprising, alex, two things can happen here. there are some unfair trade practices and then president trump is right to bring them up. milk products in canada are taxed at nearly 300%.

and that shouldn't be. same with lumg ber. the g7 is a chance to show the democracies of the world, the largest economies of the world, by the way russia is not even close, tiny little italy is much bigger than russia's economy, they should not be included. but he just, he uses that to cause a crisis. when he causes a crisis it causes him to gain leverage. and politically, his supporters are saying look at this. he's taken it to the g7 and he's requesting to get us a better deal. i don't think this is the way to go about it. the g7 is to set the process for how to resolve trade disputes. for his supporters, leaving up early, showing up late, taking it casually, you know, it's probably a win for him. >> so, joe, is the president intentionally alienating u.s. allies, does he get there's potential consequences to it? >> i think it's very much part of the strategy to at least keep the them on edge and certainly

with regard to the theater, the theater plays well in the states with his base. i agree with what rick said it underscores the fact that he believes that trade policies have been unfair for a long time and he's sending a strong and clear message to them that he's not going to stand for it any more. i think his base is very pleased with this. and clearly it lends itself to the theory that we see. theater that we se >> other than the base, serlina is there anything else about the president's approach that aligns with the allies? >> i don't think so. i think that with all the shenanigans that he pulled just yesterday on his way to the g7, throwing you know out the easter egg about russia rejoining, it seems that the president is hiding something. and i think that americans you know, it's one thing to say that there's no collusion, there's no obstruction, you know his talking points that he likes.

but every single thing that he does and says it seems like russia has something on him. why else would he say that out of the blue? it wasn't a prepared statement. the administration said that that was not a planned remark. and so it just seems like i agree with rick and joe that it's part of a strategy on you know, where he's trying to put people back on their heels and make everything a little bit more unstable, because he likes all the attention, i also go back to the fact that it seems to me that he is putting forth interests that are not the united states' best interests. first and foremost. and that's very concerning. >> there's another statement that may have not been a planned remark when the president gave insight as to why the first lady isn't joining him at the g7. >> first lady is great right there. she wanted to go. can't fly for one month. the doctors say. she had a big operation, close

to a four-hour operation and she's doing great. right there. and you know what, she's a great first lady. >> why do you think we're just hearing now that it was, this big four-hour operation? >> it could be a number of reasons. it could be the melania trump who seems to be a very private person, doesn't like to have her health issues broadcast all over the, all over the world. and she's, she is married to someone who will, who will broadcast things all over the world, right? and so i think it may be that. but usually in these situations you know, the comes teal will try to get out enough information so that people, it doesn't lead to more and more questions like the rollout of a four-hour operation like that wasn't known before. now it's news. if you want to make, if you don't want to make news, say what you said before. if you want to make news, add something new that everybody can wonder about. >> right. you know, melania trump, serlina

for her office's official response to rudy giuliani's claims that she believes the president's denial about an alleged affair with porn star stormy daniels. the spokesperson for the first lady said i don't believe mrs. trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with mr. giuliani. how do you interpret that? >> as a millennial, we call that shade. and i would say that that statement is pretty clear, that melania does not want rudy giuliani to speculate on her behalf and put words into her mouth. and i think that rudy was very interesting this week. he went to israel. he is the president's lawyer on russia and he was talking about all kinds of things. not just melania and what she was thinking and saying to him. but also about north korea and other matters. think that melania certainly is trying to i think communicate the message that she doesn't agree with rudy giuliani on the fact that the president did not have an affair with stormy

daniels. otherwise she would have said that explicitly in that statement and she didn't. >> joe, do you think that melania was throwing a little shade giuliani's way? >> i think her staff was protecting her. so that she doesn't have to become part of this whole deal and have to witness it. >> good to see you as always. zerlina, joe, rick. what the president is looking for and what may bebehind this, next. ♪[upbeat music]

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i had a very minor fender bender tonight!ionworks in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. but what a powerful life lesson. and don't worry i have everything handled. i already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. which is so smart on your guy's part. like fact that they'll just... forgive you... four weeks without the car. okay, yup. good night. with accident forgiveness your rates won't go up just because of an accident. switching to allstate is worth it. good morning to all of you, i'm alex witt at msnbc world headquarters. here's what's happening now. trade tensions. president trump apparently at odds with american allies, as the second day of the g7 summit kicks off. the relationship is probably better as good or better than it's ever been. and i t