k you ve much, everybody. >> i'm very concerned, mika. >> what's that in. >> this water. willie, look at this water. if this water spills, we're all going to get wet. >> uh-huh. >> but i can't drink that water. >> why? >> i just can't, i can't drink that water, the last, the last host put that water there, i can't drink it. >> what? >> i can't drink the water. >> okay. >> willie, can i drink the water? >> i think you can drink the water. >> no, i cannot. barack obama put that water there, i cannot drink it. i can't drink the water. i cannot drink it it is impossible. are you catching on yet. i can't drink the water. >> is the water a parallel -- >> it's barack obama's fault. he put the water there, i can't drink it. >> okay. >> what's in the ns today. >> president trump said -- his executive order -- i saved the water by drinking that water.

>> thousands of children still detained by the u.s. government might disagree. where are the girls? it's not the only issue the president feels that he has fixed. >> we're doing well at solving problems. you know what when i became president, we had north korea, we had the iran deal, which was no good. we had lots of problems with trade and bad trade deals. lot of things that we solved and we're solving. >> okay. stop. i got to stop that. i got to stop it right there it's amazing because, what's amazing is there are actually people, that go to p.t. barnup circus and believe everything they see and hear. a sucker is born every day. i fixed north korea. they still have nuclear weapons, is the world any safer today than it was before the summit meeting? nothing has been accomplished yet, other than we have elevated a young dictator and drawn them

even closer to china, correct? >> correct. >> what about iran? he says he's taken care of iran. the fact is now that we are more distant from our european allies and now the iranians can stay in the deal. they just deal with the europeans. who aren't going to follow us. so we're isolated. there's still an iran deal. it's just they're even more empowered to isolate us. >> and they are resuming certain kinds of enrichment and continuing to destabilize the region. >> trade, the president talked about the great thing he has done. trade battles with canada. trade battles -- from what i have read, it's destabilized, the international economic order. yes? no? >> trade has been one of the great engines of global order in american economic growth and it's been placed in jeopardy. >> enter are no republicans on capitol hill that think what he is doing on trade is a wise

thing. >> problems -- not solved. >> problems made much worse, thank you, mr. president. >> good morning, everye and welcome to "morning joe." joe's back, he's here. i ow -- sometimes he speak clearly. he is here. >> parables. >> we did lots of fighting over issues, so it should be a good show today. >> no, we didn't. >> yeah we did. >> don't do that. not on the air. >> what are you doing. it's 6:03. >> can i ask you a question? >>y know. >> we've been engaged for 13 years. can i, you think i should be able to hold her hand at this point in the engagement? >> with her consent. >> if you be quiet i'll hold your hand. >> i don't know what that means. >> so i can do the news. >> the show is off to an interesting start.

>> the red sox -- god, they can't beat the twins, seriously? >> we can't do that and the yankees are doing exceptionally well. >> the red sox are going to be fine. >> did you see the walk-off home run. >> the astros. >> it's the june swoon. the astros did they win again last night? >> i know you have a lot to say and i can't wait to hear it, actually. is thursday, june 21st. with us, politics editor for the "daily beast" nbc news national political reporter heidi przybilla on set. president of the council on foreign relations and the author of the book "a world in disarray" richard haass. >> what are you doing this weekend with his book? >> it's going to the sauces. >> and white house reporter -- >> sauce works very well in a

whataburger style hamburger. >> and jonathan lemere is with us. >> what's wrong with the red sox? >> stopped hitting. >> you cannot hit the ball. you haveale go out pitching extraordinarily well through seven, eight innings and we can't score more than a run. >> and the bull pen remains an issue. and the yankees, giancarlo stanton became a yankee. >> i'm going to do the news now. >> hold his hand so we don't have to talk sports. >> whatever it takes. >> the president held a rally last night in minnesota hours after signing an executive order that halted his administration's very hideous and unpopular policy to separate migrant

families from their children. at the southern border. at the rally, he mentioned the executive order, almost as an after-thought. >> so the democrats want open borders, let everybody come in. let everybody pour in. we don't care. let them come in from the middle east, let them come in from all over the place. we don't care. we're not going to let it happen. and by the way, today i signed an executive order we're going to keep families together. but the border is going to be just as tough as it's been. >> they won't admit it, but president trump's executive order yesterday was a big reversal from what both he and -- >> huge reversal. >> jeff sessions announced it in april and the president called it a law many times, and he defended it. >> i do have to say this. because there are people out there that i saw yesterday

saying still saying that this was barack obama's law. >> no. trump's policy. >> such a lie. it is, that is false as actually people who believe that neil armstrong didn't walk on the moon. you really -- you have got to take the scales off your eyes. the president was lying to you, saying time and again that only the congress could fix this. they've been falsely stating that only congress could fix the problems and that the democrats were to blame. now listen -- as jesus said, let those who have ears to hear, hear. here is the president. >> wait, wait, you can't do it through an executive order. >> until these loopholes are closed by congress, it is not possible as a matter of law to detain and remove whole family

units who arrivellegallyn the united states. congress and the courts created this problem and congress alone can fix it. congress is the one that needs to fix this. it's a law, passed by the united states congress. >> there's only one body here that gets to create legislation, and it's congress, our job is to enforce it. and we would like to see congress fix it. once again, it's congress's job to change the law. >> i hate the children being taken away. the democrats have to change their law. that's their law. the democrats forced that law upon our nation. i hate it. they gave us the laws. >> that's a democrat bill. that's democrats wanting to do that. and they could solve it very easily by getting together. but they think it's a good election point. that's the law and that's what the democrats gave us. >> i say it's very strongly, the democrats' fault. they're obstructionists and they are obstructing. >> we're having a lot of

problems with democrats, they don't want to vote for anything. this has been going on for 50 years, longer, this has been going on under president obama, under president bush. this has been going on for many many years, we're going to see if we can solve it. this is not something that happened just now, you look at the images from 2014. i was watching this morning and they were showing images from 2014, they blow away what we're looking at today. and that was not doing this, that was during the obama administration. i saw images that were horrible. >> of course it's unbelievable. i got to go through this, willie. i can't do it. the president says he can't do it. he can't drink the water. he can't end this policy. jeff sessions announced they were starting in march. kierstjen nielson says it is not possible. congress and the courts created the problem. only congress and the courts can fix it. sarah huckabee sanders, the democrats did it, the democrats

have to change it. this bill, this law, we can't change it. obama did it. bush did it. this is objective. objectifiably, you can look at this everyone that kirstjen nielsen said there was a lie. everything that sarah huckabee sanders said there was a lie. everything the president said there was a lie. everything that the administration has been saying about this is a lie. this is a decision donald trump and jeff sessions made, and they executed it. and yesterday the president proved that he is a liar on this front. and that kirstjen nielsen went out and lied for him and sarah huckabee sanders went out and lied for him and everybody in the administration that has said he couldn't fix this, are liars. >> remember, kirstjen nielsen said this is not a policy.

this is not even a policy. they came back the next day and said there was a policy. >> are there any men who have been trotted out to talk about this? >> when she was asked whether this policy was intended to send a message to people deciding whether or not to come into the country, she said, i am offended by that question. i am deeply offended. meanwhile jeff sessions, stephen miller and many others have said yes this is a tough deterrent. it's a tough deterrent. and by the way we should point out and we'll get into it. there are still 2300 or so kids separated from their families, this executive order does nothing about them. they are still sitting in legal limbo. >> what about the girls? >> heidi, one of the things, there's so many disturbing elements to this. but what would we be saying if russia seized 2300 children? and if russia didn't allow the world to see pictures of babies being incarcerated, toddlers being incarcerated.

young girls being incarcerated. these centralized state of donald j. trump is refusing to allow the press and by extension americans, to see what condition toddlers are being incarcerated in in the united states of america. babies are being -- 3-year-old girls are being incarcerated. this is something that erdogan would do. this is something that putin would do. this does not happen in the united states of america. and i would like anybody that supports donald trump to tell me why, why is there a news blackout? why can't we see what these young babies, what their incarceration looks like? >> if there with was ever a moment that we as nation should realize what it means that we are retreating from our traditional role as a beacon of human rights internationally -- it is what is happening on our

own soil. and you're right, joe, we still have not gotten in to find out what the conditions are. and now we're talking about moving these children to military-style camps. we don't have any kind of clarity as to what's going to happen after 20 days, we still have this agreement. and to your point about the orwellian world we're in -- iliana ros-lehtinen said it best when she said it's like the arsonist trying to play fireman. 24 hours, the president himself sayi ining we've got to take th kids. and then sitting in the oval office and hoping that the world and the nation now use him as this benevolent leader who is rolling back 60 years of bad policy. no, it's 60 days of horrific policy. >> you asked if a man -- let's start with jeff sessions. >> he got to announce it and read off a piece of paper.

>> who announced that we're going to have. which proved that everybody was lying. this is what's so fascinating. i guess the most intense trumpists may say well, they're in our country illegally. as i have stated time and again, really conservative when it comes to immigration. i think borders mean something. the international law, international order is fantastic. but i'm a big believer in borders and boundaries and nations. but that said, even political prisoners have protections under the geneva accords. even political prisoners -- we have a right for inspections. even, we even have cameras going in, to guantanamo, to show gitmo so we get a look at the prisoners, we get a look at conditions. right now, there's a news

blackout, richard. help usut this in better perspective. we know the united states doesn't behave this way. where toddlers are incarcerated and the press not allowed to show americansha situation is. and infants are incarcerated and the press is not allowed to see it. where does this happen? has this ever happened in the united states? is this what happens in russia? where they seize children and put them in a black hole? >> i expect it's only a matter of time before international, someone calls for international inspectors and ngos to ce into the united states to inspect how we're doing on human rights grounds and the rest. building on heidi's point. one of the most important things in foreign policy is not what diplomats do, it's the example we set as a society. the quality of our society, the quality of our politics, the strength of our economy. this is a major international setback. we've gone a long way from being the shining city on the hill. one other thing -- if you're that concerned about your

borders, and we should be, we should be doing more in places like guatemala, honduras, el salvador. we have got to try to do things down there, so people do not feel pressured or compelled to flee to the united states. we dramatically induced immigration from mexico how? it's called nafta. >> don't tell president trump and his supporters that one of the reasons why we had negative immigration flow into the united states over the past several years, under the obama administration, was because nafta was working so well that actually people were flooding back to mexico because their economy is growing. >> plant colombia had a tremendous impact on the strength of its institution. the if we want to protect our borders, one of the main tools we have is to strengthen the police forces in these countries to improve their economies to do

something about corruption. deal with it at the source, we'll find ourselves where we don't have to make these awful policies. >> you mentioned international bodies inspecting what's happening here. one of the things i've been struck by is what congress has done in rese, which is they've jumped into a legislative debate. which is problem i had not going to end with actual legislation passing, but they've not launched an oversight investigation about how this policy came into effect. but more critically, which i think we've glossed over a little bit here, which is how 2,350 families were torn apart by our government and how our government seems incapable or incompetent to put the families back together. >> where are the children now, sam? how could the white house announce this yesterday, and not have an answer to -- how are you going to reunite these children? who were ripped in some cases from mother who is were breastfeeding? >> the answer is either that they are morally callous about this or they're incompetent

about this and they don't have track of these children. if we think about, if we think about government tragedies in our lifetime, the idea that a government could be responsible for separating 2,350 family it isself, and then incapable of fixing it, is up there among one of the great tragedies of a government institution. >> i'll tell you what, been in whatever this is, for 25 years, between congress and the media. and the only other instance i can find, not 9/11, because that was an attack from an outside force. but katrina. this is, this, this is the closest thing that i've seen is katrina. and you know i was on the west coast with my daughter, taking a father-daughter trip across the west coast, quite ironic, that there i am able to spend time with my girl.

