>> the trump administration sen sends mixed messages. and the president just blames democrats. >> meanwhile the current and former first lady are speaking out on the policy. laura bush has clearly taken a side. melania trump, not so much. >> and another mas shooting. a gun fight injures at least 20 people in new jersey. one person is dead and the suspect in custody. good morning, everyone, it's

monday, june 18th. i we begin with the trump's administration with the outright denial of the separation of children from eir parents. steven miller said it was a decision and no one is exempt from immigration law but the secretary of homeland security claims no such policy exists. we do not have a policy of separating families at the border period. yet here's the counselor to the president saying the exact opposite on "meet the press ". >> nobody likes seeing babies ripped from their mother's arms. >> if i commit a crime i'm separated from my mother.

i will tell you that nobody lug this is policy. you saw the president on camera that he wants this to end. >> he can end it on his own. >> do you agree with children being taken away? >> i hate it. the democrats have to change their law. that's their law. >> quiet. that's the democrats' law. >> i think it's been well established that there's no law currently that requires president trump to do this. i mean, that has been shown to at is a . this is a deliberate policy change which is why you see a sudden spike over the last six weeks in the number of kids separated from their parents. >> president trump could stop this policy with a phone call. if he don't like families being separated you can tell dhs to stop doing it.

>> jeff flake and susan collins have fired off a letter demandingens as. they want to know how many churn vsh separated from their parents, how long the separations will last and what policy justifies it. the president seemed to acknowledge the policy as a a negotiating tool. families can fix it by working with republicans on new legislation. >> so we're also hearing from other republicans. congressman will hurt of texas touring a detention in his district overnight. >> to me it makes it very clear that in the home thee and the land of the brave we should not be using kids as a deterrent policy. this is something i think is actually unacceptable and it's

something that as americans we shouldn't be doing and this isn't a republican or democrat issue. this is an issue about how should you treat children. >> also speaking out, republican first ladies both past and present, melania trump's spokes person relating this quit. she believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart. former first lady laura bush wrote in a guest op ed that i appreciate -- and the concentration camp with the caption quote, other governments have separated mothers and

children. pretty startling to see that. >>o one can believe that civilized behavior is guaranteed. >> so president is said to head to capitol hill this week. the president is scheduled to meet with gop house members in an effort to clarify where he stands on a bill shielding dreamers. now, trump's trip comes to the hill. his trip coming to the hill comes days before the house is expected to vote on a pair of drills concerning immigration. the president's appearance comes just days after his off the cuff remarks on his support for the compromise legislation through the strategy by gop leaders into chaos. >> it sound sounds like they're going to take a vote on um grags probably next week. one of them the good light bill

and the other is something more moderate. >> i'm looking at both of them. i wouldn't sign the more moderate one. i need a country that gives this tremendous border security. >> and republican leaders indicated they were reluctant to move forward unless the bill had the president's support. the white house tried to walk back the comments saying in a statement that he fully supports the good lock bill and the house leelder ship bill ft he was commenting on the discharge and mott the new package. he would sign either the leadership bills. tom coal chalked up the president's comments to confusion. >> i was confused myself on friday but i think the president gave an impromptu press conference and he's been a busy

guy between north korea and the g7 summits so he may not have been fully briefed. >> goo good to sigh you this morning. so we know now that trump is heading t the hill i believe tomorrow to meet with gop leaders there to discuss the immigration bill and specifically to discuss this family separation that's bonn going on. we also know the major sticking point and other people on the other side of the aisle is this 25 billion now that they're going toeb demanding for the next ten years. >> what are the rods something changes here? >> i think it's unlikely that anything is going to come out of this meeting between the president and house republicans. tomorrow afternoon, president through a wrench in the plans when he mad that confusing statement about where he stood on both the good light bill which is a more conservative

