our thanks to mayra gay. kasie hunt joins us right now. if it's monday, should the president panic? tonight, is the president's fixer preparing to flip? or does michael cohen have another motive for breaking his silence? >> he said he wanted to respect the process. >> plus, supreme interviews. the president closes in on his pick for the supreme court. >> we'll be announcing it on monday. i think the person that is chosen will be outstanding. >> and the best words, the so z sounds of making america again. >> nobody, nobody, nobody does it better. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now.

good evening, i'm kasie hunt in washington in for chuck todd. welcome to can the mtp daily. we begin with the enclosucleare indications yet that michael cohen could flip and cooperate with federal prosecutors. in an interview with abc news, cohen praised the fbi and said his first loyalty was to his family and country, not the president. he also had some choice words for mr. trump about the russia investigation. the big question right now is how will the president react? would the president consider intervening, perhaps with a pardon? perhaps in some other form? or does he think cohen is bluffing? what do you think? what do you think federal prosecutors think? what do you think the white house thinks? well, moments ago, white house press secretary sarah sanders

was asked about cohen's comments, but she refused to answer. >> is the president worried about his comments this morning that michael cohen is going to flip and has he considered at all paying michael cohen's legal fees? >> as you know, i'm not going to answer questions on this topic and will refer you to the president's outside counsel. >> can you at least tell us whether the president watched the interview this morning and potentially about how he feels about the idea that his former attorney said he would put his wife, his son, his family and his country first but not the president? >> once again i would not answer this issue and would refer you to the president's outside counsel. >> there's a lot we don't know but let's start with what we do. there is arguably no clearer example of trump-style loyalty than michael cohen. he's bragged about his willingness to take a bullet for mr. trump. he's said he'll do anything to protect trump and his family. he's threatened reporters with expletive-filled rants and attempts to bury stories. he even paid off a porn star on

the eve of the election with his own money. but that was before the fbi seized his blackberries and federal prosecutors decoded his encrypted messages and pieced together the contents of his shredder. now the president's most loyal foot soldier apparently has bigger loyalties. here's what he told abc news. quote, my wife, my daughter, and my son have my first loyalty and always will. i put family and country first. to be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter, and my country have my first loyalty. he went on to say this about the president. quote, i will not be a punching bag as part of anyone's defense strategy. i am not a villain in any story and won't allow others to try and depict me in that way. cohen's break with the president went even further. quote, i don't agree with those who demonize orrville phi the fbi. i respect the fbi as an institution as well as their agents. i don't like the term witch

hunt. as an american a repudiate any foreign government's attempts to interfere in our democratic process and i would call on all americans to do the same. look, there's every reason to question cohen's motivations for speaking out. "the wall street journal" reported that cohen wants the president to pay his legal bills. regardless of cohen's motives, there's cohen's message to trump and ultimately we don't know what he knows. but the president does. joining me now is daniel goldman, former assistant u.s. attorney in that pivotal southern district of new york and starting today an msnbc legal contributor. welcome, sir, to our network. >> thank you. >> and tonight's panel, sah sahil kapur, hugh hewitt and anita dunn, former communications director under president obama. mr. goldman, i want to start with you on kind of the legal conjectures here.

i mean there are many theories as to why mr. cohen is doing what he is doing now. what in your view is the most plausible explanation? >> i really just think it's simply a pr blitz. i think michael cohen has been run through the wringer for the last several months and i think that he's had to be quiet. he's not someone who generally likes to be quiet, as some of those recordings that came out in recent weeks indicate. he's a brash, somewhat crass and can be threatening person. he's a big personality. and he's really been trashed over the last couple of weeks. he's talked for months about his concern about his family. that is always something that witness watchers, defendant watchers should pay close attention to because that is often the clue to whether someone is going to cooperate. but the biggest thing to me that stuck out from this interview was the fact that when he hires

his new attorney, guy petrillo who was the chief of the criminal division in the southern district of new york later this week, that there will no longer be what's called a joint defense agreement with the president. that is an agreement whereby lawyers and clients can share documents, can share information, can share strategy. and that is usually an indication that you're breaking with someone, you're not going to have a shared strategy going forward, so you're going on your own, which usually means that you're going to cooperate. >> fair enough. i do want to point out nbc news' reporting is a little different on this topic than where abc is. but sahil, let's talk about the politics of this a little bit. in your view, why would michael cohen do this? i thought it was so interesting that he seems to be explicitly talking about the valor of the country's fbi agents, in some ways drag himself out from the tabloid world.

this was not with "the new york post" it was with abc news. >> is he trying to sending a message to president trump and saying don't try to railroad me, don't try to throw me under the bus, i have a lot of information and am going to say something. is he trying to speak to prosecutors, dangle this before them and see if this will get him out of trouble. >> couldn't he just call them up and get them on the phone? >> could he? would his lawyers have to do that? i'm not sure. either way, it seems like his tone has certainly changed from the man who's going to take a bullet for trump to now where he's singing a very, very different tune. >> hugh hewitt, if you're president trump, what do you take away from what michael cohen did. >> i think you pick up the phone and ask rudy giuliani how much trouble am i am and i think his answer is a lot if there is anything that's done wrong. if he knows anything, it's up for grabs. the late chuck colson once told me conspiracies are impossible

to hold together because everyone has annin se ini incen turn. >> you've seen sarah sanders say i'm not going to have any part of this. you've been in this role defending presidents in the past. if it were your white house, what would you do in this situation? >> the temptation to kick it to the lawyers would be almost overwhelming at any time like this. one of the interesting things about the interview this morning, and again it's not clear if it was the opening of a plea bargain or a pardon negotiation who that audience was, right? but it's very interesting he didn't do it on camera. this was an interview with abc news that was conducted off camera and reported out. that speaks to the heavy involvement of new lawyers and a very different strategy from what he's followed earlier. i think a smart strategy. i think michael cohen is always going to be better in print than he is on television. >> president trump's reaction here is going to be fascinating to watch. is he going to try to move cohen off of this confrontational

approach with sugar and honey or start attacking him and diminish his credibility for fear that cohen could say something that could damage president trump and try to preempt that, so i really don't know. i think it's going -- how the president reacts is going to suggest what's in his mind, what's in his conscience with this whole thing. >> it's strangely quiet this afternoon from his twitter account. >> it has. i honestly have been sort of -- in the hours leading up to the broadcast thinking, okay, surely we'll get something here but nothing yet. daniel goldman, how do prosecutors read something like this? can you just pick up the phone and call the sdny office or is there something here that would help michael cohen with prosecutors who might be thinking about how to treat him? >> look, if we're going to take what he said to abc at face value, what's going to happen is, first of all, michael cohen would never call the prosecutors directly. the prosecutors are not allowed to speak to any represented individual. they must speak to the lawyers. so what is likely to happen is that his new lawyer is going to come in and he's going to have

conversations with the prosecutors in the southern district of new york and they're going to try to figure out -- the prosecutors are going to give whatever information they want to give. at some point they will likely say we are getting ready to charge michael cohen with x, y and z crimes. does he want to come in and meet with us and tell us everything that he has done and everything that anyone else he knows has done. at that point his -- michael cohen's lawyer and cohen will sit down and evaluate their options. we may not hear anything else about this again before michael cohen is already meeting with prosecutors because he likely will not be actually indicted if he is going to cooperate. that would be a discussion about potential charges and then he'll make a decision what he wants to do, whether he wants to cooperate or whether he wants to fight it. all of his words, all of his praise for the fbi, all of the

disengagement from the language that trump has been using is all an indication to me as a former prosecutor that he's playing nice, he's trying not to say anything that will upset law enforcement and the prosecutors, and he's leaving his options open. i think most likely he will cooperate. >> very quickly, why not go on camera, how does that help him? >> i'm actually quite surprised that his lawyer let him even have this interview. there's no advantage for michael cohen to be recorded, either certainly on camera where the recording -- his words, his body language can be seen, but if you're not -- if you're going to be interviewed, it's much better for michael cohen's perspective to at least do it off camera where, you know, the prosecutors would have to call george stephanopolous to ask him what michael cohen said to him rather than just play a video. >> let's play this out a little

bit here too. hugh hewitt, what would be the ramifications if the president were to pardon michael cohen? >> the president will be impeached by a democratic majority, period. >> regardless of what happens? >> he will be impeached by the democratic party if they take the house. if he does things that are reported in a mueller report which indicate collusion of any sort or manipulation of the pardon process, i think he loses votes in the senate, which he'll be acquitted and, therefore, there is no upside to a pardon, period. it's bad for the reputation of the president, it's bad for the country and it's bad all the way around so it should be a nonstarter. >> anita, do you agree with that? >> i think a pardon would be politically disastrous. if you look at what ended richard nixon's reign as president, it wasn't anything except the crumbling of his political support within his own party and that's why he had to leave office. i think a pardon starts to take you to that place. i agree with hugh. >> so what's your reporting say on that point? do we think that the republican party -- i suppose it could

depend largely on what happens coming up in november, but i don't see the evidence here that republicans here are ready to make that kind of a break, regardless of what trump were to do. >> i think for now republicans certainly want to run on the prospect of impeachment because it energizes its base and democratic leaders are worried about overstepping on the impeachment issue. i do agree a pardon would ignite a potential democratic house to pursue something like impeachment. the democratic speaker will be fendsing off that question on a daily basis. for now democrats are resisting and take the responsible route and say let's not jump to that conclusion, let's wait. democrats recognize if they start pursuing without republican support, it looks batted. it will look like they're trying to overturn the results of an election and that's what they fear. >> so then it's how they position themselves in public, the president and cohen. the president has been clear that he no longer views michael cohen as his lawyer but instead

as a businessman. take a look. >> michael is in business. he's really a businessman, a fairly big business, as i understand it. i don't know his business. but this doesn't have to do with me. michael is a businessman. he's got a business. he also practices law. i would say probably the big thing is his business. and they're looking at something having to do with his business. i have nothing to do with his business. i can tell you he's got other things. he's got businesses. from what i understand they're looking at his businesses. i hope he's in great shape, but he's got businesses. >> is that plausible, hugh? >> it is plausible that michael cohen is in trouble for things unrelated to the campaign of 2016. that's in fact what happened to paul manafort. the president is trying to draw a bright line but that doesn't mean that michael cohen doesn't have information that could be detrimental to president trump on matters other than the russia collusion investigation. so we could end up somewhere completely unrelated to russia

that does involve donald trump and financing for his projects from years ago. >> but there's been very few signs that trump's voters are willing to believe anybody who isn't president trump, regardless of the truth. >> so that is absolutely correct when it comes to this investigation for now. and again, this is -- this is a process. at this point right now, they haven't seen anything, they haven't heard anything except a lot of noise from washington, d.c. they don't follow this. people in this country are not following this the way we follow this, right, at all. but again, where you start at the beginning isn't necessarily where you end with any of these stories. i think that obviously mueller has been very careful to not hurt his credibility. when the mueller report comes out, however he delivers his information, that will be an important step in this process. >> of course the overarching question, whether voters will be willing to believe those conclusions after what the president has said about it. daniel goldman, thank you very much. sahil, hugh and anita will be

sticking around. we have more on the president and the russian investigation up next. and supreme battle. democrats and republicans drawing lines in the sand over abortion rights as the president's decision day gets closer. your hair is so soft! did you use head and shoulders two in one? i did mom. wanna try it? yes. it intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free. manolo? look at my soft hair. i should be in the shot now too. try head and shoulders two in one.

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but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. welcome back. how will voters react to the twists and turns of the trump/russia saga in november and beyond. joining me now is a former special assistant to president trump and one of the people tasked with getting the trump/pence ticket reelected in 2020. sir, it's good to see you. >> good to see you. >> thanks for being here. let's start with michael cohen. what message did the trump/pence

campaign take away from what michael cohen said this morning? >> i don't think they're focused on that right now. there's a lot of speculation. >> how can you not be focused on it. >> a, he's not charged with anything. b, we don't know what information he may or may not have, that he may or may not be willing to talk to prosecutors about so i think there's a lot of speculation. it's a sport right now in washington, d.c., and i get that. but i think from our standpoint we focus on the supreme court -- >> for him to go out and talk about loyalty, which is something that the president really values, and to say that he is loyal first to his family and to his country, does the president not take that as a shot? >> i haven't talked to the president directly about that. but i think we all are loyal to our families and our country. right now all he did was go out there, he sent whatever message that he's hoping to send, and there's a lot of speculation about what that means. but i think as your previous guests said, there's a lot of public relations involved. i think we'll just wait to see how it plays out. >> what do you think voters are going to take away from this back and forth with the

president and his own lawyer? i mean is this just simply going to be a question of do they believe the president over michael cohen? >> i'm not sure they're following every day like we do here in washington, d.c., the comings and goings and who's talking and who's not. i think right now they're focused for their plans on the fourth of july. >> should this matter to voters? during the campaign president trump argued that somebody being under fbi investigation was in fact a very important thing for voters to consider. >> i think right now what they're focused on is the economy, what they're doing for the fourth of july, what's coming on with the supreme court pick. i think those are probably the more important to them in terms of what's happening with a lawyer who's not been charged and is not even directly related to the russia investigation, as this is something separate being held out of the southern district of new york. >> you mentioned the economy. let's talk for a minute about the president's tariffs. you have people across the republican party, the chamber of commerce, groups backed by the koch brothers, companies, general motors saying this is

bad for america. why does the president -- why is he out there by himself on this? >> i think for too long we've been sold a false bill of goods that we have free trade, when we haven't had free trade in a very long time. we've never had it. in fact when general motors faces four times the amount of tariffs sending a car to europe than a german automaker to send a car here, that's not fair and free trade. and so what the president is doing is putting it on the table to say this has been unfair for many decades. we need to fix it. presidents of both parties have talked about wanting to fix trade, to make it more fair, but they have never actually done a lot about it. and so even though there might be a few bumps in the road here in the beginning and it does upset wall street, i think the people out there know that the president is sticking up for their jobs, the workers and for our farmers. >> many republicans here and members of the president's own party will say that the president is essentially threatening to wipe out all of whatever value added they got bypassing a massive tax cut that they say put money back in americans' pockets, that helped

juice corporate america, get things rolling. they're saying, look, you do this, you press ahead with this, you are putting our midterm election advantages on the line. >> i don't think the american people see it that way, and i think they see that he's looking out for their jobs, manufacturing jobs are growing 300,000 and counting right now. we've had 4,000 companies manufacturing factories come back to the united states in just the last year and a half. those are the things that they see and while there might be a short-term bump while we're dealing with this, the long-term benefit, which is what the president is focused on, will be better for american workers, better for our farmers in the many years and decades to come if we can get this fair and free on both sides. >> i guess we'll see what happens in iowa, to see if farmers really are on board with this. but you also mentioned the supreme court nomination. let's talk a little bit about the options for the president and concerns about particularly lisa murkowski, susan collins, republicans who are very

concerned about the precedent associated with roe versus wade. what is the kind of political view of how the president should go forward with this? does he benefit from picking a gorsuch style person or perhaps picking a woman? >> i think he definitely is going to follow the model of a gorsuch type person whether that is a man or a woman. it's the temperament, their judicial philosophy. the constitution means that it says, not can be twisted into something that means something else and that's what he's looking for. that's why many conservatives voted for the president in the first time around. it was very high on their priority list in the exit polls after election day. so we'll see. but what we know is that the president is going to have someone in there who respects the rule of law. we're going to see the congress move -- or the senate move through that process this fall. i think it's actually in a very difficult position for the democrats from the red states that the president won because as paul begala said just last week that any democrat who votes for the president's nominee is going to struggle with volunteers and donors.

so if you vote for this nominee, you lose your base. if you vote against the nominee, you're going to lose the trump voters that you need to get you re-elected and that's a very difficult position for those senators. >> what did you read into chuck schumer focusing on amy barrett, the top -- considered to be the top female potential choice for the president? >> while i'm not going to comment on whether she is or isn't, but i did take note on that. let's remember when the judge was confirmed last october, you had three democrats that crossed over to vote for her. manchin, kaine and donnelly and senators collins, murkowski and mccain also voting for her confirmation, so that shows that she can get all of the republicans and three democrats. so that shows you that he's probably very concerned about having that pick come through. >> really quickly before we go, on immigration, over the course of this weekend we saw americans take to the streets. according to many of our own correspondents on the ground, a

lot of people, it's their first time coming out and protesting the trump administration. meanwhile on the democratic side you have an increasing call to abolish i.c.e. the president weighed in on that saying democrats want open borders. how concerned are you from a political perspective going into the midterms that the separation of these children has really galvanized americans who may not have otherwise voted in a midterm election. >> i think while that issue was very polarizing and the president has acted on it and they're in the process of reuniting those families, the calls to abolish i.c.e. has gone to such an extreme i think the democrats very much overplayed their hands. while that message may resonate with the coasts, it is going to cost you many of the people in the midwest where i come from who are just not going to go for open borders and eliminating our customs and border patrol agents. >> marc lotter, thanks very much for your time today. really appreciate it. still ahead, the president talks about his supreme court interviews. plus is kim jong-un already

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legalzoom. where life meets legal. welcome back. new evidence that the president's suddenly chummy relationship with the north could go south. the white house this afternoon would not comment on reports from nbc news and "the washington post" that nouk nort korea has increased its nuclear production at secret sites and is working to conceal key aspects of that program.

those reports cite trump administration officials. more importantly, those officials are directly contradicting the president's recent boast to north korea is no longer a nuclear threat. secretary of state mike pompeo will be traveling to north korea later this week to discuss denuclearization, but so far the program to actually rid north korea of its nuclear threat seems theoretical at best. >> we have developed a program. i'm sure that secretary of state mike pompeo will be discussing this with the north koreans in the near future about really how to dismantle all of their wmd and ballistic missile programs in a year. what our experts have devised is a program with that their cooperation and full disclosure -- >> that hasn't happened yet? >> we can -- it has not. >> more "mtp daily" up after the break. -♪ he's got legs of lumber and arms of steel ♪ ♪ he eats a bowl of hammers at every meal ♪

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in the morning, during the morning i interviewed and met with four potential justices of our great supreme court. i'll be meeting with two or three more and we'll make a decision on the united states supreme court, the new justice. that will be made over the next few days and we'll be announcing it on monday. >> welcome back. by this time next week, we'll know who the president's pick is to fill the supreme court seat of retiring justice anthony kennedy. with the president all but certain to pick a right-leaning nominee, the court's balance of power could shift for decades. both conservatives and liberals are fired up about what that could mean for abortion rights. republican senator susan collins, expected to be a key swing vote in this confirmation battle, said this over the weekend. >> a candidate for this important position who would overturn roe v. wade would not

be acceptable to me because that would indicate an activist agenda that i don't want to see a judge have. >> republicans can confirm president trump's supreme court pick without democratic votes, but they have to keep their caucus together to pull it off. in addition to collins, senator lisa murkowski has signalled that she could defect as well. meanwhile, democrats are in disarray over both how to fight this fight and whether to fight it at all. senator ben cardin of maryland joins me now. senator, it's good to see you. i want to start out by playing a little bit of an interview your colleague, senator cantwell, did with chuck todd over the weekend about just how important this vote is going to be for democrats. take a look and we'll talk about it. >> i think that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that this vote could be a -- one of the key votes of their entire career. they know that no matter what spin comes out of the white house, if they vote for somebody

who's going to change precedent, it could be a career-ending move. >> senator cardin, do you agree with that assessment? if you're a democrat and vote no, do you risk ending your career in the democratic party? >> i think senator cantwell is absolutely right as to the consequences of this nomination. the president is looking at a list prepared by outside groups with the intention of changing the precedent of the court particularly as it pertains to women's rights and ro roe v. wa. this is an extremely important vote for every united states senator. we need to understand that we're talking about changing the direction of the supreme court for the next generation. so yes, i am concerned that the list the president is working on has been prepared by an outside group with an intended result. >> senator, can you take us behind the scenes of the democratic policy lunches. this has clearly been a difficult issue to grapple with, how to fight this nomination.

you run the gamut from liberals like cory booker, elizabeth warren, kamala harris, a lot of us who assume are running for president in 2020 to joe manchin, heidi heitkamp, joe donnelly, and people that are at risk coming up for election in november and have a very different focus. how much anger do you think would be directed at your red state colleagues were they to vote yes for this nominee? >> well, first, let me point out that let's see who the president nominates. if he follows the path that it looks like he is going, it's a predetermined course here. i would think that all senators would be concerned about having someone appointed to the supreme court that basically has already made up his or her mind to reverse the precedent of the supreme court, particularly as it relates to roe v. wade and women's right of choice but many other issues we're concerned about. we have the protection under the affordable care act on pre-existing conditions.

we're very concerned that this nominee may be selected with the intent of reversing the affordable care act protections. so it looks like the president is trying to appoint someone with an agenda on the court, and i would hope that all my senators, all my colleagues would be very concerned about that course, not just the senators who come from so-called red states, but i would hope that all senators would be concerned about this. >> senator dick durbin, the democratic number two in the senate, he said -- acknowledged really that democrats are powerless in the senate to stop this from going forward because you simply don't have the votes. there are some in the liberal base who reacted very angrily to that, essentially saying that was throwing in the towel. how far should democrats go to fight this? >> i expect that we'll use every tool at our disposal to, first, be able to highlight what the nominee stands for, use our opportunities to interview, use our opportunities to make sure

that the american people understand what this nominee is all about. we'll do that. there is things we can do, but clearly the 51 votes is going to be the key number on the confirmation of this nominee. yes, senator mcconnell is hypocritical. he said of course under president obama that 11 months was not long enough for an election to take up a nominee. now the republicans are going to do this in just a few months. that's wrong, it's hypocritical, but we need to use every opportunity we can so the americans know what's at stake. what's at stake are their constitutional rights, the protection against the abuses of power by the president, by congress, by corporate america and reversing the long-standing precedents of the supreme court. >> to that point about the delay, one of your colleagues, cory booker, has argued that part of the reason why this should be delayed is because of robert mueller's ongoing

investigation. do you think that that's an argument democrats should be making loudly as this process unfolds? >> i think our first point is going to be the consequences of this nominee for your rights. to me that's the most important thing is the rights that are going to be jeopardized by appointing a person who has an agenda to reverse the precedents of the court. but there's clearly an issue here of senator mcconnell being very hypocritical in the manner in which he is proceeding when he denied president obama his selection on the supreme court. i think senator booker's points about all the other issues are certainly points that need to be considered. >> senator, i mean i take your point on mitch mcconnell, but democrats were the ones who started chipping away at the process that used to require 60 votes for circuit court judges and for supreme court nominees. do you regret what democrats did under harry reid when they removed that circuit court

filibuster threshold? >> it was part of a process by senator mcconnell to deny president obama the opportunity for his judges to be voted on fairly before the united states senate. the republicans were holding up any nomination for the circuit court to the district. that was wrong, they were abusing their power. we need to appointing judges that will follow the law, that will be mainstream judges. that's what we need to have, not just on the supreme court, but on our court of appeals and on our district court. clearly president trump is moving us away from that. so we've got to use every opportunity we can to make the american people understand this is about their rights. this is about a president that's just trying to get a court to ratify everything he does, whether it's immigration policies, health care policies, jeopardizing consumer rights, jeopardizing labor rights. he wants a court that will just rubber stamp his agenda. that's not what the courts are

about. it's an independent branch of government that follows the precedent of previous decisions and builds on the constitutional rights of the american citizens. president trump is trying to reverse that and that's why this particular nominee to the supreme court is so critically important. >> senator ben cardin, thanks so much for your time today. enjoy your fourth of july holiday, sir. >> thank you. up next, the alleged f.a.r.t. act. is the fair and reciprocal tariff plan just a lot of hot air? belly fat: the chili pepper sweat-out. not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. and no surgery. results and patient experience may vary. some common side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort,and swelling. ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you and visit coolsculpting.com today for your chance to win a free treatment.

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welcome back. tonight in meet the midterms we're following the midterm money and it's leading to this question. are republicans concerned about losing a senate seat in a state that president trump carried by 26 points? this morning the mitch mcconnell aligned senate leadership fund announced it is buying $4.2 million worth of ads in tennessee. that would be $4.2 million to boost congresswoman marcia blackburn's bid to win the seat being vacated by retiring republican senator bob corker. so how vulnerable is blackburn? we don't know that quite yet. we do know democrats hope their candidate, a popular governor, can grab enough moderates to come out on top and we know majority leader mcconnell had tennessee flagged as a race to

watch. and we know he's now putting his money where his mouth is. a republican loss in tennessee could up-end the gop's plans to extend their senate majority or it could even cost them the majority. more can the mtp daily up next after the break. i'm a four-year-old ring bearer with a bad habit of swallowing stuff. still won't eat my broccoli, though. and if you don't have the right overage, you could be paying for that pricey love band yourself. so get an allstate agent, and be better protected from mayhem. like me. can a ring bearer get a snack around here?

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if you have a parasitic infection. fasenra™ is a targeted treatment for eosinophilic asthma. that's important. ask an asthma specialist about fasenra™. wto has treated the united states very badly and i hope they change their ways. they have been treating us very badly for many, many years and that's why we were at a big disadvantage with the wto. we're not planning anything now, but if they don't treat us properly, we will be doing something. >> time now for "the lid." that was the president this afternoon after axios reported today the white house has drafted a bill to allow the u.s. to abandon basic world trade organization rules. the panel is back. sahil, hugh, anita. so this bill, who wants to be

the one to say it out loud? the acronym is f.a.r.t. is somebody in the white house just trolling all of us or do they think this is legislation that is going to pass. >> i think some staffer is probably going to get an earful because of the acronym there but on the substance of this, this is going in where in the senate and nowhere in the house. they are already uncomfortable with the president waging tariffs by himself. the president is more at risk of having his trade authority hemmed in than he is of getting more of it. >> hugh hewitt, he's really out on a limb here. >> senator flake has now made trade authority a condition of moving forward on some circuit court judge appointees. he's on judiciary. so i don't believe this wto act and i'm not going to say it because it lives forever is ever going to get anywhere near the hill. >> anita. >> i can only say that there are scores of elementary schoolchildren across the country who are about to take an

interest in trade law that they never did before. >> it is a rather juvenile way to put it. let's expand this conversation out slightly. this obviously really tariffs impacts our allies. "the new york times" has a report that we're just digesting here at nbc, allies and the "new york times" says apparently he has written a series of pointed letters to our nato allies saying they are not spending enough money on defense and asking them to step up. what's the breaking point, anita dunne, for these relationships over decades? >> this president is behaving exactly the way he said he would behave during the campaign. this is very relevant to the supreme court conversation you were having with ben cardin earlier. he said he would make our allies pay more for their defense and blow up nato. he said he would do these tariffs. i don't know why people don't take him at his word when he said he would only appoint judging pro-life and overturn rowe. at the end of the day, this

president is governing what he ran, to do whatever he feels like at any given time. roe. that is the status quo. we should take him at his word. this is what he wants to do. >> believe him. >> is the damage done to our nato allies and others permanently. this is contrary to what so many generations. ronald reagan. >> i think ambassador bolton said it best. we are very pro nato. leaning on the gdp is believable. the german gdp almost collapsed yesterday, got put back together again. england is leaving and the united kingdom is leaving brexit. and the talking points is the president negotiating what they need to do to get to 2%. >> there is a through line in the president's behavior and reactions, he's very skeptical and extremely critical of international accords he didn't

negotiate whether pulling out of paris accords or his criticism of the u.n. and nato and wto. and that they're doing more harm to the u.s. and the u.s. is not getting out what we get out of them. and that has been his consistent view for decades. >> the abolish i.c.e. movement, the white house tweeted some attacks on some of these senators who have come out and suggested they would potentially support abolish i.c.e. senator warren, why are you supporting criminals moving weapons and drugs across the country. you must not know what i.c.e. does and another senator, you must not know what i.c.e. really does. is this a line of attack that will work for democrats? >> this is getting perilously close to the line of not using

the funding to lobby. as somebody who worked in the white house i can tell you we would have been in oversight committees if we had done half of this kind of thing. we should not confuse the outrage democrats and people across this country has across the country. their wanting to abolish it -- >> i went to a protest outside a detention center with kamala harris and a pretty organic crowd and one of them had written a previous quote she wasn't sure they should abolish i.c.e. that's where the energy is. >> that's where some of the energy is. where the energy really is, is stopping the policy that have families in detention for months on end with no end in sight and stopping the policy that has children separated from their parents. our white house is expressing it in all kinds of ways but it is

the policies. >> the page is about to turn on the supreme court. i believe i know who the nominee is. whoever it is it will be an extraordinarily heated debate the president can only win if he approaches it and allows senator cardin and kaskel to step up with the demands. it's his strongest suit. if he nominates this man, it will change everything. >> music to your ears. you made a promise you agreed to never give up

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while supplies last. they probably will. that's all for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with much more mtp daily. "the beat," with ari melber starts now. >> i think there's a grammy in the works there. >> certainly for the crack team that put that montage together. >> very impressive. thanks. i'm in for ari melber this evening. we begin with donald trump's fixer, michael cohen, speaking out in his first major interview since the fbi raid and interview on his home and office back in april. as the feds get access to over a million documents seized in that raid, cohen today appearing to break with donald trump. >> remember, he famously said he would take a bullet for president trump. that's what appears to be changing right now. he's very much now his own man. >> cohen didn't appear on camera and wouldn't say directly if