hour. jennifer reuben, charlie sykes. billy maxwell, that does it for this hour. i'm nicole wallace. mtp daily starts right now. yep, it's wednesday. we're talking politics and patriotism on this fourth of july. a big happy fourth of july to everybody. i'm chuck todd here in walk. welcome to a special edition of "mtp daily." today is a day when many of us celebrate the birth of our nation, firing up the grill, popping open a beer or taking in a blockbuster or watching fireworks with the family. it's also a day when a lot of folks think of what it's to be

american. so we begin our show with the raging debate right now about what it means to be american at a time when the line between your politics and your patriotism has begun to blur. particularly under this american president. practices the biggest ways those lines are blurring are how the president has seemingly attempted to co-op patriotism in his own way to mean a certain level of loyalty and love to him. according to mr. trump, if you don't standing and applaud for him like during his state of the union, you are not being patriotic. >> they were like death. and unamerican. somebody said treasonous. yeah, i guess, why not? can we call that treason? why not? i mean, they certainly didn't seem to love our country very much. >> nothing like yucking it up over treason. according to white house, if you don't support his pick for secretary of state, you might not be a patriot.

>> look at some point, democrats have to decide whether they love this country more than they hate this president and they have to decide that they want to put the safety and the security and the diplomacy of our country ahead of their own political gains. >> and we've also seen this president weaponize patriotism when he revved up the base by players that kneeled because they were protesting police brutality. he fanned the flames and argued those players shouldn't be in america. >> you have to stand proudly for the national anthem. or you shouldn't be playing. you shouldn't be there. maybe you shouldn't be in the country. you have to stand proudly for the national anthem. >> you might remember he then withdrew his celebration, the philadelphia eagles falsely never had a neiler.

he held his event, using things like the marine band as a backdrop and he hummed along to "god bless america." folks, by and large the republican base has given mr. trump the love and loyalty he seeks. in the process, he's transformed the gop from a party of dictator hater, constitution defenders and rule of law abiders to a party that seems to shrug when the president also the them that kim jong-un can be trusted the justice department is a criminal deep state and our free press is the enemy of the people. can you decide whether or not the president has changed what it means to be american or he has his own definition. but can you not change what he means to be republican. some of the most conservative members of the public can't believe it or they don't want to believe it. >> it's not a good place for any party to end up with a cult-like situation as it relates to a president that happens to be of

the same party. >> what we're about as a nation is not being for or against one personality. again, we're a nation of the laws and not men as the founding fathers said. >> our presidency has been debased by a figure who seemingly has a bottoms will appetite for destruction and division and only a passing familiarity with how the constitution works. >> we are joined by your fourth of july panel, michael steel an analyst and former msnbc chair. chem berly atkins a journalist and john meach him, presidential historian and journalist. author after a great new book him welcome all. happy fourth of july. michael steel, this is a fight going on inside your party there when it comes to defining patriotism. but this is not the first president to wrap himself in the flag and try to own it. but he does it in such a heavy-handed way. >> he does it in a heavy-handed way.

but i think the way you set the argument at the begining is what it's all about. it's about him. he sets it in terms of his even presence. you're loyal to him. you are loyal to what his efforts, his words are. and that has begun to take its toll inside the party. i think you find now a number of republicans who are really asking themselves, is this what republicanism is or going to be in the 21st century. has it changed so much that the very things we once stood for, law and order, not with a stick, but respecting the constitution and the principles that come with that. are we really pro family? as we've seen over the last few weeks, the struggle on that issue for a lot of republicans. so thissfrom has been really pushed the test for republicanism in the 21st century to mean something other than what we thought it was when we began this century. >> kimberly, there are a lot of people in the president's base, it's about time someone stood

for the flag. it's about time that there was some definition here of what it means to be an american. >> and that's true. i think what we have seen is the president and his supporters weaponize patriotism. patriotism is something they say no you don't agree with our views, you are anti-american, unpatriotism unpatri unpatriotic. it's this idea than send us your tired the poor, we the people, it's about me, i'm the most american of all the groups, so, therefore, these policies should help me and it should not help that other person or if i am protesting something that seems an injustice, label it unpatriotic as the nfl protest, despite the fact that colin kaepernick chose to neil rather than sit. because that is what the soldiers do, at the graves of other soldiers, he wanted that to not be disrespectful. >> a fallen american. >> it's that plem. so we are seeing the idea of

americanism, who isn't american enough? i can't remember in the past seeing so many tweets, to tell me where i go from. i say, i'm from detroit, it's very nice. i go back there all the time. that's the place we are now. >> i want to play a piece from president trump's inauguration and paint some historic am context here. take a listen. >> at the bedrock of our politics will be a toll allegiance -- total allegiance to the united states of america, to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. when you open your heart to patriot im, there is no room for prejudice. >> what did you make of that line? what do you make of it when you hear it when it rings? is there dog whistles in there? >> he doesn't use dog whistles, he uses bullhorns. >> fair enough. >> so you can retire that

aronson. i think it was an attempt to make a nationalist assertion and then i think they may have heard how it sounded, so they attempted to use it as a trojan horse for a point they want a kind of, i think of it as an elk's lodge 1966 patriotism. >> interesting way of putting it. >> it's a very sort of right after the red scare patriotism. >> right under god goes the pledge of allegiance, we're under our desks, we're afraid. we iced to be afraid of the russians. now we're not, apparently. it's element am, like so much of trump, there is not a lot of nuance their. i think a lot of us spend time trying to detect nuance when there isn't any. when he said make america great again. he meant make it like in 1956 again. which if you look like me, are you a white southern boring heterosexual man. that was a good time to be alive. if you look like anybody else,

it was not so great. >> the two influence on him were politically his father and roy cohn. both basically products of the 19 -- they got success in that 1950s america you just described. >> no i think that's exactly right. it is sort of a 1956-'57 approach to the world. for me, still a reflection of some of the batty issues he's got. this guy is always continually trying to prove loyalty to him as he had to prove loyalty to his father. and he's always pushing back on those who told him he couldn't. just as his father told him he couldn't build in manhattan. he couldn't do this. so we're caught up in this warped view of patriotism of what america is which is not a refrex of what is happening on the ground. how this country is broung. how it is becoming less white.

that's not a negative thing. that's just a process thing. >> look texas the process is tricky. can barack obama he wasn't going to stands long and get that flag pin. remember. wearing a flag pin means you are patriotic, if you weren't, somehow you weren't as a candidate. he endedp deciding i won't fight that fight and he wore one the rest of the president. >> i he pick thad battle then in order to not be, create an issue that would be divisive, that would become a reg. president trump on the other hand lives to create wedges to be divice, you talked about this '50s era. it's because of that division it is fueling is so strong. in the 1950s, you saw things like labor unions that helped people of color. >> that pep e helped people collectively get ahead. are you seeing i want mine,

therefore for me to get mine, you can't get yours. >> you have to wonder how much is driven with trump and this patriotism thing is a sole reactionary aspect to the obamas in general. i want to play michelle obama during 2008 campaign a famous quote of hers because at the time it was probably the first and last time she ever spoke her mind politically. take a listen. >> for the first time in my adult lifetime, i am really proud of my country and not just because barack has done well, but because i think people are hungry for change and i have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction. >> snon meacham, when she said it, there was this human uproar, it became this thing. how could you not do that? that was from white america. anybody who wasn't white understood exactly what she

meant by that. it wasn't disrespectful. if her mind, she was only giving america another complement. >> absolutely. there is a confusion between naturalism and intentions confusion, maybe. >> there with is not a lot of nuance there. >> maybe bannon understands that. this is not a conversation we would have at mar-a-lago on the golf course to say the least. but you know, it's, patriotism is a sort of popular ver nal knack lar -- vernacular. it is nevertheless quite real. nationalism is the assertion of your own nations, your own tribe's interest above all in the broader, global struggle. that's what trump is. she a nationalist who speaks in patriotic terms. he's not the first. he won't be the last. remember the flag pins came into popular use in under nixon. he was the first to wear them.

that was way of saying to the age of aquarius, i'm with archie bunker. >> i'll take mine off. >> look, you brought up under god, people forget in the pledge of allegiance, we added under god late. it was in some ways reactionary to those times. >> it was. and that's a very good jumpoff point from that moment where we add under god to reagan's compromise in the 1980 campaign where he aqui essed to allow the moral majority to become a part of that particularly process because there was one way he could help fight back against the establishment at that time that did not like him. we saw that play out in the '76 campaign. so you have america sort of moving into this space i think where populism, nationalism, patriotism and faith sort of align themselves and became part

of the body politic in a way that was expressed by elected officials on the campaign trail via nixon and we see by this president today in the oval office. >> one of the things that blurred this, that probably made the president comfortable doing the nfl attack is how much sort of our public life where we sort of were, particularly in the sporting world, where they essentially throw certain patriotic things at the entire audience and it's sort of like it's everybody has to participate in this and is it numbing people to it? i have always wondered, is it actually not helping the cause of patriotism in some ways, the way we shove it into things like sporting events and the iraqiiation in ways that feel, that cause problems? >> well, it's a fundamental theological point that has expression in the sociological question you are raising, which is if you have to compel

something, it's not a natural part of the culture. >> that is, you know, the reason we have free will in theological terms is because the creator, if he just created us and said you have to follow me and there is no other choice, that takes the fun out of it. i think to some extent -- i love going to football games, baseball games the 7th inning stretch, post-9/11, it's great. any time you get kate smith involved in anything it's just good. if it's compulsory, then you are removing the action of ascent and remember the pride factor. >> yeah. >> the president says you have to stand up. you have to stand up when the allegiance is played. >> that is that compulsion that says you have to do it a certain way. >> and i think you have to add the extra layer here that who is the president compelling to do something?

it is these players. these players are largely people of color and it leads to the same, he. says that that aspect plays to the same base as his zero tolerance policy at border crossings. it's the president, himself, who put those things towing. i shoit shows, it gives this id that the president's view of america is not one that includes fully or respects people of color. i think for a lot of people of color on july 4th, which is lar fraught holiday for a lot of us, that that is something that's a reminder. >> all right, guys. i will pause the conversation here him up ahead on this independence day the battle overtaking a stand. the nfl is now cracking down on players who neil for protests him could that just end up encouraging more protests? in honor of july 4th, we will bring you holiday greetings from u.s. service members serving abroad. >> hi, i'm special alexander

campbell from couple, wishing you a happy fourth of july. >> hi, i'm first class christopher lamotte, from the united states navy, from africa. i'd like to send out a happy fourth of july to my kids and wife, happy fourth of july, go dodgers! let's do this. (♪) okay you gotta be kidding me. hold on, don't worry, there's another way. directions to the greek theater. (beep) ♪can i get a connection? ♪can i get can i get a connection?♪ ♪ohhh can i get a connection? ♪trying find the old me

certainly the president has been very clear what his position is in regards to the national anthem. we've never wavered on that. the president thinks that people should stand for the national anthem, particularly when it comes to the nfl. it's not about a particular team. it's about having pride in our country and about being respectful to the men and women who have fought and died to preserve our country. >> welcome back. as we have been talking about sports and particularly the nfl having increasingly become a

battleground and the politicalization of patriotism, because of the protests that began two seasons ago when colin kaepernick began protests of the treatment of snyder in the united states. other teams soon followed his lead. last month, president trump used the anthem protest as a part of his justification for can selling a celebration for the super bowl champion with the philadelphia eagles when they were supposed to visit the white house. and president trump guaranteed they'd stop for the anthem the nfl decided that all players who were on the field must stand or their team will be subject to a fine. players will have the option of staying in the locker room. recently i spoke to a senior writer at espn.com and nbc sports correspondent and author of "the heritage" black athletes and the divided america and the politics of patriotism. i started asking him about the new rules and this quote/unquote compromise that seems to be a recipe for more protests. >> this is a recipe for disaster. it appears the nfl has simply

decided to engage in the culture wars that the president started back in september when he called the players s.o.b.s and colin kaepernick, in particular. when that happened last year, the owners and the players came together because they recognize their business was in a little bit of trouble. remember, you had jerry jones taking a knee last year with other owners in solidarity with the players. then on top of that you have the players making a deal with ownership last december that they were going to collaborate and partner on social justice and so they ratified that deal a couple days ago and then the owners come back with this? i talk to players. i talk to people in the players association who told me that this is fuel. instead of this being over, it's just beginning. >> is this with a lack of leadership by roger goodell? are there a handful of owners that just are handcuffing him?

to me, a good leader, somebody who has control of their organization would have said the following, mr. president, we appreciate your point of view on this, we here also love the flag and love this country. you worry about the country. we'll worry about the league. we appreciate your input. and then end of story. why can't roger goodell, why doesn't he have that kind of sway within the nfl. >> there is a couple reasons, let's not forget the nfl owners who gave money to the campaign. let's not forget how afraid the nfl owners seem to be of the president when he went after the players last year. i believe they are definitely pandering. i think this is that culture war conversation that we have been having for the last couple of years on this which is positioning the player as unpatriotic. runs counter to the nfl business model. but i think they believe that

they can profit off of this. i think they sort of recognize that they have a leverage in terms of labor in pushing the players in this unpatriotic corner, making the public believe that they're not citizens. >> mike pence within hours of this announcement, he simply retweeted a story about it. #winning. i would assume even the nfl owners who wanted to make this decision would have begged the vice president, what are you doing? stop it. now you've just made the policy even harder to sell. >> that goes back to one of the things this whole book is about, chuck, you and i talked about this over the last couple of years, who gets to be american? are we using sports? and roger goodell said earlier about not wanting the plague to be disrespected. he wants it to be respected. however, how can you say the

flag is being respected in the nfl when teams are charging the department of defense to have these patriotic displays in the first place they politicizing the sport. yet, all we do is talk about black players. on the one hand this is more pandering. we've seen this playbook before. it's like the packer's suite. first welfare queens, then willie horton, now we're talking about ball players. it's the same old playbook in terms of organizing a base at the expense of black players. >> it's interesting, though, it's be g supposedly couched as a business decision. a democratic pollster i frequently have on the show, he was on yesterday, he was on "meet the press," recently. he did a survey in african-americans in battleground states, 35% said they watched less football because colin kaepernick remained unsigned. that was back in march he did this. this idea of the nfl owners, do they think their fans are only white and only conservative? >> well, that's one of the

things, when i heard about this yesterday, two things came to mind the first was this is a shot at labor to see if the nfl players are unified and to find out how much they are willing to fight for these things they say they believe in. it's also a shot at the black consumer and the message being sent is, watch our game. spend on our game and keep your mouths shut. so we're going to find out just how much, how offended the black consumer is and what they're willing to do as well. >> the other thing i think there is a fear of that people are sort of social justice warriors watching here is this concern that if you have this sort of choice of standing for the flag and suddenly there is a color disparity, the white players are out the black players in the locker room, look, white players have to probably be a buffer here i guess between owner and african-american players. what's your sense of that? how are they going -- can player unity overcome racial disparity?

>> this is the area, chuck, where the nfl players association hoosz an amazing opportunities. they've got an opportunity to get those players together and say, look, we don't care about your politics here, we already have concurrent collusion lawsuits that the nfl owners are telling you, we will deny your employment. we are going to humiliate you. if you guys don't come together. we don't care about your politics. when it comes to messing with us, we stick together. we'll see what they do about that. >> it seems like the chris longs of the world, he spoke up forcefully, aaron rogers in the past has. in some ways the players union needs them to be the spokesperson, no? >> they do. this is a labor issue. when you look at this story in my book, when you look at the heritage in general over the last 50 or 60 years, there are very few white players who stood

up and said, look, i stand with my teammates the big challenge will take place right now. >> up ahead, are you tired? are you depressed? do you feel like you can't deal with a non-stop news cycle? well, you may be suffering from news fatigue. i think i have something that can help. first, another message from our troops serving abroad on this fourth of july. >> hello, everyone, my name is samantha jefferson, i'm in the united states air force currently deployed in south korea at osan airbase. i'd like to wish my friends and family at home a happy fourth of july. ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪

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when it comes to the fourth of july and it's tradition, some people lover fireworks, bar-b-ques. more people call themselves independents that's republicans or democrats. it is the fastest growing non-party if you will. a recent gallup polling showed 26% identified with mr. every being independence. and what is more american than declaring your independent independence? right. even with all those people collective 94% of voters chose clinton or trump. third party candidates only got about 6% collectively. so the two major parties remain dominant, despite vote, claiming that i don't identify with either of them. but some independents have managed to win federal elections, recently i spoke with senator angus king, one of two members of congress.

i began asking him why he and bernie sanders are the only ones who successfully bucked the official party system and why there aren't more elected independents who chose to caucus with one side or the other. here's what he told us. >> i think it's the mechanics of our election system, chuck. it's very hard to get on the ballot in many places. it's the whole system is established under the auspices of the two parties. the other piece, though, is, i think it goes to my history the hardest thing for an independent is to convince the voters that you are for real and that it's a viable choice and they're not wasting their vote. and in my case, we had an independent governor elected in maine in 1974. 20 years before i ran. and it made it thinkable, if you see what i mean. if i had been running out of the blue as an independent in pennsylvania or arizona or some place, i don't think it would work. although, i think we're getting to the place where if people are

willing to mike that jump, i think they'll find a fertile ground. >> it's interesting, jessie ventura in 1998, at the time he used a new fangled device e-mail to sort of circumvent the problem that he had of getting expensive television ads, all of those things the barrier to entry for candidates now, thanks to the internet and to direct communications is so much lower. it still hasn't gotten contagious. let me ask it this way. i think i've asked you this question before, one of the ways i think to increase your power and the power of independents, sort of center left, center right type of folks. if there were six or eight of you in the united states senate that always said, you know what, we'll decide which party is responsible enough to be in the majority. we want to be the majority maker. what would that power look like to you? >> well, you know, i've heard that discussed. particularly with the senate as carefully balanced as it is now, you could have three or four people that could play that role. the real question would be, how

would the parties react if three or four or six of us got together and said, okay, we will work this, nothing happens unless we are on board, one way or the other. the question then is, what did chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell do? does mitch mcconnell say you want to play that game? you are no longer a chair of a committee. or, you know, there's all kind of internal institutional huls. i think that's the problem. i think those of us that are in the middle. i certainly consider myself one. we can still play an important role without the kind of raw power you are talking about. that is working back and forth. now, quite often, people come to me from both sides and say, you know, help us get to the other side on this and make a bridge and let's get something done. >> what's the problem with our current political polarization system? one thing we argue we don't have ideological diversity between the two major parties. it sounds like you are arguing,

that's why you left. i think that is why some on the right may leave soon because of what's happening there that are you not allowed to be, to have diverse opinions within that tent? >> that's right. >> is that the -- is the bigger rob in politics is there is not enough room for more independents or the two parties . >> ostracize those that ma have an independent streak? >> i think it's the latter. the problem is the republicans are becoming more conservative the democrats are becoming more liberal and if you are in a postate that had a variance with one of the ten napts from either side -- tenants from either side, are you drummed out of the core. i think that's the problem with our politics. if you look at the charts back to the '70s and with '80s of overlap. there used to be a huge amount of overlap in the senate and the house. in the senate, it was probably 20 votes, more conservative democrats, now there is literally no overlap.

>> visually, i describe it as two magnets pushing itself away now. you, manchin, collins, your lines don't cross anymore. it used to cross. >> you are right. chuck, here's what i think. are you a student of this. here's the most dangerous development in american politics we are living through right now. it used to be you could win or lose on issues on abortion immigration, education, whatever. that was what the voters decided on and, of course, who you were. now you can lose an election, particularly a primary because you are viewed as someone who is willing to compromise and try to solve problems. and if you think about that, man, that's really dangerous. if you will be penalized for being reasonable. that's a bad spot. >> i got to ask you, choice voting. state of maine, the arguments . >> that my pal over at the fair voting, who is a big activist, a

guy rod richie. he always says, you preach about wanting to have more parties have more access to more candidates. he thinks rank choice voting, which you guys are doing in maine, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. actually a way to empower more political parties and more independent candidates. do you buy snit. do you boy it? >> i think it may be. i don't know about more political parties or independent candidates. it leaves voters with more options. they don't have to make an agonizing choice between is this person going to make it? am i wasting my vote? it's an instant runoff if the three candidates you vote one, two, three. the bottom candidate, their second place vote gets applied until somebody gets a majority. i think, you know, it's an experiment. it's rung all over the country in cities. we're the first state to adopt it. >> yes, you are. >> i think it's will be an important reform that will allow a more, a sort of broader

participation. the other thing, chuck, that's really interesting about it. if you want your opponent's 2nd place votes, it tends to make you more civil. you don't want to dump on your opponent with negative ads because you want their voters to give you the 2nd place. that's a kind of hidden benefit that we will watch play out over the next ten years. >> one more hidden benefit. if we do extrapolate this out to our presidential campaigns all over the country, it will make exit polls useless for calling elections, which is a good thing. instead, exit polls will be actually used for what they should be done for, which is, why did people vote the way they voted? anyway, senator angus king. thank you. chuck, from somebody who knows, happy independence day. >> fair enough. up ahead, can independents break the mid-terms? we'll discuss that next. >> hi, i'm currently deployed to kandahar afghanistan.

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as independent. fewer run as independents. it's not there. obviously, angus king brought up the system is designed, it punishes almost anybody not in it. it seems as if the public is demanding something different than these parties are offering. >> they are, i think of it as a universal life minister issue. more and more couples go online and gets ordained in about 30 seconds. it's a part of a generational shift, too, about religious affiliations. the rise of the nuns. you know, nes. it will be fascinating to see. i think it is a 20-year question. i do think it's much more of a state and a congressional thing. the electoral college makes a third party almost impossible. >> look, we did have two nearly successful independent candidates. they just ran in the two major parties. >> they did. they ran inside the party but outside of it.

so that sort of fed that beast for a lot of voters out there. this independence streak. but i still think the landscape is an opportunity for independents to catch hold. i think what needs to happen is at the grass roots level. city council, mayor, state gra level, city council, mayor, that's your future governor, senator, congressman, eventually president. you've got to train voters to vote a certain way. >> there is road test evidence on that, though, in tennessee for instan where i live, the county in nashville, nonpartisan elections. everybody knows if they're republican or democrat, but they run in a nonpartisan way. >> money is a big factor here. it's very, very difficult to have the finances to run any sort of independent campaign, and really compete with the two party system. whatever changes have to take place have to take that into consideration. i mean, where will this independent money come from? >> my assumption has been,

though, it goes to the first answer angus king, both parties get pulled to their bases. there is going to be this vacuum. >> yeah. >> that's it. >> it's going to get filled by something. >> that's right. >> my theory is that you'll have three or four senators leave their respective parties and then sort of -- that's how this gets off the ground. right? let's say you had susan collins, joe mansion, you know, throw in a joe donnelly and say lisa murkowski. those four plus your angus, that's an interesting thesis. >> so than convert once they're there. >> that's right. >> they are center left, center right. they're afraid of their party, and they want to get out from being punished for not being -- >> they still have to go back into their states and run. >> and only have to win with 40%. that's the beauty. >> but there's no place on the

ballot for them. >> lisa murkowski figured it out. >> that's a one off deal. >> i understand that. i'm answering kimberly's point, how do you do it, it will take somebody that's already been elected in some ways. >> you've still got to bring the voters back around to that because 40% doesn't get you across the finish line. >> i always say it's hard to be moderate and radical. >> yeah. >> and yet we're going to hit this point, kimberly, where people are going to be like, wait a minute, i don't agree with everything on the left, and i don't agree with -- but i want a piece of that and i want a piece of that. who's going to give me that? >> people are already there. but people are afraid of throwing away their vote, afraid the system won't work, very frustrated with the system. sometimes they just stay home. it has to be a radical system change to make room for these moderates once again, to figure out a way to make that happen. >> one of the biggest things that's happened, a good fourth of july point, it's harry truman, in one of his post-presidential interviews he

gave talked about how one of the things he worried most about is the moment in which liberals and conservatives totally separated into the separate parties. >> that's what's happened. >> exactly. >> that's what i always say. i miss the days when the conservative democrats and the new england republicans worked with each other. the new england republicans are now democrats. the conservative democrats are now republicans. and those now -- you know, now republicans -- and you have your western republicans, state republican and then the midwestern -- >> it's been 30 years since you had a reagan/bush ticket. liberal conservative, liberal conservative in both cases. >> that's not sustainable in the parties right now. the parties eviscerate people in their own parties who try to do that. >> imagine if john mccain said one of his great regrets is not -- it's funny how he's walking that line when it comes to sarah palin. he regrets not trying to pick up

joe lieberman. >> there's moments when you look back, wow, what if. that's a very powerful what if moment. it tells you that for someone like john mccain and others around him that there was a space to think about doing that. but not enough space to do it. and what you're talking about, how do we create that space, so the next group of senators get together and actually do it. you're right, you've got to push the envelope and push people into it. you've got to have something there for them to land on once you do that. >> michael bloomberg, interestingly enough was probably the one person, had the money, a lot of people thought he would be this person to run independent, he's basically, i think, quietly thrown in the towel that you can run sas an independent. he's helping democrats win congress. from people i've talked to close to him, if he runs, he'll do so with a major party. >> mike has spent more money

polling this than you can possibly -- >> he's done this as a businessman. >> what's the key to bloomberg's business model, it's data. and yeah i think the mayor, the former mayor would say what he doesn't want is the line in his obituary to be that he enabled someone else to become president. i think he thinks he can get a plurality, can get 40%, but can't get 270. >> i get the sense that this independent streak that's out there, whether not wanting to identify with any group, or the way millennials feel that it's inevitable we're going to have more choices, the question is what does it look like? >> you have to wait to see. we are all reacting to the last election, which this was the exact opposite. it was focusing on a very specific part of the electorate as opposed to considering the future and what the the elect

rat is goi orate is going to want and change. >> both parties are afraid of that. >> they're very afraid of it. >> all right, guys, we didn't solve it here. at least we declared a little independence. >> i want to say happy fourth to have july to everybody back in kentucky. to my family, i miss you guys, i love you. can't wait to get back home and celebrate. thing says summer like a beach trip, so let's promote our summer travel deal

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well, that's all we have for tonight. big thanks to michael, kimberly and john for being here. happy fourth of july. enjoy this independence day. see you back here tomorrow. welcome to a very special edition of "the beat," an inside look at the russia probe and trump's response to it, based on interviews with key players. mueller does not talk. much of what we know comes from witnesses who choose to speak out revealing when mueller's agents are asking. former trump aides say a number was first to say he would defy mueller. new clues about the specific people mueller was asking about. sam noneberg came on the beat for his first on camera interview on that fateful day. >> i talked to them. i've spent money on an attorney. i'