brand but it is interesting that the president would even criticize either bill thauz technically they do meet the four pillars this administration has laid out, ending catch and release, providing a path to legal status. and providing funding for his board ir wall and the bill put forward pvides that $25 billion and enhanced border technology and so for the president to claim that he's disappointed in the bill or the make a confusing statement like he did is really alarming. >> so again that, when one is the president likely to back because i know there's kwon flikting reports. is there any indication which way he's leaning? >> i don't think anybody on capitol hill has any idea which

bill president trump supports. it was clear in those statements that he made last friday that he didn't really understand what was in either bill. he said he wouldn't support the more moderate one but both of these bills contain the four pillars that this administration has demanded in their immigration policy. so i don't know if he plans to endorse the bill. i think he's hesitant without support in the house to get it passed. that seems to be where it stands right now. >> confusion out of the white house? >> totally shocking. never heard this before. >> great to have you with us. we'll see you in about 30 minutes. >> lit's go to some scary final moments. one person was killed and at least 20 people were jaured. blake mccoy has more. >> reporter: a gun fight in

trenton, new jersey. sending bullets flying and people running. >> it was like pow, pow, and it was two or three people that went down. 20 feet from m >>. >> anybody hit over here? >> chaos as the panicked crowd, some injured poured into the street. the violence shattering a 24 hour art all night festival meant to brung the communi together. this photo taken hours before. 17 people were shot including one who got shot four times in the year. >> get an education. police have recovered multibillion guns and believe it was a gang related dispute. this is a community that knows violence all too well. >> to me it's like a nor hall thing. it's like, is it of going to end?

>> the violence you say has become normalhere? >> yeah. >> that's sad. >> shouldn't have to be that way. >>trenton's mayor pleading for pae peace not just here but across the couny. >> all shootings are a crisis. this isn't just a random act of violence, this the a public health issue. >> i spoke with the organizes who say they are deeply saddened but not deterred. >> i can say the worst thing about that report aside from the fact that so many were injured is seeing those kids saying this is normal for us. >> till ahead, one year into the special counsel investigation and mueller is still revealing secret contacts with russia who tries to help their come pain. >> and lieu di gl troys to

backtrack. those stories and a check weather when we comek. stay with us. (vo) new purely fancy feast filets.

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welcome back, everybody. president trump's former campaign chair paul manafort is jailed this morning after a federal judge reviewed claims that he and associate witnesses and president trump reacting to this news on friday. pouz, what a tough sentence for paul manafort. didn't know maufnafort of the m. giuliani telling the news quote, i don't understand the justification for putting a guy in jail. he added when the whole thing is

over things might get careened up with some presidential pardons. okay. >> giuliani told nbc news it doesn't mean president trump will do it but he certainly has the power to do it and giuliani sees an end to the probe coming telling the woug post we waashi want to have it declared illegal and unauthorized. >> two campaign insiders say a russian national approached them purportedly offering to sell dirt on hillary clinton. roger stone and others were in contact wit a man seeking $2 million for damaging info on clinton. discuss the offer on may 29th,

2016. neither pen disclosed the discussion tinvestigators. they now claim they were being set up. he had provided information to the fbi for 17 years according to the washington post. in the filing he said he had stopped his cooperation sometime after 2013. greenburg denied to the post that he had been denied when he met with stone. the fbi declined to comment. he said he was asked about the meeting but by robert mueller's prosecuto prosecutors. the may 2016 meeting came a few weeks after george papadopoulus said they have dirt on clinton and before they all met with russians on the promise of damaging information on hillary clinton. the meeting adds to the list of

trump campaign officials who have acknowledged contacts with russians in 2016. you see all of those on your screen. that is quite a lot. >> a busy spring and summer for the russians. >> peter strzok who's text messages were criticized is demanding to have his say. now strzok's attorney says in the letter that he intends to testify before the house judiciary committee and any otherongressional committee that asks to talk to him. special counsel mueller removed him from the probe after his messages were discovered. president trump sent three tweets about him this weekend. including quote, why was the fbi's sick loser peter strzok working on the totally

