to break the law. >> on trade, following up on what blake asked about harley davidson, they announced in an sec filing they're moving a significant amount of their operations to europe because of the e.u. tariffs that were placed on the harley davidson motorcycles. is this what the president envisioned for what the impact would be by placing tariffs on e.u. and the retaliation the e.u. has put on the u.s.? >> again, the european union is trying to punish u.s. workers because they have engaged repeatedly in unfair trade practices and the president is saying enough is enough. we'd like to work with the e.u. to bank of new york -- to work on a level playing field. >> the president today in the oval office sitting next to the king of jordan mentioned some progress in the middle east peace process. but he didn't give any specifics. there's been quite a bit of shuttle diplomacy going on the last few days in the middle east

with jared kushner and jason greenblatt. do you have anything concrete to tell us about any sort of positive movement whatsoever from all of this? >> again, we think that the meetings that took place over the last week with senior advisor jared kushner and special representative jason greenblatt. they met with a number of officials and principals in saudi arabia, jordan, egypt, israel and qatar last week. they discussed the situation in gaza as well as the next stages of the peace effort. we're going to continue those conversations and we're committed to the peace effort and we're going to keep working forward with those conversations are productive. julie? >> they said at the border protection they are no longer going to be referring people without authorization if they are traveling with children which is essentially return to the obama administration practice and administrations before that. does the president support that approach, and if so, does he regret trying to push forward on a zero-tolerance approach in the

first place? >> no, the president certainly supports keeping families together which he has outlined several times in the last week. he also called on congress to fix the system. they are the only ones that ultimately have the ability to change the law. the president through executive order has given a temporary solution to the problem, but it's not permanent. and we need congress to step up. we need democrats to stop playing political games, do their jobs, work with this president and let's fix the problem at the border. jeff? >> can you talk about why you tweeted from your official account about the episode at the restaurant friday night? >> sure, i was responding to a number of news stories from a dozen reporters. it was considered news of the day so i responded in the way i would to any other news of the day story. jeff? >> sarah, you said just because you don't see a judge doesn't mean you don't get due process. can you explain what you mean by that specifically and how the president envisions that this would work while still maintaining what the

constitution up holds and having a swift immigration system? >> again, there are other ways for removal. there are thousands of illegal aliens removed every month that don't see judges. sometimes that's through voluntary removal and sometimes that's through expedited removal. again, the president's ultimate goal would be that we have actually a secure border and people aren't coming into the country illegally and we have a system that works and people that come into the country come in through a legal system. >> what is is it to ensure this week about passing a bill? he talked about democrats want open borders and crime. specifically has he made phone calls to republican members in the house where the bill is pending? has he tried to bring democrats together? what is he trying to do to get a new law passed rather than railing against the current law? >> the president met with a number of lawmakers last week. talked with several over the

weekend, some that he was with while he was traveling. last week he made an open invitation to democrat lawmakers that they were welcome to come to the white house to discuss what they'd like to see because the president wants solutions. we have yet to have any of them show up, actually willing to have those conversations, actually willing to fix the problem. instead they'd rather rant and rave about not allowing members of the trump administration to step foot in public. the president wants to see solutions. that's what we're focused on. it's congress's job to do that and we've laid out very clearly that we want to be part of that. and what we'd like to see in that package. jill? >> -- >> clearly they aren't if they haven't passed a law to fix the system. republicans have laid out a number of proposals that they support. the president voiced his support for those -- >> they failed this week. >> that is because no democrat will get on board and support a solution. >> republicans cannot pass these republican bills. what is the president doing as the leader of the party -- >> jeff, these aren't republican bills. these are bills that fix a broken system.

they may have republican sponsor, but these should be bipartisan. this shouldn't be complicated. look, the house has already passed over 500 pieces of legislation, but they can't get through the senate because democrats refuse to actually find solutions. we have 50 bills that passed just last week to address the opioid crisis that passed through the house. the senate still hasn't taken them up. hopefully they will, and if they do that will show that we actually can come up with bipartisan solutions and that's what we'd like to see them do on immigration as well. jill? >> the question about zero-tolerance policy. the president said last week after signing the executive order that he believed zero-tolerance was important, you guys made a point that the fact the deal did not get rid of the policy. how does that square with the fact that cvp is saying they are no longer referring for prosecution any adults who come in with children? >> again, this is a temporary solution. this isn't going to last. congress still has to step up. they still have to do their job. this will only last a short amount of time because we're going to run out of space. we're going to run out of

