week which is it looks like trump is going to go after china not just on trade, but he is going to try to clamp down on china over their, you know -- they basically steal our technology or force our companies to do business over there, and it looks like trump will go after china on that, and you will have another dimension on the trade war. >> thank you very much. to all of our viewers, you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.access.com. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ listeniwelcome to "morning " it is monday, the 25th, and we have mike barnacle. we also have elise jordan, our

political writer for "the new york times," and the president, counsel on foreign relations and the author of the book "world in disarray," and fan of the new york yankees who got swept this weekend by a -- >> awfully early to get this going. >> wow. >> richard high. and our national political reporter is here as well. you started insulting people. >> it hurts me. >> it hurts you. >> mike, there was a little league game that broke out friday night in boston. >> yeah. yeah. back and forth. back and forth. 14 runs. 24 runs scored in total. i expected both teams would get popsicles because they played like little leaguers. >> jack gave up the ghost, and -- >> it's a wrong season. >> 162 games. baseball like life.

how was your weekend, mika? >> it was fantastic actually, but i have been more concerned about what's been going on with these families, and i stayed kind of clued in on it figuring out how to kind of approach this story. and i understand you can't overshoot the runway, but at the same time, we have to say exactly what it is. >> you can't overshoot the runway. you also -- also have to keep your head, and i would just suggest -- and i think david axelrod even talked about it this weekend. mike barnacle, when you start publicly shaming people with whom you disagree, and god knows i disagree with the federal government's position, trump's position right now on so many things, but when people can't go into restaurants without being shouted out of restaurants or movie theaters, you know, we have got a problem. when you have got members of congress who are saying, hey. we have to chase them down the

streets and we have to scream and yell at them. no. that's really not how you persuade people to move off the trump train and go more to a reasonable traditional position. >> and we have also in the process listened to the president of the united states suggesting that we do away with due process. >> right. >> which is, oh, okay. it's only, you know, the fifth amendment of the constitution, but, you know, joe, the striking thing is when you talk to people, average americans, there are no more political parties. there is only trump. >> yep. >> it's amazing he has blocked so much out because of his -- it's not daily. it's repeatedly during the course of the day. multiple times during the course of almost any day that he says or does something that used to be outrageous, used to be shocking and now it's become kind of a norm. >> yeah. >> very dangerous. >> it rises and it rises and it rises and you say, you know,

we're not going to obsess about him, and he talks about getting rid of due process when it comes to immigration cases and you find yourself in a position where you have got to actually talk about it. >> that's the issue. >> children seized from their parents. 2,500 infants, toddlers, children, spread out. reports that a 3-year-old actually -- 3-month-old i mean, moved to michigan. 4-year-old was put on a bus at the border in mexico/texas. driven up on a bus with a government contractor who couldn't touch them, couldn't hug them. some who didn't even speak spanish, driven all the way up, 2,000 miles to new york city. >> people don't know what to do, and they are very -- i mean, i really meant more than ever, people who are visibly upset about what is going on, and i

totally understand a very good, honest debate about whether or not somebody who works in the white house, you know, should be shouted out of the restaurant or not. the answer is not. >> no. >> but dwelling on it, and the white house press secretary tweeting about it is completely inappropriate, off topic at this point and pales in comparison to what is ailing this nation. people don't know what to do, so they are doing what they can. >> they do at the same time, keep your head down and worry about parents. if you were a parent -- and i had somebody who usually defends trump saying, i'm not sure at this point, how anybody who has children could not look at this and be moved in a personal way and ask, what's happening to our country? and yet, we're going to have jeremy peters on later today. jeremy wrote a story that the more donald trump is attacked,

whether it's for lying and they admit that he is a liar. whether it's just overt racism where it has gone from a seasoning to the beginning of the campaign to literally the central driving principle of his presidency. you look at the press conferences he is holding and the statements he is making. the central -- the central defining nature of his presidency now has to do with attacking people who are not white. look at his tweets. look what happened over the past week. people understand that too, and yet they go, well, i know. that makes me unrvel ccomfortab they still support him. >> it's everywhere now. discussions of infestation that

precedes pogroms, and their investment in this man is so deep, and if you look at the politics of racism and nationalism in this country, it is a reaction i believe, from my reporting on this, to the reality that in 20 or 30 or 40 years, this country is not going to be a majority white country. there are people who are fer d terrified of that because it means a loss of their cultural prominence and predominance in the long-term. they are frightened or scared and respond to the racist attacks and they rally to him. >> by the way, i want to say really quickly, mike, and we'll get to the news in a second and really look at some of this, but mike huckabee sent out a tweet this week. so racist that you even had an awful lot of conservative, christian leaders coming out y saying -- vander blatt said,

what happened to the mike huckabee that i know? david french calling -- right here. this is -- this is whatever you want to call it. you pick -- if you don't want to pick let's say parallels to the 1930s in germany, let's just say david duke if that makes you feel more comfortable. but despite this, do you know that the percentage of gang members coming across the border continues to plummet, has throughout the obama years and now it only accounts for 0.075% of everybody that comes across the border that's an illegal immigrant? >> yeah. that, and the president clearly tries every day, multiple times a day, to sell ms-13 around us. they are coming to long island

and they are in long island. they are everywhere. they are in lawrence, massachusetts. ms-13, its origins in are los angeles. its orientation is in los angeles, and in the united states of america that they were assembled years ago. but the wider issue here is to nick's point, unfortunately for us, part of our history that we have to address is it's always been easy to sell fear in this country. i mean, the attorney general in the 1920s, the red scare through mccarthy, up until today. it's easy to sell fear, and donald trump is a master of resentment, and selling fear. always has been. >> quick question, richard. there were 303,916 total

migrants coming last year. according to the federal government. >> i would assume it was a handful. >> 228. out of 303,000. let me just say for those of you tweeting all weekend, mike huckabee and other people, friends and family of mine, tweeting all weekend about how savage that gang members are coming in over the border, according to donald trump's government, 303,916 total immigrants came last year. 303,000. total number of ms-13 were 228. it's just, like, the biggest lie of all. >> but there is a real connection between gang members and immigration, is that the violent gangs in places like

honduras, guatemala -- >> right. they are leaving gang violence to bring their children to america. >> that's right. this was on the christian broadcasted network and they wanted to have these governments pay for the fact that so many -- he said they were sending people to the united states, and that was wrong in two ways. they are not sending people to the united states. people are fleeing for their lives and they are not understanding the risks and uncertainties because they don't want their daughters forced into sexual slavery, and they don't want their sons killed. if they don't want the government to quote/unquote pay, they will be less legal for the systems that will contain the problem at home. there is a connection of gangs to immigration, but it's the problem there. >> heidi, again. we're going to get to this, but you look at the big lie, which is that illegal immigration is at such a -- there is such a

crisis here that we have to build a wall. we have to separate 3-month-olds from their parents and ship them to michigan and separate 4-year-olds from their parents and get them on buses and drive up with adults that aren't allowed to touch them, that don't speak spanish, and it's because donald trump has been lying for three years that there is this massive immigration crisis. there is not -- these numbers have been plummeting since 2000 which was the peak of illegal immigration in america. there was a high through george w. bush's presidency, and it declined precipitously through barack obama's presidency, and it's time to go down. >> the return to this issue, if it's not the numbers, we have an election coming up. this was a very successful tactic for this president going into his election. when he descended those stairs

on the escalator and called all mexicans rapistrapists. we saw numbers over the weekend that said tax cuts have plummeted in terms of republican approval. their strategy is not working. he is going back to the well on something that he himself over the weekend said, hey. this is a good issue for us too. one thing i wanted to note about the lies, joe, and there is so much of this aspect that we can cover at this point, but i was briefed over the weekend on something that i think we need to raise the flag on here in terms of potential lies, and that is looking at the numbers -- let's stick to the numbers here, okay? i talked to someone who is familiar with the numbers of people who are children who are being classified as unaccompanied. when you look at the numbers, last year, monthly average was about 55. now monthly average is about

220, and here's what this person who is very well positioned to know told me. these are families. these are not unaccompanied children coming across the border. this is a massive spike in terms of families who are being separated, and here's the problem. we don't -- these people on the hill, these aides feel we don't have an accurate figure of the actual number who have been separated from their parents. that 2,000 number only dates back to may. this zero tolerance policy was announced in april, but a lot of aides on the hill say they have good reason to believe that these separations predated the announcement of that policy, and therefore we don't have a full, accurate accounting of the number of children who have actually been separated from their families. again, 55 average last year. 220 this year, and so they said to me, you're a member of the

press. please, please raise thelag on this and say to all media that we need to start asking this administration how many total children have been separated since you became president? not since may. >> right. >> and these are the facts that we have to search for every day and stick to and get right. elise jordan, i say this because it is from our vantage point, all we can do even though this is a very, very emotional issue and it's really hard not to get pulled into the magnitude of the problem, but this president constantly tests the limits on the facts and that's a really nice way of putting it, and i have never seen in almost 11 years of doing this show, people come up to me. not to watch you on tv, but please do something. what can we do? i am so upset. i have never seen such a visceral reaction everywhere i go. just talking to people who want to do something, who want to say

something, which i think is why it's almost infuriating to hear the white house manipulate these issues, and even the problem that sarah sanders had over the weekend, which is a absolutely legitimate problem, but who cares at this point? >> it goes back to the anger over plenty of americans know that they are being lied to constantly, and they want the truth. should someone who lies constantly and enables the president's lies be openly welcomed in society wherever they please? should they face any kind of social or societal pressure. i'm increasingly weighing towards yes, even they i'm about civility, but there are choices. sarah sanders has made her choices and she chose to give false information from that podium to the american taxpayers

who are paying her salary. facts matter. the context that we present the facts matter, and this is not going away because we have thousands of children who have been separated from their parents and we don't even know the full mag new attitunitude o. >> where are they? >> she was politely asked to leave a restaurant and her meal was comped. i'm not super worried about that in a breach of civility. it's worrisome to me in the long-term that the country loses its ability to talk to itself. if trump drives the conversation to a trumpian level, we'll regret it down the line. i don't think that's a five-alarm fire. the owner did it pretolitely an said, i don't agree with what you are doing. >> i disagree.

i actually respectfully disagree in civility here. >> i disagree, and i disagreed when joe biden was, you know, told not to, you know, come into the bakery. >> one of the first landmark pieces of civil rights legislation was the public accommodatio accommodations, 1964. we fought for the right of americans to be served, whether it was restaurants or hotels and not to be denied on a list of things. politics ironically enough was not one of them. but what happened the other day violates the spirit of the civil rights act of 1964, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't be focusing on other things. i hear you, but it just seems to me, one. it's counterproductive. i think your point is the big point. this is the descent of america into tribalism, and this is dangerous. one of the things we should have learned the last year and a half is we can't take things for

granted in this current country, and things have never gotten bigger than what we can handle in a peaceful way. this makes me uneasy about the trajectory of this country, so i think it's serious. >> i think it comes down to though, the question of how reviewir we're viewing the trump administration. is it authoritarianism or is it just a normal presidency? i think that changes how we deal with it and how we look at it and reflect on it. >> it's increasing author tarnitar -- authoritarianism, but the focus is it's not the trump administration. the focus are the 40 -- probably 42% now. 42% to 45% of americans who support donald trump, and the question is how do they move

away from a candidate, from a politician who is using race constantly? who is lying every day, who is subverting the rule of law every day, who works every day to undermine the power of the federal judiciary? don't think we do that by kicking them out of our restaurants or in buying something in a fun little engagement i had this weekend. we don't do it by saying if you are supporting donald trump, you are a racist. at the end of the day, my concern is with that 45%, why are they supporting this man? i don't understand it, but i know this. for the rule of law to be protected, for constitutional norms to be protected, for america's role in the world or the protected, for our allies to be protected, and for americans standing across the global to be

protected, for free markets to be protected and for our free way of life to be protected, they need to be moved away in my opinion, from supporting a man who is -- who is so has been so abhorrent. i don't think this will move them. politics is about making friends. it's about converting people to your cause. how do you do that? it's not running around screaming on college campuses and in movie theaters and in restaurants, that you are a racist. get out of here. >> the trump presidency has induced a lot of collateral damage. principally in the united states congress. the house and senate have been badly damaged to ineffectiveness because of their excessive focus on the democrats' part of donald trump and by going overboard comparing the trump presidency to elements of nazi germany. it was so overboard i think it turned a lot of people off. the way to do it, joe, in my

view, and anecdotally talking to people about it is to simply concentrate, focus on convincing more and more americans that donald j. trump, president of the united states, is simply not up to the job. that's it. he can't do the job. >> yeah. >> and eventually, hopefully, for people who want him out, you know, he'll prove it even further over the next 18, 20 months. >> we wish that there could be somebody in there that he would listen to, that his policies could be transformed and he could move. unfortunately, it keeps getting worse by the day. >> it's proven. mpl up next, we'll fact check the president on his immigration claims and look at the efforts to separate families. big changes have been made in this administration, but big

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all right. let's get into the federal government's efforts to put families back together after the trump administration forcibly separated them at the southern border. >> there was a good "new york times" article talking about border guards, members of hhs just torn by the policy and actually angry at what the orders were. even those that supported a tougher border policy, being upset the way this was being brought -- >> it's the way we are. >> hhs right now, so many government employees are scrambling to try to do the

right thing and clean up the mess that donald trump has hoisted upon them. >> massive pr fail for him. and a fail for our country. children from those families have been spread from maryland to michigan to california as well as shelters in virginia. in what "the washington post" describes as cold, institutional settings, with workers who are not allowed to speak to them, and people who are not allowed to touch them, but hug them when they cry. migrant children are separated from their childrens, and outside of houston, a migrant and lawyers say children are told they can reunite with their children at the airport if they agree to sign a voluntary deportation order right away. in el paso it is said it is

housing 32 mothers who don't know where their children are. on friday, the department of health and human services created an unaccompanied children reunification task force, and on saturday, the united states government said they know the location of all the children in its custody, and they are working on it reuniting them with their families. >> this is on both sides of the aisle, and nbecause it's about children and not ideology, if they claim to know where these children are, why don't we get the list of where they are? >> show the united states senators. show the american red cross. >> yes. >> show -- show members of the house of representatives. show all of these people. you know, this weekend the american red cross tweeted that

as we understand, you all want us to help out. we have told the government we're willing to help out, but we can't help out if they don't allow us access to which i said, oh. now they are banning the american red cross. he said we're waiting of course, because we have to deal with the federal government every day. they tweet them next morning. we know that's really true. we weren't banned from it. >> organized access to the american red cross -- >> they denied it. here's the thing. >> decembthey said, we're willi help out. they admitted by tweet that they can't help. if the government does not give them access, they can't help. the american red cross is still not in. so they can try to spin all they want. i understand why the american red cross has to spin. you have to deal with

governments, but they are still not in. we still don't have a list. united states senators still are not in. united states members of the house of representatives are still not allowed in. as i said the other day, i was contact by somebody very hyigh p in the intel services who said, this reminds me of our black sites. nobody has access. nobody knows exactly where they are. nobody knows exactly who is being housed and there is no absolutely outside access. he said, but we were doing that for terrorists who killed americans in 9/11. these are 3-year-old children. >> that's when they are hiding. they are hiding that they are treating 3-year-old children in camps on the border like they are in a militarized war zone.

>> if you read the stories about how this happened, was the lack of any preparation whatsoever about this policy. this is ad hno concern about implementation, and this is all by design or default. the administration can't even do what it wants to do, and even though what it wants to do is wrong. >> where we ended on friday in our conversation is realizing it's been such a tornado of a story that i think the media kind of got caught in this. we're only seeing and showing pictures that were released by the government. what is that? that is propaganda. we need to see these children and we need access to what's happening in this story. the media is being deniied access, and i'm not sure the media should take part in whatever you want to call it, the kidnapping by showing propaganda video as opposed to the denial of access for these

children. >> some outlets, including "the times" have decided to not use the photos being handed out until the photographers are allowed access. the point of this is to have an objective, outside look and not have handouts. it does not mean that what is happening in this center is cruel and terrible. >> we don't know. >> it doesn't mean they are not working hard to deliver good care for these children. >> ewiwe don't know. >> we won't until somebody can look. >> congressmen, the american red cross, senators, not allowed to go in there. trumpists were saying it was fake news. show me the american red cross pictures. where is the american red cross? why can't they go in and let us

know these children are okay? >> oh. >> because they haven't been allowed in. they said they are ready, willing and able, but they weren't allowed in. that's what erdogan does, putin does, what despits do. the red cross not being allowed in to show us these children are okay. facts matter. i had a lot of friend and family members this weekend swallow whole what's been told to them by donald trump. now jesus said, let those who have ears hear. jesus said, let those who have ears hear. so if you have ears, and if you

give a damn about what's true and what's a lie, then i'm going to give you some facts right now. these are facts actually from donald trump's administration. so donald trump's been basing his immigration rhetoric and policy over the past couple of years on the fact that we're in the middle of this huge crisis. immigrants are, quote, infesting america. infesting by the way, we're not comparing it to adolf hitler or nazi germany, but that's what hitler said about jews. infesting. said they are breeders. but anyway, so donald trump said that, we had to build a wall. we had to have extreme border security measures, and it was such a crisis we had to separate parents from their own children, from their babies, from their infants and toddlers and it was essential. it was the only thing that could be done because the flow of illegal immigration was so

radically high. take a look. >> if they see any weakness, they will come by the millions. we have to have strong borders. >> they will come by the millions. they are infesting us he says. they are breeders. here's the truth. hee here's the fact. if you don't believe me, check donald trump's own administration. the truth is u.s. custom and border patrols' own statistics show the numbers at the southwest border have been dropping -- wait for it. wait for it. wait for it. for a decade. we have had negative immigration in recent years. with more mexicans leaving than coming between 2009 and 2014. did you just hear what i said?

can we go back to that chart one more time? the next time you hear that millions of illegal immigrations or immigrants are flooding into our country. look at this chart. look at this chart. it's pretty bad in 2000. no doubt. 220,000? >> all predates donald trump too. >> almost dropped by 10%. when barack obama became president, and even at the end of george bush. '07, down. '08, down, '09, down. '10, down, 13, up a little. '14 up a little. whatever barack obama was doing, holy cow. that's amazing. '16, so much lauower than it ha been. it's up a little bit, but still.

really low. due in part, to improvements in mexico's economy. the administration and support say that immigration is increasing crime rates. this is important. he says that as it pertains to america, he says it as it p pertains to germany and merkel, but donald trump's own statistics say that's just not true. you see that things on friday when the president held an event with families of people who were killed by people that were in the country illegally. did you see that? >> yeah. >> even -- and this was really a weird thing. i don't know what normal people do this because i have never seen it my entire life. trump autographed the photos of their deceased loved ones. that, of course -- let's not

even mention again, mike huckabee's tweet suggesting that nancy pelosi's company is a group of toattooed, hispanic thugs. something that is so racist and so out of the handbook of david duke that even christian leaders across america, evangelicals that had marched behind donald trump came out and the criticized him. but here's the fact. crime in the united states -- crime in the united states is at generational lows. 2017 is on pace for the second lowest crime rate since 1990. in new york city, crime rates are so low that they have to go back and guess what years they were as low. "the new york times" reporting last year that they think it might have been this low in the 1950s, but they don't know

because they just don't have the rates to compare. undocumented immigrants? this is -- this is going to shock you, friends and family. this, my friends and family plan by the way. this is my friends and family chart right here. undocumented immigrants commit less crime than we americans that were born here. do you see that? undocumented immigrants that donald trump is holding press conferences about on friday to try to cover up the fact that he is snatching 3-month-old babies who are breast feeding from their mothers, undocumented dpraents commit less crime than native-born citizens. this is from the cato institute, and it also falls as the president's repeated claim that the zero tolerance policy is on drugs and crime.

it was shown that federal prosecutors in southern california has been warning of a flood in minor charges that donald trump is obsessing on, and people say, they want to throw the bad guys in jail. the drug runners. they are now warning the federal government that what's going on at the border is going to take resources away from drug smuggling and criminal cases at the border. another lie is america pays a financial price for people that come into this country. it costs so much money, doesn't it? these illegal immigrants, they are stealing all of our money. we're going to go bankrupt. oh,my god. look at this. it scares me. >> illegal immigration costs our country more than $113 billion a year, and this is what we get.

>> illegal immigration costs our country hundreds of billions of dollars. >> so i just -- so at this point, i really am asking. do you really care that it's a lie, or do you want to embrace the lie? and i'm serious. do you care that he is lying? do you want to repeat his lie because it makes you feel good? or does the truth still matter to you? you know, the trump administration, your guy, donald trump, your guy that you regurgitate his lies back onto your twitter feed and your facebook feed and tell your friends at restaurants, your guy, donald trump, ordered the government to try to back up his claim that refugees were costing

this country billions and billions of dollars. so they did the study. guess what? they didn't like what they found out. "the new york times" reported last year that trump officials under pressure from the white house to provide the number of producing refugees we let into the united states of america, rejected a study by donald trump's health and human services. you know why? because they found, get this. ready? wait for it. wait for it. refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost. hold on a second. hold on. did you hear what i said? because i know you can't continue to repeat his lies if you heard what i said. donald trump's own government did a study that found out that

refugees -- you know, like a lot of guys that are in silicon valley right now, a lot of women in silicon valley. refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenue over the past decade than they cost. that's a pretty good investment. the report they ultimately submitted, suggesting the cost of refugees, and none of the revenue. so donald trump's team freaked out. they freaked out because they said, show us how much refugees cost this country. show us how much families of all these people that are now running silicon valley. show us how much that cost america. >> this infestation. >> it's an infestation, donald trump says. these proceeders. this has to be costing us so

much. donald trump -- you're donald trump that you are going to tweet about today. he says in duluth, what did he say in hundreds of billions of dollars? did he say that? i can't exactly remember, but it ends up that donald trump's own government found out that refugees contributed $63 billion to the united states economy over the past decade. so they killed the study. but it's still there. you can still find it, and by the way this past week, i took my daughter -- took my daughter out to the west coast. we had a dad/daughter trip. i was so blessed to be able to do that. there were other parents having their daughters ripped away from them, but we went to stanford. we went to silicon valley. guess what i saw there? i saw immigrants.

immigrants who changed america, immigrants who changed the world. immigrants who have changed the way we live today, and will be changing the way we live for hundreds of years. thank god steve jobs' father didn't try to come to the united states of america when somebody like donald trump was president. thank god the geniuses that made intel intel didn't try to come to the united states of america when a president like donald trump was trying to keep them out. thank god the founders of google didn't to the united states of america when donald trump or somebody like donald trump was trying to keep them out.

listen. ask cato. ask the koch brothers. ask "the wall street journal" editorial page. ask the most conservative people that you know, whether what donald trump is saying is true or not. it's not -- it's a lie. immigration, the right kind of immigration. immigration transforms america. it did over the past 25 years, and it has over the past 240 years. i'm asking you not as a republican, or an independent or a democrat, to stop repeating donald trump's lies. and then stop swallowing them whole. and then remember.

who we are as a people, what we are as a country and what we need to do if we're going to compete with china, russia and the rest of the world in the years to come. we'll be right back. your brain changes as you get older.

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joining us now, national political reporter for nbc news, carol lee. carol is out with a new exclusive report this morning entitled "mattis is out of the loop and trump doesn't listen to him" says officials. we all kind of i think secretly feel more comfortable that he is the there. is that a stretch at this point? >> and it's not just you guys, there's a lot of people in washington who feel that way, particularly on capitol hill who see mattis as a stabilizing force and feel reassured by having him there but my colleague and i wanted to look at what the dynamic is since john bolton came on as national security adviser and mike pompeo moved over to become secretary of state and we found increasingly on a number of key decisions mattis is either

caught off guard by the president's decision or overruled on everything from moving the u.s. embassy in israel to jerusalem, he opposed that. on sending national guard troops to the border, he was against that, the president did it anyway. and also last week the president called for a space force which mattis is on the record having opposed. then if you look at something like the iran deal, everyone expected that the president would withdraw from the iran deal in may but mattis learned that he had made a final decision from a colleague, not from the president himself and called over to the president's personal assistant and said apparently i need to speak to the president because he's made a decision on this. when we talk to people in the white house they say look, he's just not one of the president's go-to people and advisers who are close to him. he's never been one of those folks and he's not now.

>> so in the early days of the administration there was talk of the president being guided by a group of old hands, experienced hands, tempered voices and one by one they've mostly left the administration. so what does it mean for the administration going forward and who is in the loop? or is there a loop if james mattis is not in it? >> it's a great question because as we've seen the president shift around his national security team he's felt emboldened to follow his own instin instincts, to listen to what he thinks should be done and what his instincts are telling him he should do and then finding people to agree with him and he can do that in any number of ways, you have john bolton who is aligned with the president in certain areas of foreign policy then mike pompeo also aligned with the president on certain issues and with mattis what you saw was it was mattis and john kelly and secretary tillerson,

former secretary of state, and they had this alliance and as kelly has weakened as chief of staff and tillerson was fired, you know, that has put mattis in this position as kind of the lone person standing who is part of that original group that everybody felt were the adults in the room. >> nobody seems to be getting to this president. i kind of hoped he would have. nbc's carol lee, thank you so much. we'll be reading your new reporting at nbcnews.com. coming up, we'll ask new york city mayor bill de blasio if the trump administration as said anything to him about reuniting parents with their kids who were brought to his city last week. plus, a call to end the "carnage" of republican misrule in washington. we'll talk to george will about his scathing op-ed urging conservatives to vote against republicans in the midterms. also, senator jeff flake has

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and he is a very hostile judge to me. his name is gonzalo curio. [ boos ] the judge who happens to be, we believe, mexican, which is great, i think that's fine. i'm building a wall, i'm trying to keep business out of mexico. many exco-is fine. there's nothing -- >> he's an american. >> he's of mexican heritage and very proud of it. not that long ago donald trump cited race as a litmus test for whether a judge could do his job. now he wants to dump the courts all together to deport undocumented immigrants. welcome back to "morning joe." it's monday, june 25. >> let's stop there. we were concerned back in early 2017 when donald trump was tweeting out -- suggesting that a george w. bush appointee from washington state did not have the authority to actually make a ruli

ruling. >> that was bad. we're in a very different place now. >> that was bad. you have the president, though, who has, again, done everything he could do to undermine constitutional norms so here we find ourselves with the president on his way to the golf course for, like, what, i think the 117th time despite the fact that he said he would never have time to golf because barack obama golfed too much. but on the way to the golf course the president said that we don't need judges. when it comes to immigration -- >> we cannot allow all these people to invade our country. when someone comes in we must immediately with no judges or court cases bring them back from where they came from. >> so with no judges or court cases. >> our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and law and order. >> you don't have to be learned hand to understand that that is

the president of the united states -- let's go back. we'll talk about erdogan's victory, richard haass, in a second but to do what autocrats i can erdogan is trying to do in turkey, undermine the court system, undermine judicial authority, undermine madison's checks and balances. >> this is fundamental to our political and legal dna, not a sideshow. so even for this president it was an escalation. >> we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan, president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass and nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla. also joining the table we have back with us the mayor of new york city, democrat bill de blasio, we've been talking to him over the weekend as we all want to understand more about the plight of these children, some that have come our way in

new york city. have you been able to see them? >> i saw some of the kids last week, a group of kids primarily from guatemala who were in a classroom in east harlem and there were about 30 or 40 kids. and now what we have learned in the course of the last few days is there's around 300 kids in new york city. no word on when they'll be reunited with their families. >> that's remarkable. 300 children. they've all come up from -- were they flown up from the boarder? >> some were flown up, some were put on a bus with a civilian escort -- >> who's not allowed to touch them. >> and they've gone 2,000 miles. >> a lot of them don't even speak spanish. >> well, the escorts i can't speak to but the kids don't speak english and they are in the middle of something they don't understand. here's what one of the folks who is helping them here in new york

said to me. it was very poignant. i said what's the protocol for getting them in touch with their parents? they said well it depends. some kids have a phone numb we are in a note in their pocket and if they have a phone number maybe we can reach them but a lot of kids are too young, don't know the phone number, don't know anything about where their parent is. don't have that note. >> how old? >> the youngest was nine months. >> nine months old? that somebody brought up from the border to new york that's nine months old without their parents? >> and with no idea of when i know they'll see them again. >> do you have any sense of that nine-month-old's story? how was the nine-month-old separated? how duds this happen in the united states of america where we're shipping a baby across the country. >> i want to stop and ask people, if you have children, if

you have grandchildren, imagine a nine-month-old. you know what i'm talking about. we have kids, we understand where a child is is at nine months of age. do you really pass the sins of a parent on to a nine-month-old child and rip that nine-month-old child out of a mother's arms and put them on a bus and drive them 2,000 miles? this is unspeakable and i hope i'm not over my skis when i say this sounds un-american to mae. i'm a 55-year-old guy. i've never heard of anything resembling this in the united states of america. >> you're right, joe. and you see these kids and you think about what they're going through. they've gotten medical treatment since they've gotten to new york city.

there was no plan for providing for their mental health or physical hailt needs. our health care professionals in new york city started working with these kids and saw a lot of trauma. imagine for any one of us if we were taken from our mother and father and no idea what's going on, maybe we get a phone call two to a relative, maybe we don't and no word on when we'll see our parents again. that's affecting these kids in terms of their mental health. we're trying to help them now but we are creating a generation of kids who will live with that real trauma. >> tell us what you know about the nine-month-old baby. clearly the baby doesn't speak. tell us what you know about him or her. >> all i know, i'll tell you two points. one with the baby that came up what they said was obviously that's a baby where we don't necessarily know how to reach the family members because the

baby can't tell us. the baby didn't have a note in their pocket. it's a free-for-all in the sense of whether you're going to have any connection to the family or whether there's a plan to get them reunited. with the older kids it's better because they can communicate but it's worse because they're more conscious so one of the family members reached out to us looking for a child and we found him, a young boy named eddie, nine years old from honduras taken from his mom at eagle pass, texas, put on a bus 2,000 miles to new york city and for that young man we know he's going through a traumatic experience. >> so you've been -- i've got a ten-year-old boy. i can't imagine a ten-year-old boy being ripped from his father or mother's arms, being driven 2,000 miles away never knowing if they're going to see their

parents again and i'm wondering was there anything about you saw with the nine-month-old or a three, four month old child that resembled a summer camp? there's a broadcaster that said ripping babies out of their mother's arms when they're breast-feed or parents being told their children are being taken to the showers and then they disappear and don't see them again, that's been compared to children going a summer camp. i'm curious. did anything in this facility resemble a summer camp to you. >> not in the least. i want to say the folks trying to help these kids are earnest, they're doing their best but the one facility we were at in east harlem had over 200 kids for the daytime programs then the kids go to foster parents at night who they didn't know a few weeks ago. they're shuttled around a lot. it's not a good situation. people are trying their best to

help these kids. >> and you see a level of trauma with these children? >> the medical professionals are telling us, they're treating these kids and seeing signs of trauma and mental health distress and when it comes back to this core notion of treating the parents like criminals for seeking asylum we get back to the question of what's happening to our country. you know, for generations we respected that people came here seeking freedom, people came here fleeing oppression, including a lot of our ancestors of all different backgrounds, that made us a beacon to the wor world. people respected america as a place you could get a fair hearing and flee oppression. these families are running from violence. >> not only have we basically torn down all the concepts involving the statue of liberty, what it's supposed to mean standing at the head of new

york's ha harbor but mike not o have we turned our back on that long-held american belief, send us your poor, your tired, those yearning to be free we're now punishing their three-month-old children, their four-month-old children, their nine-year-old children because their parents are coming to america for the reason we erected the statue of liberty in new york harbor in the first place. >> joe, you were talking earlier, and you're correct about so many people who refuse to believe us in the media when we point out the obvious lies utter uttered daily by the president of the united states. they refuse to believe us but there's something about a nine-month-old infant being put on a bus or plane, i don't know

how that infant got here. there is something about that that every american regardless of ideology can identify with and i think it is this -- that the way the government keeps records, everyone familiar with anything having to do with governmental records know it's haphazard and chaotic. there is a possibility that this nine-month-old infant could be permanently orphaned. they keep tell us, senator lankford this weekend toll us on television -- and he's a pretty good guy -- that they have a record, they know where child taken is. >> but they won't tell us. >> that's the point. >> they won't share the list. they won't show the press, the american red cross, i don't thi think. >> we've asked, how many kids are in our city, where are they? what's the plan to reunify them

with their families? we've gotten literally know answers. >> don't you have a right to know as mayor of new york city? can mayors, can senators, can congresswomen bring lawsuits to get this information? >> we'll take the legal path and every other path and it's been bipartisan. we had a group of mayors at the border, republican and democrat alike, calling for an end to the policy and reunification of the kids but to your point mike absolutely these kids can get lost in the bureaucratic maze. because if the federal government won't tell where you say they are and what will happen next, they weren't letted elected facilities into texas, this is a new reality. in the past it would have been unthinkable to not allow the people who are supposed to provide oversight into a facility. this is where we should worry about our democracy but these kids get caught in the cross

fire and if you have faith that a bureaucracy that won't acknowledge their existence will reunify their families, that takes a big leap of faith. >> we saw melania trump flying to the border symbolically trying to separate herself from this disaster created business her husband and the rest of his administration that stood by and watched but she asked the question how are they going? how are they going to be reunited with their parents and there's no answers as to how that can be executed. how do they keep track? it's impossible. >> no one can answer the most important question. who are the children? where are they? and how do we reunite them with their parents? part of the new policy, they immediately said well, reunification immediately isn't necessarily what we're doing for.

>> what? really? so they're going to hold them hostage. >> there's no plan and after what happened in puerto rico and the stunning incompetence of this administration, we're just supposed to trust that they're going to be able to handle children who some of whom can't even speak yet to be able to say who their parents are? they're going to get families back together. i just have no confers. this is a bureaucratic and moral disaster. >> and nobody knows that more than members of congress, heidi. hui does anybody, especially in the republican party, stand by this policy? do they think all we're discussing here, what the mayor is saying, is an exaggeration or is lies? this is an abomination for sure but how do they hide from this? >> the answer is they're not trying to stand by it, they're hoping if they don't get the big deal on immigration done, which even the president seems to have ruled that out at this point,

that they can get some kind of a narrow measure to address family separati separati separation. you're seeing republicans in the house and senate talk about that, chairman mike mccaul called about it, the homeland security committee chairman and in the senate my reporting is that today senator cruz and feinstein will meet once again to try and hash out a narrow measure to address this, they had a meeting last week where i was told one democratic member stepped in and said, hey, you two are not that far apart but when i was briefed afterwards they said what does this tell you about the potentially toxic nature of this as a political issue that senator cruz is desperate to and and get something done because he doesn't want this thanking over him the next five months, one quick thing i wanted to mention is the role of due process in all of this over the weekend

there was a houston lawyer quoted as saying there is something diabolical going on at the border when you talk about due process that faeshts and mothers are being given a dang toll say hey, give up your right to claim asylum and we'll reunify you with your child. how is that happening if we don't have an accounting of where their children are and the prospect here that these parents are being deported without their children. how many orphans are we creating because the president himself when he tweeted, he was just confirming what's already happening. he's told even ted cruz, i don't want more judges. >> and that hatred hets spreadispread i -- he is spreading on the internet with his tweets, he digs deeper into a hole and god

forbid one of these children dies on our watch as the united states government is holding them hostage or gets severely ill, got forbid. this could get a lot worse. >> i think that's why there are people inside the department of hhs that are panicking that are trying to figure out where the children are, how they put it together but the problem is you have an administration, mr. mayor, that's doing everything they can, a president specifically, not an administration because everybody inside the white house tells us they know this is a disastrous policy. it's the president and stephen miller. everybody thinks this is a disaster but let's look at ted cruz. ted cruz is talking about sending more lawyers down to the border. actually, if you only have 20 days under current law under flores, that's actually the

correct answer. get the lawyer down there, let them process the claims, let them reunite with the children and send them back to where they came from if that is what the judge is going to rule yet you have the president who goes out of his way to cut ted cruz off at the knees and say that's not what we need. we need no judges. >> we should rise there has been a bipartisan outcry here, i want to look at the positive in this. there have been a number of republicans who have come forward there have been faith leaders that come forward and say this is not american. to be fair to all past administrations, democrat and republican, they did not deny people the basic right to seek asylum. this is aberrant. it reminds me of the reality we faced in mccarthyism where

people said this is no longer acceptable in america. if there aren't folks to defend them and judges to make sense of the equations, if you don't naught into the equation then that chance of permanent orphans is a real thing and secondly there is no concern for the health and well-being of the children, their physical health, mental health, the folks in new york city who received these children said to us there was no plan to make sure they got to hospitals, we had to come in to provide that support otherwise that trauma was going to go untreated. >> at its basic route, do you know whether we know, whether the caregivers know, the name of this nine-month-old baby? >> i don't know in that case i know the caregiver said if a kid doesn't have a note in their

pocket and they have to depend on the bureaucracy to get them the information about their information, that's something you can't depend on, that's the truth. they don't know how to reach the parents or any other family memb member. it's catch as catch can. that lock of humanity, not the folks trying their best or even in the federal bureaucracy who care and are shocked themselves who come up with that lack of human concern for children and babies and maybe the president thinks because they are a different skin color they're less human but most americans don't. they see them through the perspective of their own children that it shouldn't happen to any other family. >> side note. the president lied again about ted cruz who he said in the rally that cruz wanted 5,000 more judges going to the border. it was 375.

of course he also accused ted cruz's father of being part of the assassination of jfk and mocked ted cruz's wife's looks so this is straight in line with what donald trump does all the time. but despite that, mr. mayor, in closing talk about why you're still optimistic. charles krauthammer, i looked back at some of his columns and krauthammer said despite the a abrance of donald trump, despite the fact that he criticized donald trump repeatedly he still said our system of checks and balances work "the system lives." >> yup. >> you share that belief with charles krauthammer, don't you? >> i do indeed. history teaches us, if you go back to the agony of the

mccarthy peopled you good people came forward, including in our military and said enough is enough, good people in the media played a crucial role. you go to the pain of vietnam and watergate, we saw an amazing convergence of leaders, republican and democrat, both sides coming forward and saying it's a moral crisis, this doesn't represent american values. that ran through the question of transparency and openness in our government. in all those cases the government was lying to us and withholding information, people on both sides of the aisle demanded the truth and it broke through. in this crisis with these children it's striking a human and moral chord. a lot of evangelical leaders, including those who are quite conservative who are saying we have a sense of family at the core of our society this is violating our values and this transcends partisanship. you're seeing it from folks who

maybe have been quiet on other issues but they're not being quiet on this one so we have an unexpected defining moment and people are seeing in the human terms. remember, president trump may have 40% of the country that generally agrees with him but how about the other 60%? that's the path forward, people who want america that is respectful and inclusive and humane. >> mayor bill de blasio, thank you very muchmen. >> don't forget to vote tomorrow. still ahead on "morning joe," the more outrage the president sparks the more his most ardent supporters seem to dig in, even if they disagree with him. that's what the "new york times" jeremy peters found from talking to trump voters. jeremy joins us with his reporting. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "morning joe." richard, let's talk about what

happened in turkey yesterday. there were some people suggesting that some of erdogan's opponents may be able to stop him from stealing the election and win. no. no. >> well, i don't know how much stuffing of ballot boxes has happened but you don't need to stuff the ballot box if the entire playing field is tilted throughout the election in terms of access to television above all. he won both votes, the most important was that he abolished the prime minister, he now appoints the entire cabinet. this is one man rule. then he got a working coalition, this party and the far right wing party so the. >> just a shocking turn of events over 10, 12, 15 years. most of us looked at turkey as the bridge between europe and

the middle east and now everything that ataturk tried to build through the years, that turkish leaders tried to build wiped away in a decade. >> turkey now is the middle east and erdogan sees himself as the anti-ataturk. he wants to be the second great man of modern turkey, he wants to reverse the secularism and the western leaning at the heart of ataturk. he can be in office for another 14, 15 years. this turkey will be unrecognizable from the one you talked about ten years ago. we have to shed our illusions and begin to prepare others in reaction or through initiative to lessen our reliance on access to turkish bases and interaction with turkey, turkey may be an ally in the technical sense, it's not a partner in any sense of the word. >> do you think our administration is capable of the long-term strategic thinking

that is needed at this point? >> they've been helping erdogan. they're sending him the most modern aircraft we have so he can let putin and company pore all over it. so this is bad in the short run but in the long run we have to accept the fact that turkey is no longer in our camp. >> but these are the leaders he admires, president xi in china is moving to consolidate power more than anybody since chairman mao. donald trump congratulates him. vladimir putin gets elected again and his staff put in huge all caps do not congratulate, he congratulates him. he admires duarte in the philippines for shooting people in the streets. and kim jong-un. my god, kim jong-un. he holds a summit that even people from the american

enterprise institute and national review are calling a disaster and he calls un a powerful leader. >> he admires the type of authoritarian power that he feels he should have and doesn't have but richard, turkey, our ally, the fuelling of turkey's military might by the united states government, part of it is focused on turkey's intent to wipe out the kurds along the turkish -- it's a huge border. what do we do about stuff like that? >> as crazy as it sounds, it's not inconceivable to imagine american and turkish forces shooting at one another because the kurds have been our principal ally and partner against isis in places like syria. turkey wants to wipe them out. >> while turkey was providing access to syria for isis, as

isis was exploez ingexploezing exploding. >> at some point american foreign policy has to catch up to this reality -- >> coming up democrats are getting a boost from conservative columnist george will. why he is urging readers to vote against republican this is fall. he joins our political round table next on "morning joe."

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no one is going to have internet like this. gig to more homes than anyone. not just the joneses'. over here. xfinity. the largest gig-speed network. joining us now, former chairman of the democratic national committee, howard dean. columnist for the "washington post," george will. political writer for the "washington post" and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, robert costa. and "new york times" reporter jeremy peters who had the front page reporting yesterday with e assail trump, his supporters dig deeper." >> it's fascinating because while donald trump is doing thing s th things that actually objective people who care about facts are concerned about, his support within the republican party has

reached an all-time high. higher than anybody since george w. bush after 2001, despite the fact he does lie repeatedly, we went through a series of lies earlier today. he does things that embarrass hiss supporters but it's interesting the people you interviewed said yes we know he lies yes we're uncourtable with him snatching children from the arms of their parents but we still support him. >> some of them when you would ask about this policy of separating migrant children from their parents were visibly uncomfortable looks. it was kind of hard for them to talk about but what we wanted to do in a piece like this was not get at the sentiment that oh they support trump because he's trump and he can do anything and

get away with it, we wanted to look at a unique phenomenon that has been percolating over the last few months that trump supporters aren't so much reacting to the policy of separating children from their parents, they're reacting to the reaction from that policy. >> this is what a lot of cable news hosts that were ashamed to ever come out and publicly support trump, the tact they took was becoming anti-anti-trump. >> that's right. it's a powerful emotion heading into a midterm and could end up being galvanizing for these republicans and it's not just die hard make america great again hat wearing reporters. these are people who initially struggled with whether or not to vote for trump but they're saying i see the reaction as so overheated that it's bonding me

closer to trump they get protective of him because they don't think the media or democrats will give trump credit for anything he's don and trump understand this is and it's not accident that he says it all the the time. it's a way to whip up his base to say they are out to silence us, they are out to nullify your vote and they want to get rid of me as president and only we can stop them. >> what is so are preposterous if you look at the tweets of his supporters they will criticize his critics for not being civil. of course ignoring the incivility that donald trump spews from his twitter account everyday. >> so many republicans are trying into the trump band politically knowing privately it has a real cost from the gop long term but they see his poll numbers so high. mitt romney published an op-ed trying to say he would be

different from president trump if he was elected to the senate. the most rank-and-file house members are sticking with the president because they're not sure where their voters are unless they get the trump support and trump base. >> george will, you and i, at least, are old enough to remember -- i guess i'll throw howard dean in on this one as well. >> definitely. >> what happened to the republican party in california when they went for the short term win with pete wilson. it's like somebody dropped a political neutron bomb on the state and there haven't been republican elected leaders since unless you talk about arnold schwarzenegger for a couple years. what is the long-term impact of this for reagan's party? for lincoln's party? >> well, tip o'neill tunnel famously said all politics is local but as the years roll by that becomes decreasingly true and this year i think it is

vanishingly true. this year it sames this is a referendum on donald trump which means it's a referendum on republicans general ly because t the 500 day mark ronald reagan's approval among republicans was 77%. trump's was 87% and watch what happened to congressman sanford, a republican congressman in south carolina who had the temerity to not be completely purely loyal to donald trump. he was but purged from the party. now history is germane here. in 1936 franklin roosevelt wins a landslide election carrying everything but maine and vermont. emboldened by this, in 1937 he sets out to pack the supreme court. he asks congress to expand it from nine justices to 15 so that he could break the judiciary to the saddle of the new deal, vitiating the separating of powers. congress refused to do this, a

congress overwhelmingly controlled by his own party so he sets out in 1938 to purge the recalcitrant members of his own party and he failed. because at that time congress still had a sense of its institution institutional dignity and the voters understood this and resisted. times have changed so the republicans in congress think of themselves as subordinate members of the team of which he is the captain thereby completely overthrowing their function under the separation of powers. >> and then we have to, howard dean, look at the other team, the democrats. the approach of maxine water which is she's telling everyone to do with what happened at the restaurant, what they did to sarah huckabee sanders to start to like publicly shun people. does that seem like the most

effective response? what is the democratic response to this republican party? >> i think the democratic response is to ignore the political people and look at the grass-roots. my efforts in the last couple years has been on groups like run for something and color of change and indivisible. they're not particularly democrats. they happen to share our ideals be they're not institutional democrats so i think what's happening is congress is moving itself to irrelevancy. i'm shocked. i grew up when the congress reasserted itself after nixon and i think that is gone. they're -- i've never seen a congress with this little willingness to take on the chief executive. >> it is stunning. elise, i say this, i don't know if anybody knows this or not but i was a member at one time.

>> simple country lawyer. >> it's unbelievable. an audible gasp going up across the country. if our own leadership stepped out of line we called them to account. we voted newt gingrich out as speaker because we didn't think he was conservative enough on spe spending yet paul ryan, the same person that calls donald trump's language racist turns around and endorses him and kowtows to him for a year. >> well, ryan who isn't that familiar with scott pruitt and everything going on at the epa, you look at how republicans in congress seem to have abdicated their leadership and that's why i love george will's column and i couldn't believe i loved it so much. i'm at a place i never would have imagined i would be at where right now in congress are enabling as george will very aptly described in a nice turn

of phrase, the president's poodle poodles. >> ask yourself this, elise and others. suppose the democrats took control of congress, what difference does it make because congress doesn't legislate anymore. joe, i don't remember the years you were in congress but the last time congress obeyed the law it passed to bind itself to due process, the last time they passed 12 appropriation bills was 1994. they don't budget, they don't legislate. if we had a democratically controlled congress, what difference would it make with regard to immigration? well, the conservatives say well what about the judges. that's their final answer is what about the judges. the answer is this. the article iii courts are very important but not more than the article i institution of the congress and the article 2-institution, the presidency. >> snick. >> it seems to me the president's great power right

now in politics is to shift the conversation on politics away from what is true and right to whose team are you on? and we see that in your story that people decided they're on his team and i wonder what you think if you were able to talk to people with the incidents of the secretary of homeland security being criticized or the more recent incidents with sarah huckabee sanders. how do those incident s inciden how these voters feel with the president and voting in novem r november. >> it makes them more protective of him but more outraged at the democratic party and more likely to vote republican in november. people have short memories, of course, but there is this vietnam-era sense, this silent

majority sentiment of there is this group of radical hysterical leftists and they are doing everything they can to tear down this and and look at what pigs they are and look how uncivil they are ignoring the president's role in tripping out civility and decency from public dialogue so they tend to see things their way. one of the stories that kept coming up over and over again that illustrate house we live in our own media information bubbles, one of president obama's former speech writers john favreau tweeted out a picture of kids sleeping in cages and said this is happening now. it turned out that picture was from 2014 and it was actually under the obama administration

and this to people on the right, even people that weren't necessarily supportive of the president and as isolated an example as this was, to them it was validate. see, the media is out to distort the facts and lie even though that's not what really happened. he made a mistake and he later apologized for it. >> robert costa, the i fore mentioned president of the united states donald j. trump now appears to be chief of staff. he now appears to be his own in house counselor. we had the mayor of new york city who described a nine-month-old child having been transported to new york city whether by bus or plane, we don't know. we don't know if anyone knows the baby's name. the baby isn't talking. so with all of this going on a nine-month-old infant in new york city transported from texas is there any sense within the white house staff according to your reporting, your observation, that they are