discredit discredited. yet telling his lover lawyer lisa page that we'll stop truch from becoming president. witch hunt. >> and house republicans have again theustice department a new in what they say is a firm deadline to hand over documents in the russia investigation. doj says they are trying to screen materials but congressmen say speaker paul ryan told them their time is up. >> paul made it very cloear, there's going to be action on the floor of the house this week if the fbi and doj do not comply with our subpoena request. >> the full tools to the house. >> including congress? >> that would be among them,

yes, sir. >> mr. rosenstein, the deputy attorney general and director wray have to decide whether or not they want to be part of the cleanup ew or they want to be part of the coverup crew. >> well, let's switch here and get a check on your weather with bill karins. tracking some severe weather but it's going to be a hot one today. >> you got a lot of rain in a few spots and a lot of heat. it was a holt father's day and now we're watching temperatures continue to soar in the east. storms this morning we had some flash flood warnings. also green bay is soaked and later today they're going to translate into northern new england so from burlington, a little slice here of upstate new york and also portions of maine. wasn't damage with those storms. how about the heat numbers? we have 61 million people under

heat advisories and the temperatures themselves will be in the 90s and the heat index will be into the 100s. and tomorrow in the mid-atlan c mid-atlantic, just one of those gross days. raleigh is going to feel like 106. it's going to be super humid and d.c. not fun today or tomorrow. we wanted the heat. and here it is. >> he asked for it. >> it came very quickly but that's dangerous heat. that's not had in mind. >> what did you have in mind? >> anything but the snow that we had up until april. >> still ahead, a wild opening weekend in the world cup and history is made at the u.s. open. we'll tell you about that next in sports.

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weekend also had a catastrophic saturday in a round to fin irning two shots back. f ironically strange was one of the fox sports reporters on the ground following koepka yesterday. and a major moment for mexico as they pull off a stunning upset over defending world cup champions germany. the celebration back in mexico city was so massive it caused a small earthquake will officials saying it was quote, artificially by massive jumps and germany's first loss in the world cup since 1982. switzerland played brazil to a 1-1 draw. be zil took the early lead but

switzerland added in the last minute and a half. and we have coming up today, sweden squaring off against south korea. belgium playing panama and england taking on tonisia. >> is this your first time off the couch? >> i can say i've watched every minute of the world cup so far. none of the favorites, spain, brazil, none of them have actually demonstrated a very strong opening match and i think a lot of people are excited. we'll see what happens. >> this could be one of the tournaments that will be wide open. >> wait and see. >> still ahead, congress demands answers on the president's policy of separating migrant children from their families and the first lady breaks her silence. ♪ ♪ ♪ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ♪

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welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman. the trump administration continued to deny its policy separates migrant children in their parents at the southern border. nbc news white house correspondent kelly o'donnell

has more. >> outrage outside a detention center in new jersey. protesters railed against the trump administration action that separates children from parn parents accused of violating immigration laws. >> inside, democratic members of congress crammed into the lobby for what they called an unannounced inspection, but cameras could not follow. >> believe me, tearing children from the arms of their mother and their father is not the right decision. it has got to stop. >> father's day, damn it. and you have a right to talk to your children and you don't even know where your children are. >> the plight of children prompted a rare move by the first lady who weighed in with a statement fr her office. mrs. tump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides can come together to achieve successful

immigration reform. melania trump carefully presented a softer tone saying we must be a country that governs with heart. echoed by top advisor kellyanne conway. >> as somebody who's got a conscience, you saw the president on camera. >> in fact former trump stat gist and immigration hard liner steve bannon called this a line in the sand. >> the president is enforcing a zero tolerance policy. he has not been given his wall and i believe he's going to enforce this policy. >> two republican senators negotiating how much congress could spend on the president's border wall will be meeting with limb in the white house. but there are divisions about how to handle the crisis involving children. some are demanding answers from