resources in order to keep people together and we're asking congress to provide those resources and do their job. annie? >> does that mean at some point you're going to change that policy back? >> we're not changing the policy. we're simply out of resources and at some point congress has to do what they were elected to do, and that is secure or border. that is stop the crime coming into our country. the country has made extremely clear that they don't want open borders and democrats need to understand that and they need to work with republicans and find some solutions. annie? sorry, jim, othll, i'm going to going. annie? >> can you be specifically specific about what the resources are for housing parents and children together? is there enough housing right now? is the pentagon stepping in what's being done about the resource s? >> again, we're looking at every option available. we have asked the pentagon to help with additional space, but a lot of that will depend on our ability to stop people coming

into the country illegally and we, again, encourage people to go through ports of entry instead of crossing the border illegally. we have requested through legislation, we're working with congress hopefully to provide more resources and the ability to actually enforce the law. asia. >> i just want to see if you can barrel down exactly what the president intends to do when it comes to this idea of not having judges. you say that there are instances where people don't have judges, but my understanding is that if you do ask for asylum, you do have certain rights. so is there going to be a change in that policy or what is this administration planning to do to make it so you don't have to see a judge? >> again, i addressed this a couple times. there are multiple instances where you wouldn't -- voluntary removal, certain cases of expedited removal. if somebody comes through a port of entry seeking asylum, those

cases and that process will be heard. but at the same time, the president's ultimate goal is to secure the border and stop illegal immigration. >> i understand that. but so what does that mean practically 1234 is the president planning to do anything differently or you're just saying -- >> the president has laid out what he'd like to see. we've put out the things we want to see in an immigration package months ago. we're still waiting on congress to give us the ability to do that. >> unless congress acts, nothing is actually going to change, the administration is not dhag anything right now when it comes to judges? >> are we walking around making up laws? no, we're not the obama administration. we're enforcing the laws that are on the books. we're asking congress to do their part in the process and pass new legislation that will fix our immigration system. >> that is changing on the ground. the president is complaining about judges and saying we shouldn't have all these judges, and people who come over should just be put out, but nothing is actually going to change, he's just saying -- he's just complaining about the process as it stands now?

>> things that we have the ability to do administratively we are working to do. but again, congress is the only one that has the ability to write law and we hope they'll do that. >> on that point, i'm trying to understand what it is the president understands about the current policy because as you explained, expedited removal allows the government to remove hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants a year without seeing judges. did the president know that when he issued the tweets? >> yes, but there are thousands that go through a very lengthy process. we'd like to see the process consolidated. we'd like to see the backlog stopped. we'd like to see our border secure. sorry, steven. >> expand the policy, you said he'd like to see more expedited remove. does the president plan to expand to the full two-year under the current statute? >> we would like to see more expedited removal. ultimately we'd like to see the border secure and it would stop

a lot of the problems and would eliminate the need for so many of these additional laws. >> thank you, sarah. you began the briefing talking about the importance of civility. do you consider it a civil policy to separate more than 2000 children from their parents? >> we consider enforcing the law the role that the administration has to play. certainly the president has taken an executive action to the furthest that he has the ability to do to minimize the separation of families. we're working hard to make sure families get to stay together and we're calling on congress to help us in that effort and we're continuing to focus on the reunification and making sure that the families, again, stay together and that congress will give us a permanent solution to fix that. >> you said you're working to make families stay together. it was your administration that separated them in the first place. >> it isn't our administration that created the laws but it is our administration's job to enforce it.

if someone breaks the law it's our job to enfirst it. if someone doesn't like the law, they need to lobby congress and ask them to change it. anita. >> as an immigration person i wanted to clarify one thing. i understand that not every adult with a child is going to be prosecuted. if there are families that are being held together, detained together somewhere and 20 days goes by, what is going to happen then? i didn't get an answer back last week. i didn't understand. the law says you can't keep them together, keep the children even with parents for longer than 20 days. so then what happens? >> hopefully congress will pass a law and fix the problem. why should it be so hard? they all say that they don't want to separate families. seems like it should be pretty simple to me. john? >> i have a clarification. jeff asked you a question about congress and the bill. were you in your response referring to just a stand alone bill that deals with family separation or were you referring to the bigger immigration bill that the house hopes to take up this week? >> our preference would be a bill that addresses all of the

pillars that we've laid out that we'd like to see addressed in an immigration package. and that's what our focus is right now. there is a bill that does that on the table. if that doesn't happen, then we'll talk about other pieces of legislation at that point. >> the president still wants that bill to go forward even though he said don't waste their time? >> the democrats in the senate made clear they're not going to support it. we need some democrats to get on board. they have made it very clear they don't want to work with the president, they don't want to fix our immigration system. they'd rather have open borders and rampant yiem than work with the president to create solutions. until they change their mind, we're going to continue looking at the best ways we can fix these problems. but we need congress to help us. john? >> thank you, sarah. this president is the first in the television age who has yet to address the american public on nationwide television from the oval office. many republican consultants have

said he might have a stronger hand in influencing congress if he made a nationally televised address on immigration and what changes he'd like to see to explain it. is that something that's on the table within the administration? >> certainly don't want to take anything off the table or any tool away from the president. he does address the american people on a number of different venues and formats and i'll certainly pass along that suggestion to him. nadia. >> -- said that you are willing to negotiate, he's going to proceed with the deal. can you explain how the white house is hoping to achieve any progress in the middle east peace -- >> hi, everyone. that was white house press secretary sarah sanders in her first briefing addressing the deportation separation at the border. we'll talk more about that. in the meantime, donald trump tweets. this morning he returned to one of his original presidential

conspiracy theories, claims he had been surveilled at trump tower. the original charge was made in the early days of his presidency when he claimed that obama had his phones tapped, something then fbi director jim comey debunked in sworn testimony later that month. but trump had more than conspiracies on his mind when he woke up this morning. in the face of new evidence that the mueller probe is ongoing and sweeping in nature, just this weekend the top democrat on the senate's russia investigation reportedly told donors at a fund-raiser, quote, if you think you've seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. it's going to be a wild couple of months. it's amid that mounting pressure president trump attacked the special investigation into russian meddling, quote, i have 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 expensive witch hunt currently going on. but you have to ask why they aren't giving over requested

documents. end tweet. could you call over to the justice department and find out for yourself? here's what we learned. the justi department is largely in service of the house republican d.o.j. bashers led by devin nunes. nunes has spearheaded anti-fbi and d.o.j. headlines. hands house gop thousands of documents on russia probe. offers lawmakers another briefing. thousands of fbi docs turpd one over to house. extraordinary access to fisa applications. donald trump's unending and inconsolable angst about the investigation, former cia director john brennan tweeted this. quote, your fear of exposure is palpable. your desperation even more so. when will those of conscience among your cabinet inner circle, republican leadership realize that you're unprincipled and unelgt cal behavior as well as your incompetence are seriously

damaging our nation? here to help us answer that question, some of our guests and reporters nbc news intelligence national reporter ken dilanian, harry litman, former deputy assistant attorney general. from the atlantic natasha bertrand is re. with us at the table, you have so many titles. >> you stumbled over the first word. it's not about having too many titles. it was nbc you stumbled over. you work here. >> i know. they sign my checks. nbc, msnbc, john heilman. let me start with you, heilman i spoke to a source close to bob mueller who said two things. that the things that come out of rudy giuliani's mouth are for the audience of one in the oval office, and to fuel the fox news run downs. but that any suggestion that bob mueller is doing anything other than investigating and getting ready to charge and prosecute crimes is foolish. do you agree with that analysis? >> yeah, i do.

there is a complete disconnect here. mueller is doing things absolutely by the book, leak-free. he's writing a manual for how things should be done. at the same time, you have team trump now proffering as its rallying cry the kinds of arguments that prosecutors and judges recognize as the bottom of the barrel stone cold losers. shocking the conscience and prosecutorial bias and things that really have, a, no basis under the law, and, b, completely disconnect with the facts. and there is almost a surreal quality to see the occupant of the oval office using them as a sort of clarion call. in addition, the actual things he's saying just don't fly at all, the notion of an infested bias probe overall. we're talking about the teenyest

little twigs they are saying is a tree for which there is now fruit of the poisonous tree in the law. it's just -- any prosecutor and lawyer would recognize it as spurious. >> and, ken dilanian, let me get you in on this. harry is referencing a "wall street journal" editorial which gave the right interest in defending donald trump. what i think has to be described as the best effort at an intellectual argument to indict the legitimacy of the mueller probe. and it is around this question of original sin. but even if you go through the piece, it's riddled with -- it us didn't hold up if you look at what harry just referenced, which is the way the mueller probe has gone down. it has gone down without a single leak. it has gone down with basically paper indictments or the whole case against manafort is air tight on paper. everyone they've charged who is an american has pleaded, is now

cooperating with the government except for paul manafort who is in a jail cell. can you pickup ut threthe threa started? weigh in on the false accusations, a lie, not only have documents been turned over, unprecedented number been turned over by a republican administration to republicans in congress, but they brought in a u.s. attorney to do that job, took him away from other duties. >> yeah, absolutely. first on the documents, nicolle, the house intelligence committee has made an unprecedented request for more than a million documents related to a pending criminal investigation for the justice department and pretty much the justice department has said yes, we'll give you most of the stuff. there are a few instances where rod rosenstein has asked for more time, has asked for an extension because this is incredibly sensitive stuff. it's actually without precedent. normally congress does not muck around in a pending criminal investigation. we know what they're trying to do with this stuff which leads us into, you know, your question

about the "wall street journal" op-ed, which really was agusied up legalistic version of the talking points you can hear every night on fox news which essentially argues that, look, the bias that we saw with fbi agent pete strzok's texts which were cited by the inspector general in his report infects the entire investigation. it means the whole mueller investigation is improper. so let's unpack that. obviously the strzok texts are hurting mueller as a matter of public relations, but as soon as he found out about them, he removed peter strzok from his team. moreover, what this article suggests is that because strzok was biased, he and his team went easy on hillary clinton. the fix was in on that investigation. the inspector general said the opposite. it says they found no fault with the decision not to charge hillary clinton with crimes and they found no evidence that any bias has infected the russia investigation. now, they are investigating that question and they will have a later report analyzing some of the decisions that led to the start of the russia investigation. but right now there just isn't

any evidence to make the leaps that these lawyers and this "wall street journal" article are making, nicolle. >> natasha, i want to get you in on this. i want to show one mor more thing, the source who had a working relationship with bob mueller. if bob mueller has made a decision about whether or not he can indict the president, if bob mueller has made a decision to write a report to congress, he said if he had, we would not know about them. do you agree with that? >> absolutely. i mean, everything that we have experienced during this special counsel investigation suggests that when he decides to draw up a decision or indictment, it always comes as a huge shock. i mean, no one ever really sees it coming. when paul manafort, papadopoulos, rick gates. it's in the southern district attorney's crosshairs. mueller's investigation has been completely leak free. if you were considering a

possibility of indicting the president, it's very unlikely that the public would know about it. we know bits and pieces about a potential obstruction report being drafted because of leaks coming from defense attorneys surrounding the people that have been interviewed, the president's own lawyers have spoken to the washington post and "the new york times," other outlets about what bob mueller is considering in terms of an obstruction investigation against the president. but just going back to this "wall street journal" report, i think that it's very interesting how the entire premise of the article is about how the investigation, the russia investigation was launched based on, you know, political bias, that they were trying to somehow interfere in the upcoming election. of course, we know that that is completely nonsensical because not only did the fbi not disclose the existence of this ongoing investigation when they could have, they could have leaked it to the press. i'm sure the press would have been very eager to learn there was an ongoing investigation into potential collusion between

trump and russia, but they, of course, reopened the hillary clinton e-mail investigation just days before the election. so, the entire premise of the article was that the fbi opened this investigation to undermine the trump campaign and bolster clinton's candidacy makes no sense. >> let's put this up for our viewers and go through it. the wjs article we referenced is right here. mueller's fruit of the poisonous tree. if cross fire was the counter intelligence investigation was politically motivated its culmination and appointment of a special count inherited the taint. all special counsel investigations subpoenas, reports, indictments and convictions is fruit of a poisonous tree. mr. mueller and his staff had nothing to do with crosshairs and offers no cure. let's take that apart one by one. as natasha just said, the opposite is true. so, this is like seinfeld ask opposite day. >> bizarre word.

>> the counter intelligence of the trump campaign was the one that was kept secret while hillary clinton's campaign played out in the waning days and hours of the 2016 election. >> everybody has already said it. not only did the fbi not disclose they were investigating donald trump at that time, there was a counter intelligence investigation going on, they waived reporters off the story. "the new york times" sometimes forget in the waning days of october, they published a story, fbi sees no link between trump campaign and russia. on the basis of the fact that the fbi was, in fact, waiving them off a story they had been working on and investigating for some number of months. there were people at the time who in some ways, this cross fire piece, the story that the times did that laid all this out, the origin of that investigation, was to some extent an effort to -- i won't call it a mea copa, but to go back. their story october 30th was an incredible consequence. people knew "the new york times" had been investigating 24this a

long time. it looked like the fbi was saying there is nothing to see. they not only kept it confidential. they pushed the press away from what the press was finding. >> how small of a world this was, the agent that insisted on keeping it secret is the same one that wrote the text they use now to malign the entire fbi. peter strzok. >> i don't know i fully understand why somebody would care about a particular editorial op-ed to spend time on it. they are now, that page on this question -- not all questions, but this question, the question of mueller, the question of the investigation of trump has been as much -- carrying as much water with a slightly higher degree with an intellectual sheen than fox news does consistently for months and months and months. you can't go get away. on election day many people in the country believed that hillary clinton was under investigation, that donald trump was not, and they believed if hillary clinton got into office there would be a special counsel and exactly the opposite.

donald trump was under investigation and a special counsel ended up being appointed in his administration. the big 30,000-foot historical reality of that just knocks overall of these dumb -- >> all these lies. >> pit ly arguments to poke points and make arguments to advance donald trump's agenda. >> ken dilanian, i want to ask you about something you reported today then i'll get back to you, harry. you reported senior d.o.j. officials are being briefed biweekly on the mueller probe. i want to ask you why you think you know that. >> just because seen your justice department official told me it was the case. >> someone told me that, too. why do you think they want us to know they are being briefed on the mueller probe? >> i'm not sure. i'm not sure that's all that significant. it wasn't terribly surprising to me. they are, in fact, coordinating. this is a justice department investigation. people forget it's not the independent counsel act. they are making decisions about the scope of it and the budget and that's the way it should be. i want to go back to one thing

heilman said about the "wall street journal" op-ed. the reason it's important, we're focusing on it is this is the argument these guys are going to make if it ever comes to impeachment. this is how they're going to attack the investigation. guess what, it's working. there are large segments of the public that don't know much about bob mueller but believe there is a taint here. they read strzok's comments. as a public relations strategy, this is working to discredit the mueller investigation. >> i'm going to take a rare occasion to disagree. folks around mueller say it is working in a vacuum. he's not a p.r. guy. he's not into rapid response. he's not oblivious to what's being said on fox news and by people like devin nunes. he dupzaoesn't care. he's getting ready to charge and prosecute crimes. i picked up a sense that between senator warner's comments that it's going to be a wild couple

months between this reporting. this is the first time i've seen multiple news organizations, ours and another television network of officials being briefed in on the mueller probe. i sense a softening of the ground for news to come. what do you sense? >> okay. on the first point i've got to say i agree with both of you in this sense. yes, mueller doesn't care. you know, i can't emphasize enough, he is not -- among prosecutors of all stripes, it just so happens the man is a demi god. it's not simply he's a very competent professional. he really is the prosecutor of his generation. that said, there has been a lot of people who have lamented that he doesn't have something of a p.r. strategy and have observed as can is, at least for now some inroads are being made by this rhetorical strategy for lawyers and judges and prosecutors, it's

surreal that should be happening. not only are the arguments poor, but the facts are even poorer. but to john's point that they're poking little holes, it's true. these are really picayune points. they're being made in a overblown sophomoric rhetoric, staggering, conspiratorial and territorial. it seems to me it may be hitting home, but you're right. until the point comes where mueller speaks and then he's going to speak volumes. >> natasha, let me give you the last word because you wrote about this today. you actually wrote a piece about it. your piece is talking about the president's repeated claims that they planted i spy in his campaign. you get it exactly what we're talking about. the conspiracy theories, this ridiculous assertion that they were entrapped by the fbi. talk about what you're reporting today.

>> right, exact limb. so, earlier this month we saw a report in the washington post that said that michael caputo and roger stone two early trump campaign advisors had just remembered miraculously that they had encountered yet another russian who offered them dirt on hillary clinton in early may or late may of 2016. and now they say that in order to kind of explain this interaction and why they didn't r'ri ve reveal it sooner is because they thought that person was sent to them by the fbi to entrap them. the reason it is easy to make this argument and make it stick is because this guy was an fbi informant. he helped the fbi between 2008 and 2012. he does have that history with the fbi. but the second more likely reason because this russian stopped actually working with the fbi more than three years before he even approached caputo and stone is because the president has laid the groundwork for this, because he has said that the fbi was targeting him with spies and placed them in his campaign.

>> again, if there was nothing to see, the spies and the informants wouldn't be there. my thanks to ken dilanian, harry litman and natasha bertrand. when we come back, president trump takes zero-tolerance to a new low. zero humanity, zero process, zero judges. also the last guardrail fails. secretary mattis's waning influence with the president. and donald trump and vladimir putin together again. aides prepare for a summit as politico sums up russia's advantage this way. wing it meets meticulous. stay with us. we came here for t. and we got to know the friends of our friends. and we found others just like us. and just like that we felt a little less alone. but then something happened. we had to deal with spam, fake news, and data misuse. that's going to change. from now on, facebook will do more to keep you safe and protect your privacy. because when this place does what it was built for,

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you know, they want to hire now 5,000 more judges so that a person puts the toe in the land, we have to go to trial. this is crazy what we're doing. i don't want judges. i want border patrol. i want i.c.e. >> in other words, more law enforcement, less due process.

very american. a further explanation of that in a tweet over the weekend. quote, we cannot allow all of these people to invade our country. when somebody comes in, we must immediately with no judges or court cases, bring them back where they came. our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and law and order. most children come without parents. i don't think that's true. more this morning. quote, hiring many thousands of judges and going through a long and complicated legal process is not the way to go. we'll always be dysfunctional. people must simply be stopped at the border and told they cannot come into the u.s. illegally. scroll through. up, up, up, i'm not reading all these. these are trump's lies with immigration. the president may be legally and morally questionable, trump didn't exactly retreat after the controversy last week. instead, he, quote, went on the offensive complaining to aides about why he could not just create an overarching executive order to solve the problem. according to two people familiar with the deliberations, aides have had to explain to the

president why comprehensive immigration overhaul is beyond the reach of his executive powers. privately the president has groused he should not have signed the order undoing separations. nbc's cal perry is near the border. steve schmidt is at the table. i know he doesn't read books, steve, but he doesn't read the newspaper either. the last two american presidents tried comprehensive immigration reform. george w. bush did it with the late senator kennedy and john mccain. barack obama did it with marco -- i mean, how, how ignorant is he? >> he couldn't be more ignorant. he's a super nova of ignorance. it's incredible. look, there's a couple things going on here. one, he's inciting through mass rallies and constant lying, fervor in a political base. escape goats minority populations affixes blame to them for every problem the country faces.

he alleges conspiracies of nefarious forces. he creates a mags sense ss sens victimization among his base. he asserts extraordinary claims of power to protect victims from the scapegoated populations and the nefarious conspiracy. that is fundamentally a liberal, deeply unamerican, and frankly could be straight out of munich circa 1928. it's very alarming. >> and, cal perry, you've had this sort of out of body experience that steve is talking about. you've been reporting from the border. you've likened it to other conflict zones you covered. can you talk about hearing those tweets and reading everything since the time you've been there when this crisis started to unfold last week? >> i had a further one today when i took a tour of the facility. as we are being walked around by this h.h.s. official, obama, two

years ago, it was backed up and we don't want to see kids on the border. the man who runs the facility contracted out by the government said, this wouldn't be necessary without the separation. the process is flawed and it harmed the children. so, you have this completely bizarre situation where you have a tent city, an internment camp according to senators who come here and can't get in, you have people inside the facility running it saying they think the policy is ridiculous, they would rather focus on hurricanes. the group in charge of this facility made all the recent major hurricanes, they covered ebola, all the natural disasters. if it was up to us we would not be doing this, this is crazy. >> john heilman, this is a crisis of the president's creation. i watched our mayor, mayor de blasio this morning. now beyond debate the children have been traumatized.

let's watch him this morning about some of the kids that were in new york -- that are in new york. >> our health care professionals in new york city started working with the kids and saw a lot of trauma. imagine for any one of us if we were taken from our mother or father and no idea -- sent to a foreign country, no idea what's going on. maybe we get a phone call or two to a relative. maybe we don't. and no word on when we're ever going to see our parents again. that's affecting these kids deeply emotionally in terms of their mental health. we're trying to help them now. but we're talking about now we're creating a generation of kids who are going to live with that real trauma. the medical professionals are telling us they are treating some of kids and seeing the signs of trauma and mental health distress. who wouldn't? >> and he knows because some of those separated children are here in new york city. >> all due respect to mayor de blasio having listened to mental health professionals,

pediatricians and clergy who claim what was going on was child a because on this policy. it's nice to have back up from someone who is seeing people on the ground. it's manifestly clear that if you strip away young children -- i don't necessarily mean infants. young children up to, you know, whatever age you want to pick, and you tear them away from their parents, tell them they may never see their parents again, they have no idea where they're going, where they're going to be, with people who don't understand their language and they're not allowed to touch them in some cases, these kids are going to be traumatized. you don't need a medical degree or mayor of new york city to know that intuitively. i want to go back to something steve said, the end point. you look at the tweets of donald trump. for some of us who look at the american system as a paragon. we're working on making it better better, have been 200 years. due process and separation of powers, those are intrinsic things and say that's what makes

america the greatest country in the world. that's why we don't have uh to be -- autocracy. the president doesn't understand them. he thinks they are -- >> impediments. >> i mpediments. their a pain in his as. what he wants is get rid of the process, give all the power to me and i'm going to do what i want to do. i think that's why you don't have to go so far as to talk as some have done about some of the most authoritarian despicable gratuitous violent regimes in history. you don't have to talk about pau pot to get to what's wrong with this view of the world. he lays it out in his twitter feed every day. >> cal perry, what are you hearing on the ground from the tone being set in the oval office about denying these people due process? >> listen, you know, you go to these courts along the border and it's just -- it's a whole

different ball game. they line everybody up in a group. they get a minute to meet with their lawyer. they're asked how do you plead? everybody says in unison, si. it's a system run by a rich white man. that's just the reality here on the ground and this idea somehow, oh, you don't necessarily have to see a judge in order to get due process is completely crazy because what these kids are seeing is a military installation where the tents are labelled alpha 1, alpha 2, up to 11. the dining facility is labeled dfac. when you talk to people here, they say the rhetoric matters because the rhetoric is what caused the tent city which was unnecessary except they started moving babies around. it affects everyday life in public schools where attendance is down from undocumented individuals. >> steve schmidt, so donald trump doesn't believe in due process for people coming to our country seeking asylum or for a better life.

you know what he wants due process for? rob porter accused of beating more than one wife. people's lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. there is no recovery for someone falsely accused. life and career are gone. is there no such thing any longer as due process? >> there is a tweet for everything. >> can't make it up. listen, this policy is one of purposeful abject cruelty and meanness. it's not accidental. this is donald trump and he's using very purposeful words. infestation, invasion, to incite fervor in a base. he doesn't even have a pretense any longer being president of the entire country. he is the leader of a faction that is trying to impose systematic cruelty upon all the rest of us and that's why it wasn't that sarah sanders was kicked out of a restaurant

because she lies every day. it wasn't until we had 3-year-olds in cages that these people couldn't go into public. too bad on them. >> all right. cal perry, thank you for all your reporting down there. we're grateful to have you. after the break, defense secretary mattis is known as a human guardrail. one of the only people standing between donald trump and chaos. but new reporting suggests he's on the outs with the president increasingly surrounded by men who tell him a little bit more of what he wants to hear.

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decision-making circle. case in point, quote, in may, according to two officials familiar with the matter, mattis learned trump had made a decision on the iran deal only after it was finalized. bolton had made the case for dropping the deal directly to the president in the oval office rather than in a meeting with the national security team as is typical for such decisions. it doesn't stop there. the list of decisions trump has made against mattis' advice or without his knowledge goes beyond the iran deal. it includes ordering the pentagon to create a so-called space force, barring transgender people from serving in the military, and a host of moves the president has made as part of negotiations with north korea. all of that made extra hard to swallow when one considers the kind of man secretary mattis is. you might remember this video of him speaking to troops in person in the middle east. >> you just hold the line, my fine young soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines. you just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting

each other and showing it. >> let's bring in nbc news national security and military reporter courtney, one of the reporters who broke the story. and at the table mark jacobson, a former senior advisor to defense secretary ash carter, now professor at amherst. talk to us about being secretary mattis today right now in this trump orbit. >> nicolle, carol lee and a colleague went and looked at decisions trump has made and some of his public pronouncements on security issues the last several motz. we found a pretty common thread which was he was making decisions that seemed to be contrary to what secretary mattis had said sometimes in public and sometimes our understanding of what he was recommending behind the scenes. and a couple of them you just mentioned there, you know, last october secretary mattis on the record in a letter to senator john mccain said that he thought the creation of a 6th military branch called space force was a

bad idea, it created more bureaucracy and whatnot. a couple days ago, president trump stood up at a meeting and looked at general dunford and said, i'd like you to please create another branch called the space force. another create another branch called the space force. another one was the decision on the u.s. withdrawing from the iran deal. it wasn't a surprise. there was speculation in the media in a president trump was going to pull the u.s. out of it. when he made the decision he made and it didn't call secretary mattis until the secretary called the white house to find out what the decision ultimately was going to be. there are a number of decisions here. the thing that's interesting to me about it is we don't have any indication that president trump is upset with secretary mattis or getting ready to fire him. he just doesn't seem to be listening to him. in fact, he is listening more to his new national security adviser john bolton and new secretary of state mike pompeo. >> bolton was not mattis'

choice. >> he had a candidate for that job, not john bolton; isn't that right? >> that's right that's correct. when president trump found out mattis and others were maybe going behind his back to interview other candidates reporter than john bolton president trump was upset. and he chose john bolton without telling secretary mattis about the decision. >> let me ask you one other question. this idea of a military parade is obviously something that the military will put on if the president asks them to. they have to believe that it is as ludicrous as the rest of us do. >> i have been asking about that lately. i think it's more they feel like there are so many other things that should be prioritized above a parade. there are many other things that money can be spent on. the pentagon has this enormous budget right now that they got from the hill. and there are so many other things they are spending a tremendous amount of money on. troops in afghanistan, in iraq,

in syria. now they are involved in this border situation. so it's more that it's not a high priority on their list right now. >> let me ask you, mark become the idea of the last human guardrail. let me put up some of the people we have considered guardrails. reince priebus, hope hicks. dino powell. gary cohn, h.r. mchaaser. rex tillerson and secretary mattis. >> i know mattis and h.r. mcmaster. mattis is incredible. this is someone who is going to walk through fire for the troops on the ground. look at what he said you just hold the line i'm going to take care of washington. i think mattis's strength with the white house and the public is his independence. he is going to give the president the best advice he can but if the president disagrees with it he is just going to move

on. >> first of all, the president is talking about war gales. he was obviously shooting from the hip. isn't there some peril for a defense secretary not being synced up to the president. >> i'm less concerned formatis than i am for the nation. is president trump going to go to nato, go to the conference, bheet putin and decide we are not going to do nato exercise inside the baltic. not going to do anything that makes our tee ternt effective with the russians. i think mattis from a political standpoint survives. i'm worried about our credibility abroad. mat sis going to bush pack as hard and as long as he can. his relationship with dunford is so tight i'm less concerned about what is going to happen in the pentagon. >> can i say -- >> quick. >> something i believe to be 1 hundred% true perhaps a bit glib. all the things we know about trump and his lack of knowledge, does anybody think mattis got this job is because donald trump knew about him, his history,

what he heard, his history. no. he heard that the guy was called mad dog. and he liked having a guy in secretary ofefense so he could say i got mad dog mattis. i thought from the very first day that at some point trump will sour on him because he is a sensible great man and trump knows nothing. so they will end up parting ways now it's come. >> corey congratulations on the scoop. thank you for spanned time with us. after the break, how vladimir putin's penchant for planning and gamesmanship is likely to leave donald trump with the shorter end of the stick if the two men meet for a suspect this summer. oh don't... it's early 90s sitcom star dave coulier... cut...it...out! [laughing]

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talks are underway for a trump/putin summit potentially in a matter of weeks. politico is reporting president trump's winged approach to diplomacy would face a tough test november 2nd with a summit with vladimir putin. that sound like an understatement. >> geopolitically donald trump seems to share vladimir putin's agenda. >> or has he been brought to night he seems hostile to nato. what may come out this summit the putt putin pushing in the baltics. precipitating an article five

crisis that ends the nato alliance. the western alliance, the western led liberal global order because this president is under stress, under threat, and it might unravel. >> do you think that's possible? do you think as a result this nato could unravel. >> i think that putin would test it is estonia where you have 50% russian ethnic population. the little green men show up in a nato country. the germans can field six or seven flying aircraft right now militarily. all depends on how gutsy vladimir putin feels, how weak he feels at this. all i know is this. we have a president attacking the canadian prime minister and praising kim jong-un. >> and trying to get russia into the g 8. >> i want to give you the last 30 seconds. he wants to add russia to the g 8, does that happen? >> no. it doesn't happen. i'm only slightly less pessimistic than steve is here. the president says the press is the enemy. due process is an an acronym of the past. and i want to keep pace with kim

jong-un andereder erdogan. -- [ overlapping speakers ] all right that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. my thanks to the panel. "mtp daily" starts right now with steve kornacki in for chuck. >> if it's monday, the president is fanning the flames of multiple firestorms. >> tonight, has zero tolerance led to zero civility. >> the calls for harassment and push for any trump supporter to avoid the public is unacceptable. >> reporter: the latest salvo over a border battle that turned down right vicious. plus, inside the tent city. nbc news gets a look inside a texas detention center for migrant children. and you got served? a restaurant gets hundreds of