and other parents along the southern border, don't know where their 2-year-old daughter is. their 3-year-old daughter is. and i mean it's, it really is unspeakable. but as i was calling back home and talking to mika, talking to everybody else, i heard anguish on the other side of the phone line to friends and family. that reminded me of what they were saying during katrina. >> it's playing out in front of your eyes, right? it's on tv, it's not some hidden crisis. it's something we can watch on tv like katrina. we were watching saying, how is this happening? why isn't our govnment doing anything about it? >> i thought about the katrina analogy. >> that was a natural disaster. >> this is imposed by the president. >> again not to put too fine of a point on it. it was a natural disaster made so much worse by, by human

inaction and also by corruption in new orleans new orleans should not have flooded and those people should not have been in that position. >> these are not deliberate -- >> those are acts of omission. these are acts of commission. this is qualitative. >> jonathan lemere, part of the question why the trump administration wasn't prepared better and what to do with the 2300 kids, who today are not seeing their parents, we don't know when they will, or if they will, is it happened so quickly. donald trump coming yesterday morning and saying let's do an executive order. the chief of staff john kelly and others saying, we can't do it like this, it can't supersede law, et cetera, et cetera. how did this come to be, donald trump saying he wanted to get it done before he got on the plane to minnesota. >> we had days of the president saying this couldn't be done this way. that he would say, incorrectly, that it couldn't be done by executive order that it had to be congress and it seemed like the white house was trying to

pressure capitol hill so they would come up with some sort of solution so the president was not seen as having to reverse himself on this. eventually he did cave to public pressure. and as much as the white house is trying to spin this as, this is sort of a benevolent act that trump i ending what obama started and of course that's incorrect. this is something they changed. i think it's very striking last night at that rally in minnesota, how he makes barely a mention of this executive order which reverses the policy. and instead spends so much of that rally really hammering home his very tough hard-line immigration stances. as if he sort of proving that his bona fides on that issue, the issue that he thinks got him the white house, the issue why he was willing to h t fight in the first place, these recent days and our report egg was telling people around him that he thought this would be a good cultural war, kind of victory here. akin to the nfl players kneeling for the national anthem. >> jonathan, you saw the polls,

it's 17% supported this policy. donald trump was working the 17% on this policy. people think this guy is such a brilliant politician? he's not. he's boiling it down. it's one of the great misreads i think of recent american political history. the guy lost to hillary by three million electoral votes. he got elected against one of the worst campaigns, one of the worst campaigners in modern american history. they didn't even show up in wisconsin, barely, they didn't nd barack obama on michigan on election day. this guy is not a great political mind. he knows how to poke people and insult people. but he has been playing a 17% hand for a week and a half. and his poll numbers will drop from it. and already we've seen the ballot test between republicans and democrats are breaking the democrats' way.

>> his poll numbers had ticked up before this crisis. and as we know, trump so often just -- he aims all of his policies at his base. and i think this also shows us in recent days, how much of it he is, he is a lone wolf. he's flying solo on a lot of these decisions. there are very few voices around him that can tell him no, mr. president, you shouldn't do this and that includes members of his own family. and this is a decision that he went with, you know, of course there are people like stephen miller, john kelly, who are advocating for it as well. at the end of the day, this was trump's decision and he was very frustrated yesterday that was also going to be seen as his reversal. >> we're going to be talking about ivanka and melania being the two people working to get him to change the policy. >> i actually had an exchange with her yesterday, which we'll talk about. still ahead on "morning joe," what was ivanka's role in all of this? we didn't hear from the top

white house adviser whose focus was women and families and babies until after her father issued the executive order. plus -- michael cohen steps down from his role at the rnc and throws shade at t president's policies in the process. i think it's over. >> willie, my tofrts professor -- >> owes going to flip. >> would always say as he was setting you up for the kill in the torts class, he said you ought to see this next question coming at you like a freight train out of the mist. at that point would you cower because you knew the professor was coming at you hard. >> what it might mean for any potential plan to cooperate with investigators, you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you've got a good record and liberty mutual won't hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. you hear that, karen? liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges.

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hi! are you two getting along? oh, yeah, yeah. [ hiss ] [ gasps ] [ birds chirping] ♪ no matter what you are they're a perfect match. the new ipad and xfinity stream app. hey guys, i'm home! surprise! i got a puppy. add an ipad to select packages for just $5 a month for 24 months. upgrade online now. ivanka feels very strongly. my wife feels very strongly about it. i feel very strongly about it. i think anybody with a heart would feel very strongly about it. we don't like to see families

separated. >> no, but you have been separating them now. in fact you have a heart there are 2,300-plus young children, a lot of them -- >> they need their parents. >> a lot of them infants, a lot of them toddlers, same age -- >> we think. >> who are separated from their parents. >> we can't see them. >> separated from their parents, parents can't see them in fact, mr. president, your centralized state-run government will not allow anybody in to see them. in the press. won't allow americans to see the conditions by which those toddlers, that's what i said, infants and toddlers and young girls are being incarcerated by the united states government. as these firestorms over family separations played out. president trump's daughter and senior white house adviser ivanka trump remains silent. she commented for the first time

only on the topic yesterday tweeting thank you, potus for taking critical action, ending family separation on the borders, congress must now act to find a lasting solution that is consistent with our values, the same values that so many come here seeking a better life. ivanka trump who once billed herself as a force for good in this administration. white house adviser said ivanka trump made calls to congressional leaders advocating for a fix. jonathan leemire also you saw that after that tweet, she was met with a great deal of hostility. not only on twitter, but also from others, who thought that you know reports which we'll be talking about later, coming out that she had been saying for a week, asking inside the white house, should i speak out on this issue or not? should i speak out on this issue or not? she spoke out afterwards, and

the reaction was harsh. >> and it's her silence amid the crisis, that is so striking. and it's not the first time she has done this. remember ivanka trump when she took this position said as you just read from our story, she wanted to be a force for good. a lot of people thought she might be a moderating influence on the president, at the very least she would vote for issues of a family, about children. she has said that that's what she wanted to, do that's the mark she wanted to leave in her role in the west wing. and that has not been the case. her silence here during this crisis, you know reflects, reminiscent of what she's done before. she also bit her tongue during the charlottesville crisis last summer when the president said there are good people on both sides of that violence. which meant neo-nazis and kkk members. ivanka trump here, you know, we've seen the white house do this repeatedly. where after the fact, suddenly there's the spin. people close to ivanka, white house officials, you know anonymous aides will tell us,

you know, yes, the first daughter was there advocating behind the scenes to move her father in a certain way. sometimes she's effective, sometimes she's not. >> and yet, it was melania who actually spoke out here, it was melania who spoke out in real-time. and putting real pressure on the president to move. >> her words, which happened before this executive order was signed. before the decision was made to reverse this policy. seemed to carry far more weight. instead of the first daughter, who almost seemed to try to claim a victory after the fact. and i think it was striking that the president in a closed-door meeting with republicans a few days ago. said for the first time, yes, my daughter has said this looks bad. you should try to change it. what she, we didn't hear that from ivanka herself. >> and you know, willie. we've known, we've known ivanka and eric and don for quite some time.

and they had a very good reputation around new york, always polite, always courteous, always -- actually pretty humble. well-mannered for millionaires' kids. it's amazing how much things have changed. and it's pretty remarkable that time and again, ivanka who went in to be the voice for good and to champion children and women, she's remained silent through some of the most horrific episodes in recent american history involving well first of all, what the president says about women. shocking, insulting things said about women. but as jonathan said after charlottesville, and now after this, you have infants and toddlers and young girls being incarcerated and we don't know where they are. and she hasn't spoken out.

>> it's become a washington cliche, as jonathan points out, that at the end of all of these stories, there's always reporting that says ivanka trump pressured her father she was the one trying to put her thumb on the scale, to be on the right side of history. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. she's not just the president's daughter. as emily jane fox writes in her excellent new book, ivanka trump enthusiastically leapt into the role of senior adviser to the president. she represents the white house publicly. for her not to speak out and for her to push stories after the fact where she says i tried my best. i put pressure on my father and the way only i can and this time it didn't work out, it's just not enough. so you can either be the president's daughter and that's fine, i don't expect tiffany trump to come out and speak on every issue, or you can be the senior adviser to the president, who has presented herself as an advocate for women and families, and there's no better story here for women and families than the

one at the border. >> i don't think the right criticism is why she did not speak out. i think the right criticism is how she let this policy come into being in the beginning. she is a senior adviser to the president, she has a role in creating policy to the white house before it gets instituted. not unfair but most advisers are not told they should speak out in real-time against the president's own policy. what the real criticism is, is if she has any influence, if she has any know-how, if she has any interest in policy, why is she allowing these things to come into effect in the first place? >> and mika, we early on, i know, you talked to ivanka a lot. you actually got dena powell over to meet with ivanka, when ivanka wanted somebody to help her on her efforts. for women. and for children.

and there were a lot of things said during the transition about a lot of things that were going to be done. but there's been an awful lot of silence in times of moral crisis and you actually, you communicate with her yesterday? >> i did. so first of all, as charlottesville and a lot of different events happened during this presidency that were pretty devastating to watch, i was always very sad about sort of the fact that she didn't step up. but as you write, sam, as a counselor to the president, even in that role, it's not necessarily your place. but she's got a very different role than anybody else, being the president's daughter. and also putting herself out there as someone who can really help sort of soften the edges. and she hasn't done any of that. or if she has, then good lord what would we have gotten? but aside from that, i stopped communicating with her.

because nothing seemed to be sticking. and everything she said she wanted to do? never happened. not one bit. and dena, who would never say it didn't work, she was moved over to the national security council. i will tell you, it didn't work. and dena is incredibly talented. so it wasn't on dena. ivanka called yesterday and i've been speaking to her posting comments on her instagram. so i can be sure that she reads them. letting her know that we really need to hear from her. as his spokesperson on families and mothers and babies to tell the world that she believes this policy is wrong. that somebody does need to step up to this president, somebody does need to come forward and tell him that this is inhumane. please, be the person. take this moment in your life to jump out of the trump box and do what's right for america. and i tried to communicate with her on her instagram. she did not erase it, but she did not respond.