the administration about the treatment of families lawfully seeking political asylum. they are not violating immigration laws but in some cases they're being separated too. >> all right. tharmg you for that report. senate majority leader is the latest high ranking republican to criticize the investigation. watch this. >> what i think about the mueller investigation is, they ought to wrap it up. it's gone on seemingly forever and i don't know how much more they think they can find out but if the ig is through, you know, why can't the mueller investigation finally wrap up? >> interesting. however, the white water investigation into president clinton though, that lasted nearly 3,000 days compared to less than the 400 days for the mueller investigation. on friday john brennan discussed

his preelection briefing with mcconnell on the russian interference in the election. >> i spoke with leader mcconnell as well as others. >> were they questioning your findings at that time? >> senator mcconnell did, yes. >> under what guise? >> i think he was -- he thought that maybe the democratic administration was trying to undermine a republican candidate and i told him and i said, senator, i would not in any way split si politicize any type of consideration. and so i let it be known in no uncertain terms that i did find that comment of his a bit repugnant. >> so now to president trump's attorney michael cohen. according to politico report, federal prosecutors revealed on friday that they had pieced back

documents found during the raids last april. they said they had managed to download the contents of an old blackberry found in the raids as well as mags on newer phones. approximately 731 mesges were found on encrypted apps and were turned over cohen's lawyers to review. >> thet's talk father's day. president spending some of his father's day on twitter lashing out. funny how the quake news and i gave so much to north korea because i met. that's because that's all they have to disparage. we got so much for peace in the world and more is being added if finals. even got our hostages remains. it's unclear what president meant by finals. he also made the quote, holding

back the quote war games because they are very expensive and they said a bad light during a good faith negotiation, also quite provocative. in a statement north korea says it was kim who told trump it was quote urgent and the quote, provocation is how north korea views the south korea exercises. and some were totally unaware and caught offguard during his post summit news conference regarding exercises. south korea has not yet committed to ending these exercises. >> and trump lamented his people don't treat him the way kim jong un's people treat the dictator. >> he's the head of the country and he's the strong head. don't let anyone think anything

different. he speaks and they sit up at attenti attention. i want my people to do the same thing. >> well, just before you met with him, he cleaned house, three of his top generals, some of the -- >> i think he fired at least. when you say he fired. >> three that we know of. >> maybe fired at least. fired may be a nice word. >> an important note here during his relatively short range kim jong un has ordered the execution of several hundred officials in both public and private settings. >> okay. >> never a good idea when you're referencing kim jong un as a model for your own behafz you when you say you want your people to sit up in attention. >> and also saying that the americaning are my people. >> join joining us now, gabby,

president trump going on a quite a twitter terror over his meeting with kim jong un and the media's coverage of it as he likes to do. there also seems to be a divide over what trump's own military officials and allies now about this decision to end military exercises. what are you hearing about the president's mind set and the process he went through in making this decision over these matters? >> well, it seems as though this came after the fact. and it wasn't mentioned in that joint statement that was signed in singapore last week by president trump and kim jong un. there was no mention of ending joint military exercises and so this is something that certainly caught a lot of ofirms jaufr gua -- officials jaufr guard. and in that new york times report that came out this

weekend it indicated there are people on air force one scrambles in route back to the u.s. to alert our allies includi including south korea that we had decided to end these so-called war games. >> i want to ask you about president's fixer and former lawyer michael cohen because it seems his list of legal troubles is piling up because of these records that they've been able to piece together, documents that they found that were shredded in his office. they've recovered data on his phone. how damning could some of the evidence be for cohen's case? >> it could be very damning. it could also be mundane paperwork that was shredded. we don't know what was contained in those pages that were pieced back togher but it doesn't look good for michael cohen. it could be the smoking gun. these are questions that will

hopefully be answered in the coming weeks as we do learn more about what was contained in thand a these encrypted messages that were found on the blackberry and other phones that were seized by stigator >> and michael cohen has been disappoint in his lawyer. you get a sense this is coming into a clearer picture. >> all right. thank you very much. still ahead, everyone, disputing that president trump has ever told a lie, the justification and steve bannon is going to explain the president's pattern of fabricating facts. >> and bill karins has a check on the forecast including some relief for some severe weather.