beginning to to be just a bit scared about this runaway train? >> there is concern because they're getting pressure from republicans in a way they did not expect and of course the public outcry over this policy has confronted the white house certainly but there are a few people in this administration who have been able to have candid conversations about it and the president the way he set himself up with his cabinet being such a defiant presence in the cabinet with advisers inside the white house, there's not a figure i can report to who is countering the president day in and day out trying to bring him to a different position so howard the question of the moment for democrats, we talk about republicans but going back to what mika was talking about, what's the message. if you are claire mccaskell in missouri fighting for your political life or joe manchin in

west virginia or bill nelson in florida, heidi heitkamp, what is the message? >> it depends. let me take a two-second stab at a question george will asked. we power of investigation. if the democrats come into the majority there will be investigations. you won't get devin nunes running back and forth. power investigation is a big one and that's going to change everything. to get to the question of message, there isn't a meta message. the meta message is we're not trump and that's not just particular for this time, the message in 2010 when we got creamed by the 63 seat loss was that we're not obama. so that's always going to be part of it. but you mentioned these difficult seats that we have in the red states, that is going to be local. they have to be gwen soiven som

to talk to their constituents. >> and he's talking about preexisting conditions. i suspect you're going to be watching a lot of democrats doing that. not russia, preexisting conditions. george, final thoughts. tell us about -- tell us about another conservative like you who is deeply skeptical of the rise of donald j. trump. >> well, i was at services yesterday and the gathering at charles house last night where a large number of his friends told stories about his -- his wit and his humanity and his tremendous courage. charles had to think and surmount obstacles for things we do without thinking about them because he was of course paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident. but most important was the

measured temperate modest sense that people can argue and still be friends. there were people at that house yesterday who were not members of the republican party, not conservatives in any sense, but were believers as charles was in the sheer fun, if done right arguing about politics in america. >> yeah. >> well, it's a very different place right now o. george, thank you very much. >> jeremy peters, robert costa, howard dean, thank you l all as well. and coming up, senator jeff flake may be finally ready to take action against some parts of the president's agenda. we'll ask the arizona republican about his plans ahead on "morning joe." you're turning onto the street

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still ahead, the president escalates his rhetoric against asylum seekers referring to them

as quote, these people and saying we must end due process as they try to quote, invade our country. plus, nbc news is reporting that defense secretary james mattis is no longer in the president's inner circle. what this means for the cabinet member who's largely seen as a stabilizing force in the trump administration. "morning joe" is coming right back. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure.

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back to "morning joe." it is monday, june 25th. still with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. political writer for the new york times and nbc political analyst, the president of the council on foreign relations and the author of the book "a world in disarray" and nbc news national political reporter, good to have you all on board. >> how was your weekend, mika? >> it was fantastic, actually, but i've been more concerned about what's been going on with these families and i sort of -- we stayed kind of clued in on it trying to figure out how to approach this story. >> yeah. >> and i understand you can't overshoot the runway, but at the same time we have to say, what exactly -- exactly what it is. >> you can't overshoot the runway. you also have to keep your head and i would just suggest and i think david axel rod even talked

about it this weekend, mike barnicle, when you start publicly shaming people with whom you disagree and god knows i disagree with the federal government's position, trump's position right now on so many things, but when people can't go into restaurants without being shouted out of restaurants or movie theaters, you know, we've got a problem. and when you've got members of congress who i know and like that are saying hey, we've got to chase them down the streets and we've got to scream and yell at them, no, that's really not how you persuade people to move off the trump train and go more to a reasonable traditional conservative position. >> and we've also in the process listened to the president of the united states suggesting that we do away with due process. >> right. >> which is oh, okay. it's only the -- it's the 5th amendment of the constitution, but you know, joe, the striking thing is, when you talk to people, average americans, there

are no more political parties, there's only trump. >> yep. >> it's amazing he has blocked so much out because of his -- it it it's not daily. it's multiple times of almost any day that he says or does something that used to be outrageous, used to be shocking and now it's become kind of a norm. >> well, and it rises and it rises and it rises and you say well, you know, weir not going to obsess about him and then he talks about getting rid of due process when it comes to immigration cases and you find yourself in a position where you've got to actually talk about it. children seized from their parents, 2,500 infants, toddlers, children spread out. you know, reports that a three-year-old actually has been -- three month old, i mean, moved to michigan. this 4-year-old was put on a bus

at the border in mexico/texas, driven up on a bus with a government contractor who couldn't touch them, couldn't hug them. some who didn't even speak spanish, driven all the way up 2,000 miles to new york city. this is -- this is -- >> weem donpeople don't know wh and i've really met more than ever people who are visibly upset about what is going on and i totally understand a very good honest debate about whether or not somebody who works in the white house, you know, should be shouted at the restaurant or not. the answer is not, but dwelling on it and the white house press secretary tweeting about it is totally inappropriate. completely off topic at this point and pales in comparison to what really is ailing this nation. >> yeah. >> and people don't know what to do so they're doing what they can. i do understand that concern. >> shouting people out is not the thing to do, at the same

time, keep your head down and worry about parents. if you're a parent and i had somebody who usually defends trump saying i'm not sure at this point how anybody who has children could not look at this and be moved in a personal way and asked what's happening to our country. and yet jeremy peter wrote a story that the more donald trump is attacked, whether it's for lying and they admit that -- somebody admits that he's a liar, whether it's for overt racism which now has gone from a seasoning at the beginning of the campaign to literally the central driving principle of his presidency. you look at the press conferences that he's holding, you look at the statements that he's making, the central -- the central defining nature of his presidency now has to do with attacking people who are not white. look at his tweets. >> a lot of people don't feel

they can say that. >> people understand that too and yet they go, well, i know, it makes me uncomfortable and they still support him. >> it's been there for a while it's more present now. it's everywhere now. discussions of infestation which the language that precedes talking about how all immigrants are essentially ms-13 and i think the reason people stick with him aside from the fact that they're comfortable with those attitudes is that their investment in this man is so deep and if you look at the politics of -- of racism and nationalism in this country, it is a reaction, i believe, from my reporting on this to the reality that in 20 or 30 or 40 years, this country is not going to be a majority white country. and there are people who are terrified of that. because it means a loss of their cultural prominence and predominance and their political power in the long-term. they're frightened and scared so they respond to these racist

attacks and they rally to him. >> mike? a tweet was so racist that you even had an awful lot of conservative christian leaders coming out saying what happened to the mike huckabay that i know? david french calling -- i mean, right here, this is -- this is whatever you want to call it, you pick if -- if you don't want to pick let's say parallels to the 1930s in germany, let's just say david duke, if that makes you feel more comfortable. but despite this, do you know that the percentage of gang members coming across the border continues to plummet, has throughout the obama years, and now it only accounts for 0.075%

of everybody that comes across the border that's an illegal immigrant. >> yeah, that and you know, the president is, you know, clearly tries every time -- every day, multiple times a someday to sell ms-30 is around us. ms-13 is cometiloming to long i. ms-13, its orientation was in los angeles. it was in the united states of america that ms-13 was actually assembled years ago. but the wider issue here is to nick's point unfortunately for us part of our history that we have to address is it's always been easy to sell fear in this country. i mean, attorney general palmer in the 1920s, the red scare through joe mccarthy, through right up until today, it's easy to sell fear and donald trump is a master of two things,

resentment, capitalizing on resentment and selling fear. always has been. >> quick question, richard. there were 303,916 total migrants coming to the united states last year. listen, 303,000. how many were members of ms-13 according to donald trump's federal government? >> i assume it was a handful. >> it was 228. out of 303,000. let me just say, again, for those of you that are tweeting all weekend, mike huckabay and other people, friends and family of mine tweeting all weekend about how savage that gang members are coming in over the border, according to donald trump's government 303,916 total immigrants came to the united states last year.

303,000. the total number of ms-13 were 228. it's just like the biggest lie of all. >> but there is a real connection between gang members and immigration. and it's that the violent gangs in places like honduras. >> right. they're leaving gang violence to bring their children to america. >> on the christian broadcasting network wanted to have these governments pay for the fact that so many -- he said they were sending people to the united states. and what's happening is, it was wrong in two ways. people are fleeing for their lives even though they understand all the risks and all the uncertainties because they don't want their daughters forced into sexual slavery and they don't want their sons as gang members or killed. if these governments have to quote unquote pay for the people coming here they're going to be less able to have the police forces and legal systems that will contain the problem at

home. so yes, there is a connection of gangs to immigration, but it's not the problem here. it's the problem there. >> well, and heidi, again, we're going to get to this, but you look at the big lie, which is thategal immigration is at such a -- there's such a crisis here that we have to build a wall, we have to separate three month olds from their parents and ship them to michigan. we have to separate four-year-old from their parents and make them get on buses and drive up with, you know, adults that aren't allowed to touch them, that don't speak spanish and it's because donald trump is -- has been lying for three years that there's this massive immigration crisis and we've been saying for three years, no, there's not. the numbers have been plummeting since 2000, which was the peak of illegal immigration in america. they were high through george w. bush's presidency and started to decline precipitously during

barack obama's and they have continued to go down. >> i think it's important to note the timing of this as well, joe, the return to this issue, if it's not the numbers. we have an election coming up. this was a very successful tactic for this president going into his election when he descended those stairs on the escalator and called all mexicans rapists. we just saw poll numbers over the weekend saying that the tax cuts have plummeted in terms of public approval, so their strategy for running on those tax cuts is not working. he's going back to the well on something that he himself over the weekend said hey, this is a good issue for us too. but one thing i wanted to note about the lies, joe, and there's so much of this aspect that we can cover at this point, but i was briefed over the weekend on something that i think we need to raise the flag on here in terms of potential lies and that

is looking at the numbers, let's just stick to the numbers here. okay? i talked to someone who is familiar with the numbers of people, of children who are being classified as unaccompanied. when you look at the numbers, last year monthly average was about 55. now monthly average is about 220. and here's what this person who is very well positioned to know told me. these are families, these are not unaccompanied children coming across the border. this is a massive spike in terms of families who are being separated and here's the problem. we don't -- these people on the hill, these aides feel that we don't have an accurate figure of the actual number who have been separated from their parents. that 2,000 number only dates back to may. this zero tolerance policy was announced in april, but there are a lot of aides on the hill who say that they have good

reason to believe that these accept ratio separations predated the announcement of that policy and therefore we don't have a full accurate accounting of the number of children who have actually been separated from their families. again, 55 average last year, 220 this year. and so they said to me, you're a member of the press. please, please raise the flag on this and say to all media that we need to start asking this administration how many total children have been separated since you became president, not since may. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll press for answers in that critical question, where are the children? and what specific action is congress taking to find out? republican senator jeff flake joins us here on the set, but first bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good monday to you. we are watching a heat wave build tloutz throughout the cou. we were dodging storms in many

areas. overnight nasty storms go through oklahoma city and tulsa. those are dried up for the most part. another round later today up around areas of des moines, northern missouri, slight risk of severe storms. 9 million people at risk. maybe an isolated tornado. and then if you're in the queen ski, portions nene greenville, wind damage with a threat of thunderstorms later on this afternoon so it may send you running inside for a brief period. tomorrow is more interesting. we could have a couple more chances for tornados. we have 20 million people at risk for tuesday's storms. we'll have to watch that closely and see how it impacts the airports. so as far as the temperatures go, it is very humid in the gui gulf. the southeast and texas has been very hot. 103 in new orleans. dallas will feel like 105. everybody else to the north, enjoy this while you can, because it is canadian air. it's going to be replaced by that hot air by the end of this

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all right. let's get into the federal government's earths to pfforts families back together after trump's government separated them forcibly at the border. >> there was a good article talking about border guards, members just torn by this policy and actually angry at what the orders were. even those that supported a tougher border policy being

upset the way that all of this was being run. >> it's the core of who we are. >> a lot of people in hhs right now, so many government employees are scrambling to try to do the right thing and clean up the mess that donald trump has hoisted upon them. >> massive fail for him. >> it's important to remember that. >> and a fail for our country and these children coming. children from those families have been spread from maryland to michigan to california as well as shelters in virginia in what the washington post describes as cold, institutional settings, with adults who are not permitted to touch them or with foster parents who do not speak spanish but who hug them when they cry. the department of homeland security told nbc that as of june 20th, 2,053 migrant children were still separated from their parents. at a detention center outside houston a migrant lawyer said that people separated from their charn are being told they can

reunite with their kids at the airport if they agree to sign a voluntary deportation order right away. in el paso, a charity tells the ap that it is housing 32 immigrant mothers and fathers who don't know where their children are. the parents were released after federal authorities with drew criminal charges for illegal entry against them. on friday the department of health and human services created an unaccompanied children reunification task force. and on saturday the united states government knows the location of all children in its custody and is working to reunite them with their families. >> hold on though. mike barnicle. -- >> my question is, why haven't a group of united states senators on both sides of the aisle because this is about children, it's not about ideology force the united states government to provide a list of where these children are. if they claim to know where these children are, then why don't we get the list of where they are. >> show the united states

senators. show the american red cross. >> yes. >> show members of the house of representatives. show all of these people. you know, this weekend the american red cross tweeted that yes, we understand you all want us to help out. we have told the government we're willing to help out. but we can't help out if they don't allow us access. to which i said, oh, so now they're banning the american red cross from going in there who's already said we're here waiting. then the american red cross of course because they've got a deal with the federal government every day they tweet the next morning, well, no, that's not really true, we weren't denied access, or we weren't banned from it. you've said -- >> who denies access to the american red cross? >> and here's the thing. the american red cross said we stand willing and able to help out. the american red cross admitted by tweet that they can't help if the government does not give them access.

the american red cross is still not in. and so -- so they can try to spin all they want and i understand why the american red cross has to spin. you've got to deal with governments. but they're still not in. we still don't have a list. united states senators still are not in. united states members of the house of representatives are still not allowed in. as i said, the other day, this is -- i was contacted by somebody very high up in the intel services for decades who said this reminds me of our black sites. nobody has access. nobody knows exactly where they are. nobody knows exactly who's being housed and there's absolutely no outside access. he said, but we were doing that for terrorists who killed americans in 9/11. these are three-year-old children. >> and they're hiding that

they're treating three-year-old children in camps on the border like they're in a militarized war zone. >> one of the recurring themes if you read the stories about how this happened was the lack of any preparation whatsoever with this policy. so this is true ad hoc. there's no consideration of implementation and what we're seeing whether things are done by design or simply by default, the gap between -- the administration can't even do what it wants to do and -- even though what it wants to do is wrong. >> coming up on "morning joe," from ending military exercises in south korea to ripping up the iran deal, defense secretary james mattis has been out of the loop on a series of high level decisions. nbc's carroll lee has new independent reporting after the fact. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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joining us now national political recorder carroll lee. she's out with exclusive reporting entitled mattis is out of the loop and trump doesn't listen to him says officials.

we all kind of, i think, secretly feel a little more comfortable that he is there. maybe is that a little bit of a stretch at this point? >> reporter: yeah, it's not just you guys. there's a lot of people in washington who feel that way particularly on capitol hill who see mattis as this kind of stabilizing force and feel reassured by having him there but my colleague and i wanted to look at what the dynamic is between mattis and trump particularly since john bolton came on as nshl security advisor and mike pompeo moved over and on a number of key decisions mattis is either caught off guard by the president's decision or he's overruled on everything from moving the u.s. embassy in israel to jerusalem. he opposed that on sending national guard troops to the border. he was against that. the president did it anyways and also last week the president called for a space force, which

mattis is on the record having opposed and then if you look at something like the iran deal, everyone kind of suspected that -- and expected that the president would withdraw from the iran deal in may, but mattis learned that he had made a final decision from a colleague, not from the president himself and called over to the president's personal assistant and said apparently i need to speak to the president because he's made a decision on this and so you have that and just on a number of issues and when we talk to people in the white house he said look, he's just not one of the president's go-to people and advisors who are close to him. he's never really been one of those folks and he's kind of not now. >> all right. >> so in the early days of the administration there was talk of the president being sort of guided by a group of old hands, experienced hands, kind of tempered voices and one by one they've mostly left the administration so what does it mean for the administration going forward and who is in the

loop? is there a loop if james mattis is not in it. >> it's a great question because what we've seen is as the president has shifted around his national security team he's also felt emboldened to follow his own instincts to basically listen to what he thinks should be done and what his instincts are telling him he should do and then kind of finding people who agree with him and he can do that in any number of ways. you have john bolton who is aligned with the president in certain areas of foreign policy and then you have mike pompeo who's also aligned with the president on certain issues and i think with mattis what you saw in the early days was it was mattis and john kelly and secretary tillerson, former secretary of state and they had this kind of alliance. and as kelly has been weakened as chief of staff and tillerson is -- has obviously -- was fired. that has put mattis in this position as kind of the lone person standing who is part of that original group that everybody felt were the adults in the room.

>> thank you so much. coming up on "morning joe," senator jeff flake has stood up against the president's rhetoric. will he stand up to his policies as well? the arizona republican joins us next right here on set. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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joining us now, member of the senate foreign relations and judiciary committees, senator of arizona, jeff flake. >> a lot to ask you about. let's go first of all, you've been concerned about trump's tariffs, harley davidson now talking about not expanding in the united states anymore, said because of his tariffs they are going to move production in the future to europe. going to expand there. >> we're hearing this all over. volvo just opened a new plant in

south carolina. great thing, but then promptly announced we may not be able to, you know, hire the number of people we thought we would. so if we're going to be imposing new tariffs on the european union on automobiles, they'll certainly retaliate and what you find and there have been studies that verify this again and again, is when you try to lower tariffs by imposing new tariffs and forcing others to lower theirs, it rarely works. it simply escalates. >> but this is what is so hard to believe. we are talking about immigration before and just -- there just are facts if you even trust donald trump's own administration with studies that show that most of the things he's saying about immigration are lies. letz let's talk about tariffs. democrats, most democrats, almost all republicans, almost all editorial pages know that what he is saying is a lie, know that what you just said has been

an economic reality for the past 50 years, so why isn't congress stepping in? >> well, that's -- that's been very troubling to many of us in congress. on something so central to what republicans stand for, free trade, to just allow the president to go on and treat canada and mexico as if they are national security threats. >> last week he said that mexico did nothing. did nothing. >> right. >> and this shows you how much he floods the zone. that mexico has done nothing but steal our jobs and send drugs to america and then of course he deemed canada a national security threat. >> we met with the canadian foreign member, members of the foreign relations committee and just to hear her, it's just sadness that they all have. just knowing that you are our allies. we fought beside you and now

you -- you declare us a national security threat. >> and most republicans find that heinous that this president would do that, so what can you do about it because you know, as -- as some people have pointed out for some time, there's only a republican majority of two in the senate. if you and bob corker or you or somebody else just says listen, everything stops until we have a debate and a vote on tariffs. everything stops until we have a debate and a vote on seizing children at the border. everything stops until we have a debate and a vote on you saying we should suspend due process. >> right. i think that approving new judges, more judges is important. that's one of the roles we are as senator mcconnell says often, we're in the peronnel business in the senate. most of the votes have been to

advance the calendar. that's important. but it can't be everything we do. and that's where i think myself and a few others have come down on saying that can't be everything we do. and if -- if we have to use that to say all right, let's not move forward on more judges and more of the president's executive calendar until we fulfill our constitutional obligation, until we at least register our opinion on tariffs for example, and let people know where we are and let the president know where we are, i think a lot of us are tired of saying we'll only take something up if the president agrees with it. like on immigration reform. we'll only take it up if he says he's going to sign it. well, he said he wasn't going to sign russia's sanctions but we passed it anyway, 98-2. he found a way to like it. that's our role as the article i branch and so i think if -- if all we can do is to say let's

put the president's executive calendar on hold, judges, nominees for other appointments on hold until we can actually vote on some of these things or until we get a commitment that on this bill, the appropriateuations measure, t - appropriations measure, then we simply won't go forward. you hate to have to go there, but in this case it wouldn't be me saying i'm going to put a hold on something. you don't have to do that. it would just be me saying i will vote no. and that may be enough. so i do think that -- >> do you have another republican that will go with you? >> i don't want to speak for my colleagues. i know that bob corker has certainly been an important voice on us registering our opinion and -- and saying something on tariffs. these tariffs, i can tell you,

europe fully, you know, retaliates for what we're doing to them, what canada and mexico filly do and we'll see that in the coming weeks, this is going to be big. we are in a full scale trade war. >> cost americans jobs and working class voters who pay for it the most. let's move from tariffs to what's going on at the border and i'm sure a lot of people are going to have some questions around the table about this, but let me just ask you about the fact that access is denied to these facilities where 3 month old children have been seized from their mothers in new york city, driven 2,000 miles from the border up here, nine-year-olds, again, some four or five month old children with no identification on who their parents are, where they are. shouldn't senators be able to go in and look at these facilities? because right now they're being treated like black sites. >> you would certainly think so, but you'd think a week after the

administration -- well, should have realized before that, but a week after the public really engaged on this, you still have instances where parents don't know where their very young child or toddler is or vice versa. that's unimaginable and so yeah, it's not just senators. it's got to be others. >> so what can you all do to get in so senators can go in to see, so house members can go in to see. if the american red cross who has said that they stand willing and able to go in and inspect but they have not been granted access by the administration. >> i expect that you'll be having senators today because we're now almost a week into this, save hey, we want access or we want these group to have access and i just don't know how the administration will say no. i just don't know how they can now. >> the president has tweeted this. senator flake i've tried to stay uninvolved with the department of justice and fbi although i do

not legally have to, because of the now totally discredited and very expansive witch hunt currently going on. but you do have to ask why the doj and fbi aren't giving over requested documents. >> so first of all, that of course is -- most of that is false. he has interfered nonstop. he talks about how it's a very expensive witch hunt, costs more to pay for his trips to his golf courses and this investigation so far which is my god, i think it's like maybe about a 10th of ken stahr's investigation. how do members of the senate ensure that -- and certainly some republicans who have come out and been really strong on this and the chairman of the judiciary committee has said, let mueller finish investigation. what -- do you feel like the senate will stand firm to make sure that he can finish his investigation.

>> i sure hope so. i'm on the judiciary committee. we did pass legislation to protect the special counsel. i don't know if it's constitutional. we'll see in the coming months if that's needed. i hope that it isn't. i hope it just signalled to the administration we will stand here. there's a line in the stand at some point but the president is continuing to try to muddy the waters, try to, you know, engage the public against the special counsel. gratefully i think that the judiciary, that institution has held people have recused themselves when they should have. they're moving on. the special counsel is moving on. so -- and the press is certainly, i think, held institution, holding the president's feet to the fire as they should hold every president regardless of party to feet to the fire, but what congress does, i have been concerned certainly about the house and the intel committee and the partisan role it seems to play. the senate intel committee has don a good job on a bipartisan

basis to move forward. >> chairman richard bur working with his ranking member. >> they've done a good job. so you see that. i have been concerned that more recently more members of the senate, more republicans have said all right. mueller, wrap this thing up. i think the response ought to be carry it through. and go where the facts go. and we'll see. but i'm hopeful that the congress will hold as an institution that should hold the executive branch to account. >> senator, i used to be able to name every member of the united states senate across decades. i used to be able to do it and some of them i'm sure you are aware of this where true giants, both in the senate and in american history, so my question to you now is why do so many members, your colleagues in the united states senate, specifically seemingly are afraid of a tweet from the president of the united states.

>> >> well, it is remarkable and i wonder the same thing. why we don't more zealously guard our irnstitutional articl and say we're the number one branch and let's act like it and not be swayed or let's not determine what legislation we consider based on what the president has tweeted or based on what he says he will support, because that can change over time. i was very involved in the immigration. i have been for a long time but in the dhaaca position we triedo fix, trying to divine where the white house is at any given moment on some of these issues is very difficult and we shouldn't and the senate in particular. it's always been the body that was six year terms. you see beyond the next hill, you see beyond the administration. you're a body who doesn't go out

because there are at least two thirds that don't stand for election. it's painful to see us become so supine and willing to let is administration go on policy or other matters. >> but you're paying a political price and you have chosen that path so that you can speak honestly and speak your mind and republicans may well lose your seat when it comes up for reeex- in the midterm. do you think that republicans are still going to be able to hold the senate? >> it's difficult to lose the senate given the map that we have. it's such a bad year for republicans in 2012 when i first ran. just so few up and the races are in the right places for republicans. but it's not impossible and that's certainly the concern and the problem you have, obviously is you have primaries where you know, 90% of the republican party is with the president and firmly. and when you poll and ask, what's the most important issue

to you, it used to be jobs or the economy. now overwhelmingly it's are you with the president? it has become that tribal and those who voice dissent with some of the president's policies or fail to condone his behavior at all times are suspect. and it's not just -- you know, worrying about a tweet from the president. it is worrying about the next precinct meeting where the question, are you with the president? why aren't you with the president? >> senator jeff flake, thank you very much for being on. >> thank you. >> thank you for what you're doing. up next, a question many pr progressives are asking more of, where's barack obama? that's next on "morning joe." i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another.

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the only way we can help the world mend itself is agreeing on a baseline of facts when it comes to the challenges that confront us all. so this night sa testament to all of you who devoted your lives to that idea, who push to shine a light on the truth every single day. so, i want to close my final white house correspondents' dinner by just saying thank you. and with that, i just have two more words to say. obama out. >> that was president obama

speaking at the final white house correspondents' dinner of his presidency. joining us now is national correspondent for "new york magazine." he's author of the issues new cover story entitled "barack obama, where are you?" what is behind the relative silence of one of the most popular figures alive just as american politics appear to so many to be on the brink of breaking. the reticence is more than a matter of communication strategy. he has mostly opted out of liberal america's collective trump outrage cycle. he is upset by the administration's actions and he's confided to friends that what worries him the most is international order, the standing of the office of the presidency, the erosion of democratic norms and the struggles of people who are suddenly unsure of their immigration status on the future of their health care coverage. still, in conversations with political allies obama insists that today's domestic mess is a

blip on the long arc of history and argues that his own work must be focused on empowering a new generation of leaders. he says his legacy is not what concerns him. >> gabe, it seems that the no-drama obama on the back of the bus in iowa in 2007 saying i don't want to hear the poll numbers -- >> yeah. >> no drama obama said more people killed in bathtub accidents than terrorism, that's barack obama who is in a maddening sense for progressives saying, hey, just a blip in time. we'll be fine. >> well, listen. this is extremely consistent with the way he's always been as you just said and it's certain allies of his saying we shouldn't be surprised he's taking a step back. those that want him to be on the front line arguing for a break in precedent as to how former presidents really act but the way obama is thinking these days is essentially his role to work

on the foundation, take his book and playing a behind the scenes role in a policy fight and the argument is essentially he needs to respect the office of the presidency and do what george w. bush did for him and not weigh in every time the new president does something he disagrees with and the other half of that is letting a new generation of leaders step up. he says every time he speaks he's crowding out the space for next generation of democratic leaders and there's backlash from the republican side and does consolidate trump's base for him so these are all the argument that is obama is making and meanwhile he is busy. he is traveling a lot. he is building up an ambitious foundation. writing a book, rather slowly and creating a netflix programming. it is a full schedule. >> there's a craving i think on the left for -- it's part of this, right? somebody off the sideline who is's big enough, strong enough, enough of a presence, right, to take this guy on and seems to me

from my own conversations with obama people that the president realizes that if he -- ex-president realizes if he uses that power, the more he uses it, the more he losses it. it's a finite resource. right? >> that's absolute right and i think arguing that what you're asking me to do is something people don't do for good reason. he doesn't want to lose the power and wants to every time he issues a statement really have it land with a big bang and also true he's not said trump in public and tries not to say it in private because he doesn't want to turn his post-presidency into a trump versus obama thing. he's a young guy. he'll be on the international stage for decades to come. >> a friend of mine had a private conversation with president obama a couple of weeks ago and during the course of the conversation this friend got the impression from speaking to the president that one of the reasons that he has not

interjected or said more is that he is very aware that in a race based administration the trump administration that for him obama to inject or say anything about what's going on would only to be heighten and the racial tension here. >> certainly. and i think a lot of that is related to donald trump's rise of power came with the birthism conspiracy and baggage here and progressives say where's obama and can't be in the streets helping us are not taking into consideration and what obama's essentially saying is we can't be tearing the country apart and essentially having a shadow president running against a current president. he's not said that explicitly, of course, but that is the sub text to a lot of this and there's divides that president obama is very aware of and one of the things he is trying to work on with his foundation. that, of course, is not exactly welcomed news for progressives fighting in 2018 and saying, you know, can you get throughout and help us? >> you can read the piece in

"new york magazine. "thank you. thank you for joining us. that does it for us this morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. thank you so much. this morning, border crisis. the government releases its plan to reunite the more than 2,000 kids with their parents. eventually. as president trump suggests, he moving migrants from the country without due process. >> the person puts the toe in the land we have to go to trial. this is crazy what we're doing. >> out of the loop. nbc news exclusive report -- defense secretary james mattis caught off guard by some of the administration's biggest military announcements. insiders say it's because president trump thinks the defense secretary looks like down on him. >> just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and