and then yesterday she called. i guess maybe she was making calls, making the rounds to talk about this executive order. but the question still is -- where are the girls? where are the toddlers? what about these thousands of children? >> did you talk to her? >> i didn't. but i texted her and i have it right here. because i wanted to talk to her, but i wanted to make it very clear that the parameters of this conversation would be very clear and that i wasn't going to be just a trusting any more. that i've lost trust and i said unless you can tell me where the little girls and toddlers are, and the intention of this administration is to reunite these families right away, now, that there's nothing to talk about. and that i've lost trust and and i asked her to speak out for women and for mothers and for babies and if she could do that, i would be happy to talk to her on the record. she wrote me back off the record so i won't mention what she wrote off the record, because that would be wrong. but it was kind of a just

placating group of sentences, some that didn't make sense, but basically saying, talk is cheap or that she was making efforts. i wrote back on the record, unless you can speak out in public for mothers and women and babies, and that she might want to understand that this is her moment, to talk about the ideals that this country was created on, the morals that this country holds close for the rest of the world. if she could show the world that she cares about mothers and children, that would be good. and that if she can't, that no one is going to ever respect her again. because this whole thing has been a joke. this position that she holds is a joke. is zbl this is a defining moment for this administration, much as katrina was, i talked to so many good people that worked for george w. bush, that dedicated their lives to george w. bush. told me after, as much as they still love the man, that that

was the defining moment of their presidency. katrina. >> it will stay with them forever. >> and they were still talking about it five years later. heartbroken that they didn't step up and do more during that time. and heidi, this is, this is that time for ivanka trump. this is that time for kirstjen nielsen. it is this time for every member if they don't step forward right now and be counted as -- i told many people during the bush administration, when they were angry at me for criticizing them on massive debts and katrina and other things. i said he's going to be gone. you're still going to be in washington, and you're going to be defined by how you respond now. they didn't respond the way they wanted to. they regretted it the rest of their lives, and maybe ivanka trump stepping up and taking charge of rue uniting those 2,300 -- >> managing it, asking the questions. >> the lost children. the lost toddlers, those lost

infants, those lost young girls, maybe she can step up and aggressively take charge of that part of it. and reunite these families. that would besing her position. >> only she knows what the true relationship and dynamic is between her and her father and i'm going to say something here. that is not out of the realm of possibility. that the patriarchical pull in this family is so strong that she does feel intimidated. that she does feel she can't do this. she can do this. the moment has not passed. this is the opportunity now, because there are 2300 children who are sitting somewhere, either in a detention facility or they've been sent out to american families. and their parents are in the process of being deported. some of them already have been deported. we know that because we've seen one mother in guatemala on television, her eyes swollen, her child, her son, somewhere she doesn't know where he is.

here in the united states. >> lost children. >> she's already been deported. >> like we talked about in the break. there are ways to do this. there's dna. tests, but how many of these parents are going to be deported without their children? >> richard, for those saying it's unfair to attack a president's daughter, i would say what mika said, we're not talking about tiffany. we're talking about ivanka who decided to go into the white house, be the top councillor to the president of the united states. and just as bobby kennedy was roundly criticized when he became attorney general for his brother, if you are in the arena, if you take that position, then you have to be held accountable by the american people. >> you can't have it both ways. you can't -- basically do certain things as a white house adviser and then when criticism or flack comes your way, say i'm only the president's daughter, it's not fair. you've got to be out there. she's on the payroll so to

speak. she has security clearances, she has official responsibilities. if she sounds like she did yesterday, a cheerleading tweet, giving her father credit for ending the crisis, that he kraet created, that's a political statement. heidi is right, why don't we think t a massive program of genetic testing or whatever it takes, to reunite these kids. that would be something positive. why don't we think about a serious aid and trade policy, to try to address some of the problems in these countries that are leading people to flee for their lives, there's so much that could be done to deal with the consequences of what we've just experienced and to prevent it from recurring. >> mika she should get on the plane this morning and go down to the border. >> say i want to see the girls. >> let mariana atencia or jacob soberof, show the country what's happening. >> do what can you do. everybody who cares about this is doing what they can do. there are legal aid

organizations doing what they can do. there are doctors stepping up. we want to foster one of these children as they wait wherever they are we just want to know where they are. and we will use this platform to ask again and again and again, where are the girls and where are the toddlers? what can you do? you can go to the border, as the president's counselor on women and families and children, and you can stand there and wait until something is done, step up. it's not about you, and it's not about your dad. it's about the country. do what's right. >> and we will be the first of course, to salute and praise -- >> of course. >> the first person that can go down and has the power, has the authority to go down and show us where these lost children are where these hidden children are. where these 2300 kids are. these toddlers, these infants, these young girls, these young boys who have been separated from their parents.

take charge of that. be the first to praise whoever can do that. because that's not only good for those children,hat's good f the united states of america's reputation and only here, and across the globe. >> coming up, aside from the human toll, what's the political damage from this ugly episode in our history? we'll talk about what it means for republicans this november, we're back in a moment. yeah, you? [ roaring ] [ screaming ] nope. rated pg-13.

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joining us now, former gop counsel for the house oversight committee now contributor to nbc.com's editorial page "think" and author of "e pluribus" sophia nelson. >> you, like me are a conservative. even though our party is going through a phase right now where they're not conservative, they're not conservative on spending, they're not conservative on deficits, they're not conservative on debt. they're not conservative on entitlements, they're not conservative on trade. they're not conservative on alliances, they're not conservative on you know -- holding together ronald reagan's coalition for a free and safe

america. they're not conservative -- you name it, they're not conservative. and yet, they are, they seem to be obsessed on doing things that further further divide their politicians from the majority of americans who will be determining who win elections over the next 40 years. how bad has the last week been for members of my former party politically? we see the polls that show the generic ballot test is widening again in democrats' favor. how bad will this be in '18 and '20 for republicans. >> you know steve schmidt left the republican party yesterday which i think was sad but not unexpected given what he's been saying on social media for months and how he feels and many of us feel the same. i think the republican party is in very serious trouble. it's been trending that way for a while for all the reasons you

explained. it's not a conservative party anymore in the way we value conservatism. in virginia, my home state, they've nominated cory stewart for the u.s. senate. here's a guy that's openly been supportive of white supremacist nazi ideas and personalities and that is the republican nominee. >> which, by the way, in that case, forget about the moral outrage, if you don't want to i look at it morally because so many republicans don't. look at it politically. he has now put four swing seats in the democrats' hands. >> absolutely true. >> so barbara comstock, good-bye. >> my congresswoman. >> i've known barbara for a long time, have great respect for her. but that selection just made her job so much more difficult. >> i think she probably had the shot at keeping her seat had there been a different nominee for the senate but it will be difficult because cory stewart will make the gop the poster

party for racism and everything that's bad which is just -- has just become synonymous with republican and that bothers me as i know it bothers you. >> it's willie geist. the president had the meeting with the republican conference and in it there was a moment where he mocked mark sanford, who wasn't there. we had sanford on last week after he lost his primary and he said his message to those people running this fall, republicans, is to pledge allegiance to donald trump or else. what do you think the state of the party is if you're running for office and try to cross donald trump in some way? >> steve schmidt is right. it's not the republican party anymore. i could go on a long history about what the true republican party is, the party of lincoln, the party of thomas jefferson, et cetera, and republican ideas.

we're not that anymore. we've become a regional myopic angry party that is afraid of the demographic shifts in this country, that doesn't understand diversity and what it means to be a true big tent and a party that has tolerance for ideas both on the left and the right and in the center. that's not the republican party i grew up in with jack kemp and christie whitman and 's a disappointment. bottom line, it's trump's party, not the replican party. >> you look at the president's -- the three major republican presidents through the ages, abraham lincoln, teddy roosevelt, ronald reagan, all inclusive, all about expanding the tent. ronald reagan jonathan lemire, won 49 states, 49 states by being inclusive around -- you saw what justin amish said. donald trump was talking about how everybody cheered his

petulant joke about mark sanford and a big conservative freedom caucus guy came out and god bless him and he said, yeah, yeah, we were there, it was a dazzling display of pettiness and insecurity, nobody laughed, nobody applauded, they were disgusted. >> with the president. >> with the president. that's -- those were republicans starting to speak out. >> they don't -- they're kind of cornered at this point. it's so despicable. >> another republican in the room said it just didn't happen that way. they weren't cheering for him. >> it's a very weird thing to have someone just straight up lie, right? i mean, we're not accustomed to this. >> and it's constant. it's constant. >> if you see it with your own eyes. >> i still think mueller must be getting closer and there's something going on upstairs, that he's freaking out, he's just freaking out. >> so sophia, listen, we have to

do things in our jobs that are hard, that are difficult, mika and i have to wake up at 4:00 a.m. but it's worth it. we're so blessed to do that but you on the other hand unfortunately you have to go to virginia and listen to jon meacham talking about shays' rebellion and the -- >>id you get anything the done. >> -- intricacies of the french and indian war. >> i love jon! >> it was a painful dreary slog, i know. >> did you bring something to bring yourself awake? >> talk about what you were able to accomplish even with meacham going on about shays' rebellion. >> at thomas jefferson's monticello this weekend they had what was called look closer which was the unveiling of new exhibiting, one being of sally hemmings, of course, who was the woman that was a slave mulatto man who had six children with

thomas jefferson, dna evidence proved that in the late '90s with but i think what was very important and i want to encourage every american who cannot only to listen to jon meacham but also to go to charlottesville and go see this exhibit and go see the reinterpretation of how they are giving tours now and what's important, joe, the nexus to this moment where we are right now, our history teaches us something, right? the past is prologue. we need to connect the dots and want monticello is doing is daring us in this country right now to actually deal with slavery, to look at the fact that this country was built by slaves, that they had a role, that these were people -- sally hemmings was far more than just a woman who had children by a president, she was a girl who spoke french. she negotiated the freedom for all of their children 50 years before african-americans would be freed in this country. she was a young woman who understood that this was her lot in life but she was going to make the best of it and she had

what her son madison called extraordinary privileges. so they've done an amazing job there. go down and see it and discover our american history in all of its fullness and let me end with this. rememberry, slavery was legal in this country in this country, the japanese internment was legal, it didn't make it right and moral. and what we're doing in this country with these immigrant children and putting them in cages like dogs and animals, it may be legal, president trump, but it's wrong and immoral and not who we want to be at this time in our history. >> and what an incredible story of a woman able to step up under incredibly difficult circumstances. sophia nelson, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thanks for having me. coming up, cnbc's john harwood joins us on his new column of how the gop went from the party of reagan to the party of trump. plus, breaking down the different species on capitol hill, from the clear trump

enthusiasts to those who oppose him in secret. >> species? brand? maybe differentand? i don't know who wrote that in. >> i think it's interesting that we even have that discussion to have right now. we'll be here with that. "morning joe" is back in a moment. lf-winding string trimme. the new ego string trimmer with powerload™ technology. 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. a trip back to the dthe doctor's office, mean just for a shot. but why go back there, when you can stay home, with neulasta onpro? strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection,

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so, try febreze fabric refresher. febreze finds odors trapped in fabrics and cleans them away as it dries. use febreze every time you tidy up to keep your whole house smelling fresh air clean. fabric refresher even works for clothes you want to wear another day. make febreze part of your clean routine for whole home freshness. >> on the issues on trade, on immigration, we have a partnership under the constitution, we have some authority, the president has some authority, we need to work together. i was thinking this morning when we look at president nixon's portrait in the white house, we think that he did the unexpected and went to china because he could do that. he was in a position to do that. president reagan did the unexpected, he went to the berlin wall in moscow and when we were here a year ago i suggested to you that immigration, which has bedevilled us for 40 years, as you've said, i believe you can -- you're the president who

can help us solve the immigration problem with your leadership. you may be able to do for immigration what nixon did for china and what reagan did for the soviet union and a lot of us would like to work with you on that. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's interesting what lamar has been doing over the past week. he was asked, heidi, about immigration and about this policy that donald trump claimed he couldn't do and lamar alexander was very straightforward. he said it's wrong headed and the president could do something about it today if he chose to. and now you have lamar alexander saying to the president in front of the president, hey, you -- if you stop demagoguing, which was what he was saying because nixon going to china means you go against, obviously, what people think of your hard-line position. if you stop demagoguing you've got a chance to put together an

immigration fix that could be bipartisan and transcendent. that's important we're hearing from more and more republicans on the hill over the past week that they want the president to step up. >> i'm glad you're back on set today, joe, because this is your day. how many times have you been on set or me sitting in that chair in washington and you ask us when are the republicans going to step up, heidi? yesterday and throughout this week we've seen a number of them. we saw 12 of them sign a letter saying that, that the president can change this and he has to do it with lamar am sand lexander, murkowski, then the follow-up was lamar alexander at the white house trying to appeal to him on his own terms in the way you need to talk to trump. that hey, here's the positive, here's the carrot, now you can do something about this. th is an important moment where we see them willing to use

the stick, which is what they did this week. >> you can only hope it continues. joining us in the conversation, kristen soltis anderson, chief washington correspondent for cnbc, john harward, and senior writer at politico and co-author of "the play book" jake sherman is with us as well. >> jake, you were tweeting in realtime about a fight erupting on the floor. i had been off of twitter for the better part of the week, a trip with my daughte i was seeing in the realtime. you said no meadows is going over to ryan and they are yelling at each other. you talked about trump being called out. it seems to me that at least for a small segment of the republican party that had been marching blindly behind trump toward a cliff that it's going to be awfully steep in november

it seemed as heidi said this week was a time that at least some of them decided might be in my best interest to step away from this guy just a little bit. >> i'm going to agree and disagree, i think. i'm going to agree with you in the sense tha on the family separation policy there's a huge guam between trump and his administration and people on the hill who have turned against trump in such a dramatic fashion, in such a whiplash fashion we've never seen before since he was elected and inaugurated. there's something approaching a zero percent chance -- and i mean that, zero percent -- that congress is going to pass some sort of broad immigration overhaul any time soon and on the floor last night, paul ryan and mark meadows, perhaps two of the most powerful men in washington believe it or not, were in a screaming match. in a screaming match because the leadership doesn't trust the house freedom caucus, the most conservative members of the house of representatives, you

can see that photo there, fingers in each other's face, screaming, and the freedom -- they don't trust each other. they think the other side is lying all the time and i -- for many years i've heard presidents and speakers of the house say we need to stand up to the conservative elements of our party and turn them back and show them who is in charge. that hasn't work ed, the conservative members control the house of representatives and have no interest in the broad immigration overhaul that 95% of other lawmakers believe is possible and needed. so i don't think there's any standing up and having any west wing moment. it's not going to happen any time soon. >> so kristen soltis anderson, you have four species of beltway republicans. i'm glad you said it because it made me uncomfortable when we read in the the prompter. let's talk about before and has there been any movement this

week? >> i get asked what are the divisions within the republican party look like? by and large outside of washington there's not a lot of division, president trump's job approval was 90% among republican voters last week. the highest it had been in gallop's tracking among republicans since he was first inaugurated so republican voters are by and large behind the president even on a policy like the family separation policy which is very unpopular broadly, a majority of republicans would say yeah, we like this. but inside of washington you have some folks, stephen miller is the trump enthusiast. they've been waiting for the gop to look like this, be tough like this, to be willing to pick these fights and be the bad guy. they've been waiting for this republican party. you've got the establishment. these folks didn't love trump in the primary, they've never loved the fact this is the party of trump now but they have acquiesced and embraced it and they have a lot of big institutions like the rnc, cpac,

the conservative political action conference, a member of big think tanks that have said look, this is the trump era, trump is our quarterback, i'm a team player, as long as we keep winning games, i'm on his team. and then you've got the never-trump echo. the folks for whom are appalled and astonished everyday what has happened to their party. they believe that the collusion with russia story is going to break at any moment. this is in some ways the bill kristol, the folks within the party that believe that donald trump is a direct threat to democracy and aren't afraid to say it and they themselves have some institutions and apparatus behind them. the fourth group i jokingly call the remnant. i name it after a podcast by jonah goldberg at "national review" he says it's for people who feel like they're constantly losing their minds or like everyone around them has lost their minds. they don't dislike everything trump does. they dislike a lot of it and they're not afraid to say it when they do but they try to

take things issue by issue but that faction doesn't have infrastructure to it. people fit into that category but there's no meetings, there's no super pac. this remnant group doesn't have any organization to it. i'm curious as the weeks unfold if the story gets grimmer for republicans in terms of the midterms, if this family separation issue takes its toll at the polls do more republicans shift from that establishment we fall in line group to begin becoming a little more sfloeg a it wi -- rogue? >> so along these lines, john harwo harwood, your column for cnbc is "how the gop morphed from the party of reagan to the party of trump." we got a poll a couple weeks ago that shows within his own party president trump is more popular within his party than any president since george w. bush. his approval rating within the republican party so when we ask ourselves why don't these

republicans cross donald trump? why don't they speak out? it's because in their districts or states he's very popular. >> no question about it and this journey to the place we're at right now is about long-standing trends that trump capitalized on and then accelerated in combination with the pathologies of his personality. essentially what happened was there's been a growing divide by education among white voters that began years ago but it accelerated under obama and you had non-college whites, evangelical whites, older whites surging into the republican party, college whites shifting toward the democratic party. donald trump road those trends. in particular, a core group of people tend to be less educated, tend to be more populist in their orientation, they want their social security and medicare protected. they're not big fans of wall street. they are hawkish on the trade

and immigration issues, donald trump becomes president and what he likes to do is bask in their applause. i think donald trump is -- when i talk about the pathologies of his personality, he does not seem to have empathy, he does not seem to have a well-developed moral sense. i don't think he cares about those people who are applauding him except as vehicles to affirm himself. and so when you look at the poll -- quinnipiac had a poll yesterday that showed republicans for congress this fall nationally democrats lead by six points, they lead by ten points with college-educated whites. they lead by 59-32, 27 points among non-college whites. trump is speaking to those people. he was speaking to them at a rally last night. he wants their applause and that is what is motivating him. >> i just wondering, though. patrick raffini last night was

tweeting that he's not shocked by the following of this -- everybody following donald trump and richard, he actually struck a chord with me that often republicans and democrats, they follow their president. they follow the person in charge and yes, laura ingraham and sean hannity are attacking everybody that attacks donald trump. well, guess what? in 2004 i was attacked by the same two because i was questioning george w. bush's massive spending deficits, i was questioning his performance in debates and they attacked me non-stop, they blindly followed bush because bush was the president. now they're attacking bush because bush is not the president. i remember in 2012 being savaged by saying mitt romney was running a lousy campaign and he was going to lose and i said that in like august, oh, my god, i was a heretic.

the same people attacking me viciously. i'm not making it about myself, i'm just saying it's about them, not me. they were blindly marching in lockstep behind mitt romney. now they trash mitt romney because mitt romney's not in power. so many people -- mark levin was trashing donald trump. now he will trash anybody who trashes donald trump. they march blindly i think in part because that's where they think their audience is but is this about the nature of the republican party changing as i believe it is? as i believed it is or could it just be as patrick said last night this is what happens. somebody becomes president of the party and people working everyday not paying attention to politics just immediately morph into that support. it's tribal. anybody who is against our guy

is the bad guy. >> the key swoeword is tribal. to some people loyalties are absolute. i think different people are much more committed and loyal to a set of ideas and getting to the question of trump is to me the most interesting question in american politics and american foreign policy to to what extent does trumpism outlive trump? . that suggests he's less the creator than has tapped into something. >> can i ask the question? obama, the biggest person on the political stage since ronald reagan, how much did obamaism outlive obama? >> very little but trump has two things. there's a body of ideas about immigration, about trade, a set of concerns and at the moment he's got a demographic base within the country that feels the future of this country is more of a threat than a source of reassurances to them and some of it crosses party lines. you see some of bernie sanders support also there.

a lot of people seem to assume if and when trump departs the scene that somehow we go back to where we were and i think we have to contemplate the possibility that we don't. >> i have to say i personally believe, sam, donald trump will leave some s tis for the republican partyha trumpism ends when trump leaves washington. >> i do agree with that and i agree it's tribal. one of the more interesting things that came up in polling data is republicans were polled about vladimir putin's favorability before trump and it was highly negative and then trump came around and it became negative. >> kim jong-un more popular than nancy pelosi which, by the way, what does that tell you about the human beings that answered that question? >> correct. and i think part is an end product of a media ecosystem that has pushed each side to its tribal ends.

if you look at survey data, conservatives are for more likely to say they will only tune into fox news as their news source and liberals are far more likely to say they would defriend someone on a social media network because of that person's politics and so we self-select. we listen to one type of conversation and we never challenge ourselves to have a different type of conversation and that bleeds into our politics so the clip you played to lead into this, lamar alexander, if you panned out on that clip it was donald trump with a bunch of white men almost exclusively, probably exclusively republicans. that type of conversation is all well and good but it's a one way conversation usually and if you're talking about crafting immigration reform which lamar alexander was talking about, i would argue you might want to have a hispanic at the table because they might give you perspective on that legislation that could prove helpful. >> jake sherman, the problem is donald trump has had an

immigration meeting with a diverse group of people including democrats and he's promised we're going to fix the dreamers, we're going to fix this, you guys bring me any comprehensive immigration bill and i will sign it. same things with guns. he says these things, he lies. nothing happens. >> he says what he -- what people around him want to according to what we've seen for the last two years and then he goes back and listens to people likeark meadows and kevin mccarthy who remind him what the reality in his party is and what his membership, the 280 republicans in congress, what they want and what they want to hear. i want to add one thing to the trumpism as a lasting phenomenon thing. the districts that republicans need to hold to keep the house of representatives, many of those districts, stephen miller said border security is a 90/10 issue, some of these policies,

splitting up families are hugely popul popular. that's not true in almost every district republicans need to hold to keep the house of representatives. trump is up side down in polling i've seen. so in these traditional republican bastions, suburban chicago and philadelphia, they're already tired of him. some districts he either narrowly lost or won, they're already tiring of him in some the majority, it's in those 25 to 30 seats that his popularity matters and we're seeing fraying around those edges. >> heidi? >> i think we're missing the elephant in the room in terms of the conditions under which a personality, if you want to call it a cult of personality like trump rises which have been planted decades nag terms of the widening gap in terms of the class and earnings power in this

country. we've seen a hollowing out of the middle-class and we look at the unemployment rate, great, yeah, let's celebrates but those white men without college degrees who are cheering on trump, the reality is they're having a hard time providing for their families and the conditions under which these demagogic messages are sent out are not possible unless you have people like that who feel disenfranchised, who want to take it out on the people who they think are coming here to take their jobs and benefits. >> but, again, barack obama won those states for eight years. trump it and eight years before that george w. bush won it. i think you're right, but i think that they're going after the lowest hanging fruit. barack obama is the antithesis of everything donald trump is but i sat there rolling any eyes in 2008, hope and change? what does it mean? i will tell you this, i remember turning to a close friend after

obama won, the night i was walking away from 30 rock and i said i was against this guy from the beginning but god help us if he doesn't succeed because so many people have placed such unrealistic expectations on him that the blowback will be fierce. i also want to say, and it has been. i also want to say, too, again, nothing everything is new under the sun. i had a good friend i went to university of alabama with who was a pastor in pensacola and in 2005 i talked to him, how is it going, how is the churchgoing? doing what baptists do, talking baptist stuff and he said joe, one of my biggest problems is i have to bring people into my office and explain to them, because there may be 10% of the people here who are democrats who don't love george w. bush,

this is post katrina, i have to explain to them that you can be a christian and not support george w. bush. by the way, i wasn't shocked at that because i had heard that myself. it is so tribal. it was so tribal for george w. bush and these clowns that are attacking george w. bush were the same ones that were saying you can't be a christian if you don't support george w. bush, if you vote for john kerry. i mean, this -- not everything is new under the sun here. >> what donald trump has done that has bn so savvy is he has created a framework where you don't have to like him personally to nonetheless be on his tame. it's the enemy of my enemy is my friend operationalized so you can say i don't like the tweeting. i don't -- you can say when he does these rallies he's over the top but he's picking fights with people i don't like. he's picking fights we leets and the media and people who are hostile to my way of life,

picking fights with people who do look like me and because he's picking those fights, even if i don't love everything about him, at least he is fighting the people i think deserve to be fought and that's why despite breaking all sorts of rules, you don't have to like him, you nonetheless as a republican, that's why 90% of people who still identify themselves as republican say yeah, he's my guy. i may not like everything he does but he's fighting the people i want to see fought. >> so john harwood, let's bring this back to the republican party, is it just completely the party of trump or can certain members of the party hold on to something else in this climate? >> well, mika, in terms of the long term prospects for trumpism, it can't extend very far by definition because it's focused on older voters, dying industries, a view of the world that is basically the world's

moved on from. but building on what both heidi and richard were saying, you can't underestimate the sense of grievance that the people that he is most focused on field. those core trump voters, they are concerned that discrimination against whites is a huge problem in society, as big as discrimination t minorities. they feel put the down by changes in the economy. the fact that we're becoming a majority minority nation and trump identifies with that sense of grievance, as kristen said. he goes after the people they think are hurting them and i think there's a part of trump's psyche that shares that sense of grievance himself personally even though he's a very wealthy man who is now president of the united states. i think he feels put down by elites. >> always has. >> he made this comment last night saying how come they call my opponents elites disregarding the fact that's a political

strategy to call the opponents elite, he says why do they call them elites, i'm richer than them, i'm president of the united states just as those non-college white men feel oppressed and put upon and have grievances against society, so does donald trump. >> and he has since he came under the manhattan scene in the mid-'70s. he's always had that resentment. it's something and john brings up a great point. i always say donald trump is a political day trader. >> yes. >> he's got the oldest demographic. >> this is something that a lot of the talk radio shows have been worried about for some time. fox news average age up in the 60s and it's a demographic that is getting older and is going to be less responsive in years to come. >> it's old, it's white, it's fearful and it's built on victim hood. and i couldn't help but notice last night in his rally in

duluth, minnesota, one of the northern most cities in america, donald trump got them to enter into an impassioned and robust build the wall chant. duluth, minnesota. >> canada is a problem. >> oh, yes, i forgot. that makes more sense now. >> what they're doing with shoes. >> do you believe the idiocy of talking about canadian shoe smugglers. >> that's not about policy. that's about going to a concert and hearing the greatest hits. >> but it's built on a semiirrational fear that your way of life is going to be taken away by brown people and these are people who could not be further from the mexican border getting excited by the idea of a border wall. >> what is incredible is i remember karl rove coming to capitol hill and telling us in 1999, along with george w. bush,

that you've got to make your peace th hispanics, you have to start making policies to get hispanics on your side, largest growing group of voters in years to come and we're going to be extinct if we don't do that. bush won 43%, 44% of the hispanic vote in 2004. these republicans will get wiped out. donald trump has called hispanics breeders, mexicans rapists and now you see what he's doing on the border. >> everybody knows in the long run they're going to have to figure out -- and that is what will break the situation in our politics. once republicans make the irrevocable decision that they have to broaden their appeal, white voters have gone from nine and ten when bill clinton was elected to seven in ten now, that non-white constituency is very democratic and what you had going into 2016 after 2012 when

mitt romney lost, people said you can't squeeze more from that stone of white voters. well donald trump did. and he juiced turnout just enough in the right places with those blue-collar republicans to win the white house but it's not a long-term strategy. the one final thing i want to say that helps him keep the republican party together, some of the business oriented wall street republicans also feel a sense of grievance. they are feeling that in this age of income inequality that heidi was talking about that populists are coming for their wallets and so -- >> poor things. >> they also feel put upon by these forces. >> let's go right now to the tweet desk and right now willie geist is at the tweet desk. it's been moved to mink, belarus, which has a capital that looks like washington, d.c. >> beautiful time of year out here. >> but he wanted to go to minsk because he wanted to be pro-positioned for the world cup. can't actually get into the former soviet union, some people

now call it russia. but tell me, first of all, how is minsk in june? >> chilly. very chilly. unseasonably cold. >> and what do we have from the tweet desk? >> despite that long windup, it's not a tweet. i was going to put a bow on this conversation about the resentment and chip on the shoulder that president trump carries around with him. here's a quote from president trump last night, ready? "you ever notice they always call the other side the elite? the elite? why are they the elite? i have a much better apartment than they do. i'm smarter than they are. i'm richer than they are. i became president and they didn't." it's hard to find a single quote that sums up a person better than that. >> that sense of resentment, a guy whose daddy gave him $200 million to start his business, a guy who took daddy's $200

million and ended up $9 billion in debt. >> well, it happens. >> that being raised as richie rich and still harboring that resentment, it does explain so much. >> john harwood, we'll read your reporting for cnbc and the "new york times." >> thank you, john. >> kristen soltis anderson, we'll read your take on republican pea seize in the washington examiner. jake sherman, we'll be reading the political play book. thank you all. still ahead on "morning joe," "time" magazine is tackling the immigration crisis with a memorable new cover. we'll show you that next on "morning joe." >> you ever notice they always call the other side the elite. the elite! why are they elite? i have a much better apartment than they do.

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let's bring in republican congressman jeff denham from california. thank you for being with us. we saw yesterday paul ryan and mark meadows exchanging words on immigration. you've been concerned about how the goalposts keep moving on an immigration reform bill that could put this mess behindus. tell us about it. >> disappointing to be in continuous negotiations wyche after week and every time you come back not only have the members of the freedom caucus changing but the goalpost changes as well so we would agree to a number of different issues, they bring new issues out. we would agree to those. we have a very conservative bill that addresses the things we were pushing for, 1.8 million protected devil rayers fr eed d and strong border security.

but even last night there is a lot of traits and characteristics that i admire about the freedom caucus sticking together but honesty is not one of them. so last night again t dustup with the speaker on the floor was about changing once again their commitment to the overall strategy of bringing these bills to the floor so that they can't undermine this discharge petition. >> so let's get specific, what is the freedom caucus being dishonest on? give me an example of a policy they've brought to the table to move the goalpost. >> oh, a number of different policies but the policy issues we agreed to toso that is of le concern but because there is a trust factor, going out of the meetings when they couldn't even agree whether or not they taked down the rule -- you served in congress, you know when you get into these parliamentary procedures you either work together or not. so we agreed to bring up a rule and a rule and a bill and a bill so you couldn't separate or take down the other members' issue.

not only have that gone back on that but you'll see different procedures today and last night in the middle of the night they dropped in a couple amendments to the goodlatte bill to make it more difficult on the house floor today. >> so i'm curious. do you think their goal is to simply kill any immigration reform bills? >> i think certainly by some. there are some that feel the goodlatte bill is amnesty so there's division within the freedom caucus but that is also creating some challenges within the republican caucus overall. >> let me ask you about the possibility of getting a fix to what we've been seeing over the past 20 days on the border. you've said it's just unsustainable and the president finallyed lly understood that

night. i'm curious, is congress going to be able to move forward and are you going to be able to change the legislation so 20 days from now we aren't at this same position where children, babies, toddlers, infants have to be separated from their parents? >> and still are. >> yes. obviously this is an ongoing problem from the previous two presidents. we've always had unaccompanied minors come across, we've always had these challenges with huge numbers coming over in the summer. we have a big economy right now where more jobs here provide better opportunity and more of an attract for people to come here but what we haven't seen is these kids separated from their parents, that should never happen. i've asked homeland security and health and human services for a list to show us where these kids are because it is a different scenario while you've put unaccompani

unaccompanied minors on the planes in the past, you've never pulled them away from parents so that is a big challenge, a big question, we want to know where those kids are but ultimately changing this policy, i think this is our opportunity. i don't think either party has been as close as we are today but i'm not afraid or ashamed of working with the other part yee they are. i think the best solution becomes an american solution where you have democrats and republicans working together in a bipartisan fashion. we're not there but we had a great deal of support on the discharge petition and we're reserving every parliamentary option to push this issue. >> congressman, it's richard haa haass. the only way to beat a blocking minority like the freedom caucus is to make them irrelevant so why not have a serious conversation with the moderate democrats and put together a working majority that makes this minority irrelevant? >> and i believe we were working

in that direction, working with our democrat colleagues. obviously as you've seen with the discharge position, two parties working together, to not bring up a democrat bill or a liberal bill but to have a full debate on four different pieces of legislation in front of the american public. if it's a debate about ideas why would you be afraid to take that in front of the american public? so we'll see two bills today but if those fail i think there will be greater opportunity for both parties to work together and not allow the freedom caucus to hijack the agenda. >> congressman, it's willie geist, good to see you. the president's order does nothing for the kids currently separated from their families. yesterday hhs said this executive order doesn't grandfather in those existing cases then they said we don't have guidance on it so they walked back that comment. the big question for us this morning and for a lot of people across the country is what is

going to happen to those 23200 kids? >> well, certainly this is not new policy. again, once this -- under the department of justice once the kids were separated from their parents they were treated as unaccompanied minor which is we've had thousands every single year. the challenge is notifying the parents and reuniting the parents later. unaccompanied minors, for years we've been finding ways to not only find foster homes but to unite them with relatives while they're awaiting due process. >> do you have a sense for what will happen to these specific 2300 kids and if you don't what should happen? >> well, i had i.e. and border patrol in my office yesterday and we were having a discussion about this. they are able to do dna checks within an hour so they can identify these kids and i would expect if hhs has accurate lists they're able to reunite but i

don't think we should go through extreme situations like democrats were proposing last night that we start putting ankle bracelets on these kids while they're awaiting due process. some of these kids will go to our schools, to put a target on these kids' back by putting an ankle bracelet to monitor them i think is the wrong proposal as well. >> congressman jeff denham, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. coming up, "time" magazine juxtaposes the most powerful man in the world with a terrified two-year-old. we'll go inside the new issue and that powerful picture on the front cover. we also want to mention that know your value has posted the names of several organizations that are accepting donations to secure urgent legal and social services for thousands of migrant children separated for their parents. it's part of the wider mission at know your value to encourage action and help people find

their voice and use the it especially. and most especially the voiceless. on tuesday we welcomed our n newest contributors, olympic swimmers jocelyn and monique lamoureux. they'll take part to help provide opportunities to low-income americans education and mentorship for young people and a commitment to diversity and inclusion, including gender equity. you can find much more information at knowyourvalue.com. we'll be right back. liberty mutual accident forgiveness

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we're getting a first look at images provided by the federal government of girls who have been separated from their parents. msnbc's jacob soboroff says a health and human services official tells him that the images of two shelters serving girls and tender age children in homestead, florida, and bristow, virginia were released last night at first airing on fox news. the images show young girls and boys, one infant and a bunch of empty highchairs and beds.

jacob says he still has not received any official word on when he and his crew might be able to tour those facilities. >> why would you not? i don't understand. what's the justification for not allowing -- >> and to make it look even more mysterious. >> -- to tour these facilities, this is not a national security issue. >> there's no justification. there's a credible action that we have policy and first amendment arguments, we know why they're not showing this. they're humiliated by it and we know if these images got out it would be disasterous. >> joining us now, former deputy chief of staff and deputy of homeland security and former counselor to the secretary of health and human services, a former deputy chief of staff to

senator marco rubio as well as a senior program officer at the bill gates foundation, sally canfield. also with us is deputy washington bureau chief of "time" magazine alex altman. he's here with this week's cover "welcome to america." >> the cover story entitled "american values, trump's brutal gambit at the border reflects a president uncomfortable with ideas." and, again, i just want to show this cover. devastating cover and it's how america right now is seen by the rest of the world. so sally let me begin with you. is there any reason you can imagine why these detention facilities for these children, these tender care -- detention facilities for children could not be toured by lawyers, members of the press, others, so

americans can know what's going on behind closed doors? >> there is not and i can't imagine why they wouldn't want to have people come through. when i was at the department of homeland security, even at the department of health and human services there was no reason why they would not want to have people come through so if there is something going on there, they should let any organization through that does these issues but there's no reason why they shouldn't be. >> sally, it's willie geist. you talked about working for secretary tom ridge when you started homeland security and he told you as you wrote there's always another option. in other words, the idea that we're just enforcing the law is a little bit of a copout. sally? >> so, i always think, like, look, when we made the

department of homeland security there was always ways in which we could get around certain situations and quite frankly the immigration laws in this country have always been loose, if you will. quite frankly going back to the founding of this country but there's always a way for people to be led into this country for the right reasons and we always try to every available reason for people to come in for the right reasons and quite frankly what they're doing right now is unconscionable. >> alex, the cover -- "time" magazine's cover "welcome to america" a very strong cover. i'm just wondering, as "time" magazine explores the impact this has, the global implications on america's standing, i can't help but look

back at the attacks that our ambassador -- first our ambassador then the president of the united states, false attacks made on angela merkel and also false attacks claiming immigration had caused german crime rates to german crime rates to skyrocket when they are the lowest in the generation and merkel is the most popular politician in germany right now. seems that what's happening in germany, donald trump's attacks, you can draw a straight line from there to what's happening at the border. >> i think that's right. you have seen his attacks, again, on what's happening in germany and you contrast them with the way he's lavished praise on leaders around the world ranging from vladimir putin, to kim jong-un. and, again, i think it does, one reason this is a powerful cover is this issue reflects the question of whether or not we are living up to america's

founding values. most president's tended to talk in a high minded quality of democracy, liberty and human rights. trump uses those words almost never. the words he uses, instead, are zero, strength, weakness. >> alex, former dhs secretary, jay johnson said the fundamental miscalculation is that this will work. these images you have on the front cover of your magazine will work to deter future waves of immigration. is there anything in our history that suggests that that is the case, given that like jay johnson says, what many of the immigrants are facing at home is much worse, unfortunately, than what we are doing to them at the border. >> well, i think that's a good question. it's a matter of debate as to

whether deterrence works as a policy. republicans think so, jeff sessions. as the administration was denying this was a policy, came out and said, of course, it serves as i purposes by deterring people coming across. as you note, you know, the waves of people, you know, washing up on the southern border are bigger than what the administration is doing and triggered by seasonal migration patterns and the violence that is racking many countries and cities in central america where a lot of migrant children and parents are coming from. >> alex, thank you. this week's "time" magazine is welcome to america. sally, thank you very much as well. joe, we'll take it to richard, but i want to point out two days ago or more, homeland secretary was asked where the girls are and where the babies are. she said, i'm going to use her words, i don't know. then she followed up when

kristin welker said, you are releasing the pictures to the government, your pictures. she said, i didn't know and i will look into it. so, the answer we have gotten so far is a pitiful picture of a bunch of teens, a handful of teens seen from behind their backs sitting in an auditorium and one baby. what we are trying to follow here and the question, to repeat it again, for those who don't hear the questions that americans want the answers to and certainly the press does, where the girls, apparently 2300 kids in qstion who have been separated from their parents. where are the babies and exactly how are you going to keep track of these children and reunite them with their families. they are very simple questions. >> simple questions and what's interesting is the noise machine that is churned up against those who are trying to get those answers, you said this morning, we all said, we would love for

ivanka trump to get under the border and make a difference. >> there are articles criticizing ivanka. >> she is being attacked again on fox news website. it's like, it's really in realtime, you have people, trump tv is what it's turning into. you have people who are doing anything they can to try to get out and shame and attack those that are trying to find out what's happening to those children. i know steve schmidt is getting vis rated that steve gave back a lot more than he took. >> yeah. >> but it is endless. there's a guy that i have known and a lot of us have known and liked for a long time, actually a couple nights saying we are at war. >> right. oh, my god. >> saying we are the only network, fox news is the only network you can trust. we are at war.

i will let people draw whatever conclusions they want to draw about what that sort of language -- >> we may have differences of opinions, but i think we all can agree with our friends at fox news, we want to know where the girls are, we want to know where the babies are. i'm sure you do, too. >> apparently not if you look at the articles attacking you, instead of talking about the question of, where are the toddlers? >> i just want to know. >> where are the toddlers? jesus said let the little children come under me. better than the mill stone be put around somebody's neck and they would be thrown to the deepest sea. i just wonder who can be against this and why you attack people who are actually trying to figure out where these little girls are, the toddlers, infants. perhaps your focus should be changed a little bit. read the new testament. you will be surprised. read what is said in the red

letters, it will be interesting. yesterday, richard, there was a great commentary by somebody who said always go around and lie, they are simple answers to tough questions. this is a tough question. there are no easy answers on what we do at the border, but trump promised his followers one easy answer after another, whether we are talking trade, taxes, whether we are talking t tariffs, whether we are talking immigration or building a wall. it's nonsense and they know it. it's hard work. people like lbj, ronald reagan, they figured out how to make washington work. >> there's slogans and scapegoats, but no easy answers. lamar alexander raised a question, will, out of this mess that was self-created, will they work with democrats in congress and devise a comprehensive

immigration policy and think about a serious foreign policy to deal with immigration at its roots? if not, it is going to be replayed again, again, again. >> a final question before we go to break, does fox news, are they more interested in ripping up frenzy and cultural war saying we are at war, you can only believe us, everybody else is lying. so many of you guys have swallowed the president's lies whole. i'm just curious, are you interested in finding out where these 2300 children are? i know shep is, my god. i know shep is. brett baier is. i know a lot of good, good people at fox, i have a lot of friends over at fox. i'm wondering, what is the end game. you have toddlers locked up in jail. you have in detention centers, infants, young girls. you have kids. you want to attack people who

are trying to figure out where they are and how to get them out? how far are you going to go in defending a lifelong democrat who in 2009 was giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the dnc and nancy pelosi and rahm emanuel and chuck schumer. how far will you go? it's a question that i'm going to sit here and, can't wait to hear what the answer is. i can't wait to hear what the answer is. what are you going to do in this time of crisis where 2300 babies are being incarcerated by donald trump's centralized state? what is your response to that moral and ethical question that has a baring on not only how the rest of the world sees the united states of america, the country that is fed and freed more people than any other

country in the history of this planet. a country that i believe has a great god-given place, not only the history of this country, but in this world. what are you going to do today to help us find those children, locate those children and unite those children with their parents? >> and -- >> what are you going to do? >> secretary of homeland security, you should know where the girls are, and you should know where the babies are. we'll be right back. >> you have been aired all over television. the kids are held in cages. >> i will look into that. i'm not aware there's another picture. yes. ♪

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at the same time, we don't want people coming into our country illegally. this takes care of the problem. thank you very much. >> president trump said his executive order, yesterday, quote, takes care of the problem. the thousands of children still detained by the u.s. government that we can't see, they might disagree, but we'll never know because we can't see them. it's not the only issue. t the president feels he's fixed. >> well at solving problems. when i became president, we had north korea, the iran deal, which was no good, we had lots of problems with trade and bad trade deals. there are a lot of things we have solved and are solving. >> we solved the problem, the only difference is they are getting worse. >> one summit didn't solve the nuclear threat. ripping up the iran deal didn't do anything and a trade war against canada.

problems not solved, more problems made. welcome back to "morning joe." we have politics editor, sam stein. >> he sucks. >> you are weird. oh, my god. president of the counsel and foreign relations, richard haass. >> barbecue king. >> let's start with the president's rally last night in minnesota, hours after signing that executive order that halted his administration's policy to separate migrant families from their children at the southern border. at the rally, he mentioned the executive order, almost as an afterthought. >> so, the democrats want open borders, let everybody come in. let everybody pour in. we don't care. let them come from from the middle east and from all over the place. we don't care. we are not going to let it happen. by the way, today, i signed an

executive order. we are going to keep families together, but the border is going to be just as tough as it's been. >> they won't admit it, but it was a reversal. >> huge reversal. >> sessions called it in april and the president defended it. >> people out there yesterday were saying this is barack obama's law. >> no. >> yes. >>rump's policy. >> such a lie. that is as false as people who believe that neil armstrong didn't walk on the moon. you really, you have got to take the scales off your eyes. the president was lying to you saying time and again, only the congress could fix this.

they have been falsely stating only congress can fix the problems and the democrats were to blame. now, listen, as jesus said, let those who have ears to hear hear. here is the president. >> you can't do it through an executive order. >> until the loopholes are closed by congress, it is not possible to detain and remove whole family units who arrive illegally in the united states. congress and the courts created this problem and congress alone can fix it. congress is the one that needs to fix this. it's a law passed by the united states congress. >> there's only one body here that gets to create legislation. it's congress. our job is to enforce it. we would like to see congress fix it. once again, it's congress' job to change the law. >> i hate the children being taken away. the democrats have to change

their law. that's their law. the democrats forced that law upon our nation. i hate it. they gave us the laws. that's a democrat bill. that's democrats wanting to do that and they could solve it by getting together. theyhink it's a goode election point. that's the law, what the democrats gave us. i say, it's strongly the democrats fault. their obstructionists. they are obstructing. we have having a lot of problems for democrats, they don't want to vote for anything. this has been going on 50 years, longer. this has been going on under president obama, president bush, this has been going on for many, many years. we are going to see if we can solve it. this didn't happen just now. look at the images from 2014. i was watching this morning and they were showing images from 2014. they blow away what we are lookingi lookinging at today. that was during the obama

administration. i saw images that were horrible. >> of course, it's unbelievable. i have to go through this. the president says he can't do it. i can't drink the water. he can't, in this policy that jeff sessions announced they were starting in march. it is not possible, congress and the courts created the problem, only congress and the courts can fix it. sarah huckabee sanders, the democrats did it. the democrats have to change it. this bill, this law, we can't change it. obama did it. bush did it. again, this is objective, objectively you can look at this. everything they said was a lie, not a misstatement, a lie. everything sarah huckabee sanders said there was a lie. everything the president said there was a lie.

everything the administration has been saying about this is a lie. this is a decision donald trump and jeff sessions made and they executed it. yesterday, the president proved thatis a liar on this front and everyone went out and lied for him. everybody in the administration that said he couldn't fix this are liars. >> neilson said this is not a policy. this is not even a policy. then they came back and said this was a policy. >> have any men come out to speak on this? >> when asked whether this policy was intended to send a message, she said i am offended by that question, deeply offended. meanwhile, jeff sessions, stooem stephen miller and others said this is a tough deterrent. it's what we want. i know we'll get into it, but

there are 2300 or so kids separated from their family. >> traumatized. >> they are sitting in the legal limbo. >> where are the girls? >> heidi, one of the things, there's so many elementsf this but what will we be saying if russia seized 2300 children and if russia didn't allow the world to see pictures of babies being incarcerated, toddlers being incarcerated, young girls being incarcerated? the centralized state of donald j. trump is refusing to allow the press, and by extension, americans to see what condition toddlers are being incarcerated in in the united states of america. babies are being -- 3-year-old girls are being incarcerated. this is something putin would

do. this does not happen in the united states of america. anybody that supports donald trump, tell me why, why is there a news blackout? why can't we see what these young babies, what the incarceration looks like? >> if there was ever a moment that we, as a nation, should realize what it means that we are retreating from our traditional role as a beacon of human rights, it is what is happening on our own soil. you are right, joe, we are not gotten in to find out what the conditions are. now, we are talking potentially moving these children to military-style camps. we don't have any kind of clarity as to what's going to happen after 20 days because we have this agreement. to your point about the world we are in, it was said best when said the arsonist now trying to

play fireman. we go back. rewind. seriously, 24 hours, the president, himself, saying you have to take the kids. then sitting in the oval office and hoping that the world and the nation now views him as this leader whose rolling back 60 years of bad policy. no, it's 60 days of horrific policy. >> this started with jeff sessions, the attorney general of the united states. >> he just got to announce it. >> he read it off paper. >> this is what's so fascinating. i guess the most intense trumpists may say, they are in our country illegally. as i stated time and again, i'm conservative when it comes to immigration. i think borders mean something. the international order is fantastic. but, i'm a big believer in borders and boundaries and

nations. that said, even political prisoners have protections under the geneva accord. political prisoners, we have a right to inspections. we have cameras going in guantanamo to show gitmo to look at the prisoners and conditions. right now, there's a news blackout. i'm wondering, help us put this in better perspective. we know the united states doesn't behave this way, toddlers incarcerated and the press is not allowed to show americans what the situation is and infants are incarcerated and the press is not allowed to see. has this ever happened in the united states? is this what happens in russia where they seize children and put them in a black hole? >> i suspect it's a matter of time before international,

someone calls for international inspectors to come into the united states to inspect how we are doing on human rights grounds and the rest. building on heidi's point, one of the most important things in foreign policy is not what diplomats do, it's the example we set as a society, the quality of our society, the quality of our politics, the strength of our economy. this is a major international setback. a long way from being the shining city on the hill. if you are that concerned about your borders, and we should be. >> we should be, yeah. >> we should do more in guatemala, el salvador. do not feel the need to flee to the united states. we helped grow the mexican economy. we work with the mexican government. >> by the way, don't tell president trump and his supporters that one of the reasons why we had negative

immigration flow in the united states over the past several years under the obama administration was because nafta was working so well that actually people were flooding back to mexico because their economy is growing. >> columbia had a tremendous impact on the strength of its institution. if we want to protect our borders, the way to do it is not separating families. one of the main tools we have is to strenlgten the police forces, improve economies. deal with it at the source. we will find ourselves where we don't have to make these awful policies. >> you mentioned international bodies inspecting what is happening here. one of the things i have been struck by is what congress has done in response, which is they have jumped into a legislative debate that is not going to end with legislation passing. they have not, as far as i can tell, launched an investigation about how this came into effect. more critically, which i think we glossed over, how 2,350 or so

families were torn apart by our government. >> we have much more ahead this morning, including ivanka trump, congratulating her father on the separation of families. the author of "profiling the first family." you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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welcome back to "morning joe." we have been talking about the president's abrupt reversal after claiming for days that only congress can stop the family separations along the border. jonathan, you have been reporting about how this played out. >> we had days of the president saying this couldn't be done this way. he would say it couldn't be done by executive order, had to be congress. the white house was trying to pressure capitol hill to come up with a solution so the president was not seen as having to

reverse himself on this. eventually, he did cave to public pressure. as much as the white house is trying to spin this as an act trump was ending what obama started, not correct. this is something they changed. it is striking at the rally at minnesota how he makes barely a mention to the executive order to reverse the policy and, instead, spends so much of the rally hammering home his tough, hard line immigration stances, as if he proving his bona fides on the issue, why he was willing to have the fight in the first place. in reporting, he thought this would be a good, cultural war victory here, akin to the nfl players kneeling for the national anthem. >> you saw the polls, 17% supported this policy. donald trump was working the 17%

on this policy. people think this guy is such a brilliant politician. he's not. he's boiling it down. it's one of the great misreads, i think, of recent, american political history. the guy lost to hillary by 3 million electoral votes. he got elected against one of the worst campaigns and worst campaigners in modern history. they didn't show up in wisconsin. they sent barack obama to michigan on election day. this guy is not a great political mind. he knows how to poke and insult people but he's been playing a 17% hand for a week and a half and his poll numbers will drop from it. already, we have seen the ballot test between republicans and democrats are breaking the democrats way. >> the poll numbers ticked up before this crisis. as we know, trump so often aims

policies at his base. this shows us in recent days how much he is a lone wolf. he is flying solo on a lot of decisions. there are few voices around him that can tell him, no, mr. president, you shouldn't do this. we'll get to that later. this includes members of his own family. this is a decision he went with. people like stephen miller and john kelly were advocating for him. this is trump's decision. he was frustrated this would be seen as his reversal. >> plenty of controversy surrounding the immigration. we'll talk about the laws surrounding the issue, straight ahead. island anymore. [ roar ] [ heavy breathing ]

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joining us now, former gop counsel for the house oversight committee, contributor to msnbc and author of "e pluribus one".

the party is going through a stage where they are not conservative on spending or deficits. they are not conservative on debt or entitlements or trade, alliances, they are not conservative on, you know, holding together ronald reagan's coalition for a free and safe america. you name it, they are not conservative. yet, they are -- they seem to be obsessed on doing things that further divide their politicians from the majority of americans who will be determining who wins elections over the next 40 years. how bad have the last week been for members of my former party, politically. we see the polls that show the generic ballot test is waving in democrats favor.

how bad will this be in '18 and also '20 for republicans? >> of course, joe, you know steve schmidt left the republican party yesterday, which i think was sad. it was not unexpected given what he's been saying on social media for months and how he feels. many of us feel the same. i think the republican party is in serious trouble. it's been trending that way for a while for the reasons you explained. it is not a conservative party anymore, in the way we value conservativism. in virginia, they have nominated corey stewart for the u.s. ticket. he's openly supportive of white supremacists and that's whose the republican nominee. so -- >> which, by the way, in that case, forget about the moral outrage, look at it politically. he has now put four swing seats from virginia in the democrats hand.

>> yeah, absolutely true. >> barbara comstock good-bye. that selection just made her job so much more difficult. >> it did. i think she probably had a shot as keeping her seat had there been a different nominee for the senate. it's going to be difficult because corey stewart is going to make the gop the poster party for racism and everything that is bad, which has become synonymous with republican. that bothers me as it bothers you. >> this is willie geist. >> hey, willie. >> the repubcan conference two nights ago, there was a moment the president mocked mark sanford who was not there. we had him on last week after he lost his primary. he said his message to those people running this fall, republicans, is to pledge allegiance to donald trump or else. what do you think the state of the party is, if you are running

for office right now and you try to cross donald trump in some way? >> well, i think, again, going back to steve schmidt, it is not the republican party anymore. i mean, i could go on a long history we don't have time for about what the true republican party is, the party of lincoln, the party of thomas jefferson and republican ideas. we are not that anymore. we have become a very what we call regional myopic, angry party that is afraid of the demographic shifts in this country, that doesn't understand diversity and what it means to be a true, big tent in a party that has tolerance for ideas on the left, the right and the center. that's not the republican party i grew up in with jack kemp and people that were mentors of mine. it's a big disappointment to me. we are in bad shape. bottom line, it is trump's party, not the republican party. coming up on "morning joe," calling on members of the administration to go to the

border and see things firsthand. that's what reverend al sharpton did. he joins us ahead on "morning jo" [phone ringing]

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surprise! i got a puppy. add an ipad to select packages for just $5 a month for 24 months. upgrade online now. my father values talent. he recognizes real knowledge and skill when he finds it. he is color blind and gender neutral. he hires the best person for the job, period. >> that was first daughter and senior adviser to the president, ivanka trump at the 2016 republican national convention for her father. she's faced criticism for her silence on critical issues. she and her husband went skiing in aspen while her father tried

to repeal obamacare. she could not convince him to stay in the paris climate. she was gone when president trump refused to single out white supremacists and neonazis. she commented for the first time on the topic yesterday, thank you potus for taking critical action, ending family separation at our border. congress must now act and find a lasting solution that is consistent with our shared values, the same values that so many come here seeking as they endeavor to create a better life for their families. >> it bears repeating, of course, that the president ended a policy that the president began back in march. that is the fact. you can look at the record. jeff sessions announced it in

march. and the president, despite the fact saying he could not end it because it was a democratic plan or something from previous administrations. he ended it yesterday, when he wanted to. with us now, senior reporter of "v "vanity fair" emily jane fox "born trump." >> my understanding is you have word she was thinking about whether or not to say something over the weekend? >> i have been asking around to people who advise her and people who are close to her, what happened this week? how could she not speak up about this. the responses back to me was she was asking us, should i say something? the responses back to her were, how could you not say something. this is the exact reason you are supposed to be in the white house, advising against families and children. it's a win/win. say whatever you want. the first lady said something

that didn't mean anything, but she was on the record saying something. yet, she decided not to say something. >> why? based on everything you know and all after your reporting, you have written the book on her. >> i'll give it to you strai she has an incredibly complicated relationship with her father. she was scared her last name wasn't going to be trump anymore. she called her father time after time after time, more often than when he was living with her. she was scared he was going to abandon her. when she was 15, he suggested she get plastic surgery so she kick started her modelling career. they have a very complicated relationship. >> i'm sorry, when he was 15 ssh. >> when she was 15, he suggested he get breast implants. >> at 15, he suggested that to his daughter. >> suggested it to people around him about his daughter.

she is in the white house. she understands her father is going to do what he is going to do. you know this, she said publicly and privately, my best advocacy is in private to my father, but it hasn't worked. hasn't worked in private or public. why are you in the white house? what are you doing? if you are not an effective adviser. >> she said that to her friends, she actually has very little influence over her father, maybe at the remotest margins. every time we have one of these stories, there's so much clean up after the fact that hey, i was trying. i was at least trying and the story is planted in the media. >> i think she is trying her hardest, but it doesn't work. it doesn't matter how hard you try, if you give it the good old college try, take a stance. >> what have you found?

why are they still there? it is brought nothing but grief to jared and ivanka. very good reputation up here. they had a strong set of friends. they were in many ways, donald trump said he was not accepted in society saying why are they called the elites. ivanka was and jared were, the elites. he owned the new york observer. her list of friends were manhattan elites. she went to all the right schools. she had the right pedigree. why do they continue to put themselves in this position of being abused, constantly, because of her father's actions? why not come back to new york? >> i don't think new york is the same place for them as when they left it. a lot of people who were their friends are no longer their friends. they also feel like they have made some bipartisan moves, ivanka attached herself to the

tax reform and the child care tax credit within that. jared is working on prison reform. i think that is as much heat as they have been getting, that may be the safest place for them. >> she's got this reputation as the trump whisperer. she can get to her dad in a way no one else can. we have to ask, after story after story, does president trump listen to his daughter on policy? >> i don't think he listens to anybody. it is true, she does voice her opinion to him. a lot of people voice their opinions. >> i was going to say -- >> she's not alone. no one has a special voice to him. >> i was struck the first week of his administration, he invited mika and me to have lunch there. we had lunch with jared and ivanka and the president. i was struck that she was

struggling to get a word in that i have seen, struggling to get a word in edgewise. sam, she appears to grant his daughter, who is the trump whisperer anymore difference than anybody else. he doesn't listen to anybody. >> the criticism that ivanka is cowardly for not speaking up seems misplaced, if only because any other senior adviser would be like you need to speak up against our boss publicly. that is crazy. the criticism is the ineffectualness. she is an influence, the first daughter, so she should have entry to the presidency. as far as we can tell, her agenda items fall time and time again. like we said, the problem is not that she didn't speak up, the

problem is she allowed the policy to happen. >> allowed it to happen. i don't want to take away responsibility where it is due. she stepped up for the job. the job is in service to the president, but ultimately for the united states of america, and for our principles and ideals. >> counselors can quit. sorry. >> something to care about like melania did, who said pretty much nothing, she unveiled a program called the best. it is a good program. she is trying to do something in the public eye. ivanka trump, who is the counselor to the president and focused on women and children and families said nothing, said nothing out loud in the face of inhumane abuse of children. >> fine. this is why you don't hire your daughter. if you object to a policy that

your boss put in place, you can quit. that is your recourse. >> she should quit. >> the problem, of course, is the psychological comply kags that come with quitting on your own dad. this is why you don't hire your kids. there's too much of a web of conflicts of interest. >> some things are worth quitting on. >> you know the man known as donald trump's former fixer, michael cohen. a lot of things happening over the past 24 hours. he hired a new attorney. an attorney that does not fight the southern district of new york, an attorney who makes deals with the southern district of new york. he criticized donald trump's policy in resigning from the rnc and it appears that he's also looking for a deal with mueller or the southern district of new york. what can you tell snus? >> here is what i know. the two are unrelated but have

been in the works. michael cohen has been considering or waiting to resign from the rnc for probably months now. he's also been looking to hire a new lawyer for at least a month now. both of those happen to coincide in the same week. look, there aren't that many options for michael. he feels completely isolated and disappointed in the president. his family is suffering. he has not talked to prosecutors, yet. really, his options are limited. the president has been doing nothing to keep michael cohen from cooperating. almost pushing him toward cooperating. >> not paying legal fees he owes michael cohen. >> there was a dispute for the last couple weeks over how much the trump organization and trump family was going to kick into cohen's fees. the people in cohen world relayed to me thr, this is the stupidest thing to do.

he has nothing toose. what are you doing to me right now? >> a warning shot from cohen saying, i'm going to flip? >> no. they are things he had to do. he had to hire other lawyers. his lawyers said we are done here. he had to resign. >> he didn't have to take a hit at trump on the way out the door. >> thank you. the new book is "born trump" america's first family." boy did you give us insights. wow. up next, the u.s./mexico border for a look at the men and women on the front line of the humanetarian crisis. "morning joe" is coming back. we do whatever it takes to fight cancer.

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the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ welcome back to "morning joe." msnbc correspondent is reporting from the u.s./mexican border in lor ray doe, texas, riding along with u.s. customs and border protection agents and what they face on the front line. >> reporter: good morning, mika. when you talk about what the migrant families go through to get to the u.s./mexico border, many of them fall prey to smugglers, transnational organizations that are basically treating them as merchandise, as a commodity. many families, especially those who can't keep up with the group are left to die in the desert. it is the border patrol, the four-star group behind me that

is in charge of savin lives. right behind me, you see the border patrol, the commander getting ready to go out on his mission for the day to see if there are any migrants they have to save out there in the save i. those folks work six days week. sometimes in over 100 degree heat here in the laredo sector. the no easy task what they have to do. the area they patrol is 88,000 square miles. and the chief was telling me yesterday it's only 1,700 of them to do it, so it's incredibly taxing. they say they don't have the manpower they need and the infrastructure that they need to be able to really patrol the area, keep our families, these migrant families safe. we're going to embed with them all day today to see who are the folks, the first line of defense protecting these migrants out there in the desert.

>> mariana, thank you. joining us now, from a very rainy mcallen, texas, host of msnbc "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. also with us in austin, texas, professor at the lyndon b. johnson school of public affairs at the university of texas. and in washington, reverend barber, co-chair of the national poor people's campaign. thank you all for being with us this morning. >> reverend al, i am somebody that -- somebody that i've known associated with the black site programs tell me what he's hearing at these sites along the border as far as complete se secrecy sounds a lot like the black sites that the cia ran that eventually were shut down. what can you tell us? what have you seen so far? >> well, we have seen that

there's been a deliberate way of keeping people out. we've brought clergy from around the country, sister norma and others, who have dealt with this issue. but there's even debate on how far we can go and what we can see, and what you've been saying all morning is very important with congressman soto and others raised, is that the executive order of the president does nothing about the over 2,000 children, some of which are here, and how they will be reconciled with their family. they don't know where their family is. many of them are tender age. don't even know how to say their name, their mother's name. this is a half baked kind of solution to a problem he caused. rather than say i messed up, he's acting like he's answering 40 years of immigration problem. no, it is what he did when he

caused and those who have been harmed in the process have no way of recovery, which is why we're here today of all denominations, rabbi, others, to call for the reconciliation of those harmed by the trump and trump only policy. >> reverend, i know you've organized a march that will take place in washington. there are still some 2,300 children who have been separated by their families. the president's executive order does nothing to touch on what may have happened to them. what is happening in the country now? >> over 3,000 people have engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience dealing with this issue of poverty. today, hundreds of people from around the country will march on the capitol hill because of this policy violence against family and children. and then on saturday. you know, hi hear these

evangelicals. jesus said it would be better to tie a stone around your neck than to offend the little ones. policy violence against children, families, is immoral. it's the separation of families. it's the attacking of health care, the attacking of chips. it's even as though america first means first in taking health care, be first in taking food stamps. it is immorality at the highest level. any clergy that's silent in this moment, they're clergy and their position as a minister is terribly suspect. because this is a critical moment in america. which way do we go. are we going to be america first in harm and hate and violence? are we going to establish justice and be about love and truth? >> sam, it's so interesting that some evangelical leaders who have been enablers of the president of the united states and who have reminded me of

scribes and hearsays, enabling those in power, now speaking out against policy -- >> there are apparently lines, which is good -- >> apparently lines. >> the things i want to emphasize though, and when i talked to immigration agents about this executive order, they emphasized was this, there's a real concern that the heat on the administration will be removed because he's taking this executive order action. even though the situation may not improve -- yes, children will be kept with their families. but will they be indefinitely detained? if so, where will they -- this is a question for victoria. you bring in the flores agreement, which says children cannot be held for longer than 20 days. what is the work-around here? are we going to end up in a system where, yes, they're kept with their parents but in facilities that don't cater to children and can't accommodate children? or are we going back in a place where they have to be separated

from their families after those 20 days are up? >> so in theory the kids can't be held for more than 20 days. sadly, i don't think the trump administration is going to follow that order. and we're going to see the children and the parents kept for longer than 20 days. however, it is not something that is a given. we saw the administration move mountains to implement the zero tolence policy to erect tent cities within the course of days. the ability to bring all these people into these detention centers. so if the administration really wanted to, they could process folks within the 20-day span. a lot of folks are sking asylum. so they shouldn't be going to the court proceedings to begin with. they should be getting asylum proceedings. if the trump administration wanted to, it would be very easy to follow the letter of the law. the final point is these detention centers by and large are held by private companies,

which are rife are iwith allega of misconduct. this is a very dangerous position. 20 days is too much, in my opinion. >> reverend, we're setting out to try and find some of these children and see if you can have time with them. have you had any luck? >> yes, we are. we are meeting at the center with sister norma, with some of the familyings. and then we're going to the detention center. we don't know if we'll be allowed to talk to the families in the center. we certainly will be with sister norma, catholic charities and civil rights activists. we want to be at the point of action. to say that this fight is not over. we want them to understand that americans are not ones that will close the door. we will stand up for them and human rights to have their families together. even as they go through a process of seeking asylum.

it is the human rights thing to do. >> heidi. >> reverend, we have some very -- >> reverend barber. >> yes, reverend barber. >> we have some disturbing headlines crossing the wire by the associated press about the treatment of immigrant children in existing u.s. detention facilities. i assume these are children -- these are the 10,000. this suggests maybe we need to broaden our lens not just to the children that have been separated but the unaccompanied children who are being detained in u.s. facilities. victoria mentioned these are run by private companies. we now have headlines crossing in terms of -- these are allegations, we haven't independently verified them. the headline is immigrant children as young as 14 housed at a juvenile detention center in virginia say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells. what kind of oversight is there? >> we have to be real about

this. this policy is rooted in a former white nationalism. the first proxy war was the battle against immigration. what you have is a mind-set that does not even see these children as children. they see them as a war, as a necessary -- a problem. they don't see them as human beings. that traces all the way back to slavery and the way in which indigenous people were treated. that's why we can't just celebrate, even if we have a policy that ends the separation. we have policy violence. where were you when they cut chips? the scripture says "woe unto those with evil." american policy will attack the poorest and the lowest and the children and the families. we need massive nonviolent civil

disobedience. >> what a way to end the show. reverend william barber, reverend sharpton, victoria, thank you all. joe. >> again, i got another text from someone involved, a friend i've known for some time, in the black site programs where we held al qaeda. talking about the parallels between what's happening now with these children being hidden from the press and the black sites that we use against al qaeda. people who actually killed americans. not 2,300 kids. unknown location. unknown individuals. no outside observations. >> how in the world -- >> that has to end. and perhaps other media organizations will be more interested in finding out the truth about where these