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trump has never lied or misled the american people. >> you famously kept the white board of presidentialpromises. that's a promise that he obviously broke. he has not always told the truth. >> i don't know that. i mean, to -- from what i see he has. this is another thing -- >> you think the president h never lied. >> not to my knowledge, no. >> he says things that are untrue all the time. >> i think he speaks in a vernacular that protects the people in the this country. >> watch this. >> how are you going to celebrate father's day? >> work. i'm going to be calling north korea, i'm going ton calling -- right now i have a call from your friend from france

emmanuel. >> the problem we've had. the president did actually neither one of those. instead he spent part of father's day as well as saturday at the national trump national golf club in virginia for several hours each day and the white house has not released a readout of any phone call with north korea or with emmanuel because actually the french president also puts out a statement when the president calls and they haven't put out a statement saying that truch had called. >> let's get a check on your weather now with bill karins. summer is finally here but now it's too hot for ayman. >> you can't make that guy happy. >> excess i have heat in a few areas. so chicago and st. louis, that's the case for you. from new york city to harrisburg, the interior section

of new england, heat advisories spread through the u.s. mid supper like heat. highs in the0s so it's a little touch of humidity that makes it uncomfortable. then this stuff tomorrow, this is when you get really dangerous. 106 in areas of the carolinas. in texas you were blazing hot. may and then beginning of june and now you've got tropical moisture heading your way. hous three inches of rain you picture possibilities of flooding. so here's how your week ahead goes. building heat in the east. hef sli rain developing in texas. we could have some delays at o'hare. wednesday we watch still a chaps of storms, still a chance of flooding in texas. it looks very sunny and quiet there for much of the week and

by friday we end the week with weather in the northeast. still stormy throughout the ohio valley. >> thanks for that. >> still ahead, the escalating trade war between u and china helped kick the week off on oodown ur down note. >> and what the group's meeting this week could mean for where the cost of crude is headed. details on that and the other stories driving your business day coming up. ♪ you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel.

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les turn to markets. china threatened duties on american oil imports in response. we're joined live from london. will isn't the only thing china is threatening tariffs on. >> retaliatory tariffs around $50 billion on more than asia doing poorly over the course of the day. it's not a pretty picture in europe as the german markets in particular trading down with a bit of particular uncertainty and ahead of the u.s. market opens the s&p 500 and nasdaq and dow jones looking to open lower. another market indicator that oil price a bit of a rough few days ahead of the opec meetings in veena. president trump complaining prices are too high.

likes like the saudis may be listening and cooperate with the russians to increase production. will that bring the price down where they essentially just making up from the shortfall from venezuela where we've seen production collapse in recent months. >> google may be blocked in china but the tech giant seems to have found another way to expand its presence in asia and battle amazon as well. what can you tell us about this? >> yeah. they've agreed to spend more than half a billion dollars, $550 million, to buy more than 27 million shares in jd.com, one of china's largest on-line retailers. they're calling this a strategic partnership. the two companies are promising to build up the kind of logistics operation we've seen as being crucial to on-line retail all over the u.s. they say this is about reducing friction and personalizing the shopping experience. that sounds like another man jeff bezos the founder of amazon, doesn't it. >> it does. always great to have you with us. happy monday, live from london.

coming up, everybody, axios nick johnston has a look at one big thing and coming up on "morning joe" the massive outcry over the trump administration's immigration policies, the president spending his weekend trying to shift the blame amid the uproar over grant children being separated from their parent at the border. mixed messages from the president's administration on where he stands on that matter as questions swirl over trump. we'll get on board with the republican plan to strike a deal with immigration or not. "morning joe" just moments away.

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let's do some card twirling twirling cards e*trade. the original place to invest online. all right. joining us now from washington, d.c. with a look at ax yose a&m it's the editor in chief. two big things today, one is yours and the other we will tell you about, apparently your birthday, happy birthday. i can't believe axios made you work on your birthday. >> no days off. >> the one big thing this

morning is the increasing pressure growing on president trump to deal with the situati of children at the border coming from not democrats but republicans. we saw over the weekend former first lady laura bush in the op-ed calling the policies cruel and melania trump, current first lady, who rarely weighs on policies outside of her anti-bullying campaign is something she opposes. when president trump meets with house republicans tomorrow he will be confronted by them over the issue, something that has become a media firestorm and action needs to be taken. >> what is axios hearing in terms of how the president views this massive focus that has been sort of made on his administration policies? >> yeah. so we know this president is an advocate consumer of media in newspapers and on cable television and the increasing coverage, probably something certainly he is seeing and somebody who likes to stay ahead of these stories and ce driven by that. remember when pictures of children in syria involved in the chemical attack those images of those children compelled the

president to launch missile strikes which changed the policy on that. could be the media firestorm could nudge the president. >> ivanka commented about those chemical weapons attacks with children. hasn't yet commented on the debate surrounding this. how could this intense debate on immigration actually have an impact on the upcoming mid-term elections. is it likely to be a factor and issue for voters? >> if this problem isn't solved absolutely absolutely. immigration hasn't been a big thing, it slipped to the back burner but a long time until the eselection and a lot of issues can come up. >> let's hope they're able to figure something out for november. >> for the sake of the kids, not the politics. >> axios is reporting on an interesting conversation between two administration officials it seems. take us inside when the president goes off script. what are we learning? >> the example we have here is when the president with an infrastructure event a couple months ago had one line that wasn't in the script saying that he was going to pull out of syria very soon.

withdrawing all u.s. forces from that area. we have reporting from inside the west wing, chief of staff general kelly and one of his deputies were watching speech talking to each other and said he promised, kelly said that trump promised he wouldn't go off script and announce any syria policy and a couple minutes later that's what he did. >> what is this exchange show nous terms of the task that people like john kelly and other white house employees face on a daily basis in trying to keep the president on message, not just in those big speeches, policy speeches, but things like twitter and social media? >> yeah. absolutely. i mean, the best ones in the west wing are the ones that roll with the punches, the president sets his own message, own agenda, he decides what he wants to say it and when he wants to say it and aides have to be ready to turn on a dime and implement those changes. >> live in washington, d.c., hope you get a birthday drink at some point in the day there. we're going to be reading axios am in a little bit. sign up for the letter going to sign up.axios.com.

>> that does it for us. a "morning joe" starts right now. form strong, vibrant and loving fo families where you pa along our cherished values to the next generation. >> my kids will only have ever known me as a weekend dad. i just can't let that happen. >> i would have dinner with my kids almost always and i'm always available to my children. >> this country always takes care of its little ones. never a time where we could have more confident in taking care of our little ones. >> yikes. it's nice for them. it's good. republican leaders have spent a lot of time talking about lifting up families and caring for children, talking about their own kids, that's not what's happening on the southern border of the united states and that's where we begin this morning. good morning and wel to "morning joe." it's monday, june 18th. with us, we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle, republican communications

strategist rick tyler, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department, aleez jordan, political writer for the new york times nick confessore and columnist and associate editor for the "washington post" david with us, nbc news national political reporter heidi prisbella. joe has the morning off but we'll be hearing from him through his tweets. we begin with the trump administration on both defending and outright denying its policy that separates migrant children from their parents at the southern border. this is where we ended the show on friday and it's where we begin today because this is so unbelievably frightening what is happening and it's also frightening how little people are able to do to stand up to the president especially rens. senior policy adviser stephen miller, that young man right there, told "the new york times," quote, it was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero