protect the very ideals that president trump has attacked. >> thank you for watching this hour of "velshi & rule." we hand off to andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports." right now, fighting words. president trump goes on a late-night tweet storm threatening iran in all caps while his secretary of state encouraged iranians to overthrow their own government. >> while it is ultimately up to the iranian people to determine the direction of their country, the united states in the spirit of our own freedoms will support the long-ignored voice of the iranian people. court date. paul manafort has his day in court. one last argument to delay the trial. his request, a trial slated to start later this week. the government has so far won every round. >> these are top prosecutors. and they are going to be ready and they're going to be polished and prepared. what you're going to see, i believe, is a very, very

impressive trial presentation. and embracing russia. for the fifth time in a week, the president reverts to calling russia's election hacking a hoax. while the justice department for the first time in history releases a secret surveillance order that controversial fisa warrant on former trump campaign adviser carter page. >> i know this application set out in some detail, a lot of which is redacted, just why the fbi was so concerned carter page may be acting as an agent of a foreign power. >> carter page is more like inspector gadget than jason bourne or james bond. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where president trump is targeting robert mueller in a string of morning tweets. a reaction to the fbi yielding to congressional pressure and for the first time releasing a secret court-approved surveillance warrant.

although heavily censored or redactsed with blacked out portions, the warrant on former trump campaign adviser carter page. the president pouncing on news that it was based in part on the democratically paid for dossier compiled by former british intelligence officer christopher steele. mr. trump is lashing out at the special counsel, perhaps -- prospects to distract from a pretrial hearing today for his campaign -- former campaign chairman paul manafort. as the biggest trial in the investigation to date gets under way later this week. joining me is nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. msnbc contributor joyce vance and former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor charlie savage, washington correspondent for "the new york times" and nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian and pete williams at the white house. pete, what happened in the pretrial hearing? >> well, it's still going on, andrea. and it's going to be going on later this afternoon on some other issues that paul manafort

wants to raise about how much evidence can be admitted about the work he did for ukraine. but today the argument has been for the last hour and a half or so about whether this trial should be delayed. it's scheduled to start on wednesday with jury selection and probably opening statements on friday. but manafort's defense lawyers told judge t.s. ellis just a short time ago that they've been basically overwhelmed, swamped with 120,000 new pages of documents that the government has produced just within the past weeks. much of it from a personal computer, and other storage devices belonging to rick gates, the former manafort partner, the man who is probably going to be in essence the star witness here. what the government says is, well, you know, a lot of this shouldn't come as any surprise to the defense because these started out as documents created by paul manafort's accountant. so this shouldn't be any great

shock to him. what his defense lawyer said, though, is that this set of lawyers hasn't seen them yet. earlier set of lawyers did but not this one. the judge has to decide here whether to delay the start of the trial. judge ellis did say he would rule on that later today. and then also later we're going to hear more argument about this other issue about admissibility. the only other thing i would add is a bit of color, literally color. paul manafort, this is as you know, the first time in court for him since he's been in jail. he's being held in the alexandria jail just a short distance from the courthouse. and we were wondering whether he would be allowed to wear the kind of suit you've seen endlessly in the video of him manage in and out of court and the answer is no. he came in wearing a short-sleeved green alexandria jail jump suit. whether that's going to be the situation during the trial or not we don't know. i suspect his lawyers will try to get that changed.

and it's often true in white collar cases the defendants are allowed to wear the sort of thing i'm wearing now and not a green jumpsuit. andrea? >> i've never seen you in a green jumpsuit, pete. joyce vance, let's talk about the likelihood, i mean, this judge is not that predictable. but the fact is, does he have a good argument with a new defense team that there's a ton of material to go through? you know, to avoid a mistrial or some sort of overturning of any kind of decision, should the judge grant this delay? >> well, you're exactly right about the decision point, andrea. judge ellis will have to make a decision about whether starting the trial on wednesday as scheduled would cause some prejudice to mr. manafort that might cause an appellate court down the road to reverse a conviction if the government obtained one. no one wants that to be the result. and the fact that this prosecution team is pushing so

hard to go ahead and begin the trial on wednesday tells you that they don't believe that there is any prejudice. i wouldn't expect the defense to agree with them, but the reality is these documents originated with manafort's accountants. he's had access to them. and there's a presumption that his original lawyers would have turned them over to this defense team. so we'll have to see. but at the end of the day, the judge would have to decide if there will be any more prejudice if they began on wednesday. >> joyce, let me ask you a follow-up here because it occurs to me, i'm not a lawyer, but is there some pressure coming from the prosecution side? we know that nonlawyers like myself are speculating that the mueller team are going to want to have something to report by early september, let's say, because of the risk of prejudicing the election and all the criticism that might ensue. so might they want to get some of this evidence out in a trial in the next couple of weeks so

that they can then do their public report to congress through rod rosenstein and have it already out there? is that squeezing them a bit on this calendar? >> i don't think that will squeeze this prosecution team in the least. the reason we talk about this sort of semiofficial labor day deadline is because of longstanding doj policy against taking action in a case that might influence an election too close to that election. and so most folks seem to think that mueller will begin to rachet down a couple month as i advance of the election. also some speculation he'll try to get a report up to the hill in advance of that day, although there's no requirement that he do so. and what i would expect him to do would be to send a report up if the evidence has been assembled and if it's ready to go and otherwise to hold off until afterwards. it's his job to be a prosecutor, not to be a politician. >> pete, do you have some word

on all of that, the timing? >> well, just to add something to what joyce just said that the presumption would be that manafort's earlier lawyers had seen these documents and what his current lawyer said is, yes, that's true. they have seen them. they went through them. they sort of filtered them before handing them over to the government to remove anything that was privileged. what his current lawyers say is, nonetheless, they haven't seen them. the government's subpoena from -- subpoenaed them from his accounting firm. they went to the government, and his lawyers haven't seen his current set of lawyers haven't seen them. the judge was a little surprised by that, but nonetheless, that's the fact. >> ken dilanian here with us, our national security reporter. playing into all of this, as far as the president's tweets today, and i want to ask kristen welker about that and charlie savage, but let's talk about that fisa warrant. it's the first time we've seen a fisa warrant in public, ever. >> that's right. >> and it was carter page and

congressional pressure, clearly on the fbi to censor it as much as they could. a lot of it is blacked out. but it is a fisa warrant. >> we've never seen one like this. it was a result of pressure by devin nunes and congressional republicans. as charlie savage reported, it's backfired on them. the plain facts in front of us show that this warrant does not support their contention that the russia investigation was launched entirely on the basis of that christopher steele dossier. in fact, it refutes, this document does, many of the points devin nunes tried to make to suggest somehow the fix was in on this. and pages and pages of redakss that adam schiff and others say include additional evidence quite apart from the steele dossier about why carter page was suspicious, why the government believed he was an agent of a foreign power. >> kristen welker, let's talk about those tweets. he won't a tweet storm this weekend and again today.

>> he did. and a lot of people took note of one particular tweet about russia. overnight president trump essentially lashing out at obama and saying, if there was russian meddling, why didn't he do something about it? why didn't he tell our campaign? because it's all a big hoax. that's notable because he's effectively going back to one of the main talking points he was so heavily criticized for which was election meddling is a hoax. i pressed sarah sanders on this earlier today and asked her why the president seems to be undercutting again his own intelligence agencies who determined that russia did, in fact, meddle in the election. she said he wasn't talking about russian meddling but the idea that his campaign colluded with russia. but the bottom line is that's not what that tweet says. another tweet that's obviously getting a lot of attention, his tweet on iran. warning iran with strong language. effectively saying to back down, to cease its provocations or

else it's going to pay, really harkening back to some of the language we heard from north korea. some people, as you indicated at the top of the show, saw that as an attempt to shift the subject away from russia when he's so heavily criticized for his handling of it. >> although he's, by tweeting on russia, he's not really changing the subject himself. this iran roll-out, and we'll talk about it in the next segment, it was all planned. mike pompeo at the reagan library last night getting a vigorous threatening speech against iran, urging the iranians to overthrow their own government and the stepped up sanctions, as you well know, against iran, telling europeans that they are not going to get any waivers, that their companies have to also squeeze iran and get out of iran and try to kill the iranian economy. so to charlie savage, the fisa warrant, we know what the president wanted to do, which was to say, see, this was all about a democratically sponsored investigation into the trump

campaign. what is your reporting tell you because it's very different. >> right. so trump's tweet today is, i think, targeting the lowest information voters, the notion that, oh, it's a revelation that information from the famous or infamous steele dossier was part of what the fbi used in making the case back in fall of 2016 that there was probable cause that carter page was a russian agent. we knew all that back in january and february. the issue was, what was the problem with that? republicans put forward back then a critique, the fisa court was misled because they didn't know this was sponsored, campaign opposition, campaign opposition research and a couple other arguments they made. you can look at my article if you want to see that. the value of seeing the real document, the underlying document to this weekend was we can see that those arguments were false. they were misleading.

the court was told as democrats at the time claim but then it was just partisan teams yelling at each other. now we see independently the court was told this is the sponsor of that research was looking for campaign dirt against trump. we still think, nevertheless, it is reliable and here's why. and we can see why they weren't using anyone's names like the dnc or trump's name either. seeing the real document is a moment of truth for that argument that happened six months ago. i would just like to add one other thing about the earlier conversation about the manafort trial. remember, this is about money laundering out of ukraine. so it may not have much direct connection to whether mueller is able to deliver a report to congress about russian collusion and election interference. >> good point, charlie. >> in terms of the evidence. >> your deep dive is terrific. we'll tweet that out so more of our viewers can read more deeply on it. pete williams, final thoughts as you head back into the courtroom? >> right.

and just two quick points. number one, the judge will likely rule by 2:00 this afternoon about whether to delay the start of the trial. and secondly, the judge has agreed to unseal the government's witness list. we got the exhibits list last week. shortly we'll see the witness list. whether that's there tomorrow or not, it's not clear. >> great reporting from all sides. thanks so much. pete, that's a great reason for everyone to stick with msnbc throughout for the judge's key ruling on the manafort trial. and when will it start? will it start on wednesday as now scheduled? thanks to all. coming up -- all caps. president trump sweeting an explosive threat against iranian president rouhani. that's next right here. stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ♪ just say the words ♪ and we'll beat the birds down to acapulco bay ♪ ♪ it's perfect for a flying honeymoon they say ♪ ♪ come fly with me

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welcome back. as we've been reporting, president trump dramatically escalating his war of words with the president of iran. part of a coordinated strategy with saudi arabia and israel to squeeze iran's economy and support a revolution the administration hopes to overthrow the regime. comes after president rouhani warned the u.s. that any conflict with iran would be the mother of all wars taking a page from an old saddam hussein meme. president trump firing back in a tweet written in all caps saying, quote, to iranian president rouhani, never, ever threaten the united states again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. we nor longer a country that

will stand for your demented words of violence and death. be cautious. joining me is nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel and four-star admiral william mccraven known as the leaders of the special forces that took down osama bin laden. admiral mccraven, this war of words sounds to me like it's being done for effect. it's part of a coordinated strategy that deals with mike pompeo's speech at the reagan library last night, with the imposing snapback sanctions after the u.s. withdrew from the iran nuclear deal, with pressure that we reported first exclusively on nbc news. against europeans, countries, the three top european countries that their companies have to get out of tehran and stay out of tehran if they want to do business with the u.s. which is no choice. do you think it's actually a military threat? are we talking about squeezing iran hard and hoping that

iran -- iranians overthrow their own government? >> yeah, well, thanks. first, what i think president trump is trying to do, of course, is to use the same strategy he used against north korea. thinking that that will bring kim jong-un or bring rouhani to the table. i think this is -- could be a disastrous misstep. iran is not north korea. and there's a couple things worth pointing out here. in north korea, you have a very hard chain of command. military chain of command. nothing happens in north korea without the approval of kim jong-un. that is not true in iran. in iran you have almost a bifurcated military chain of command. you have most of the military forces will report up through president rouhani. but the rgc qods force will report to the supreme leader. and so the idea that we can think through and use our chess match to figure out what's going to happen ad we deal with iran could be a mistake.

the other piece that's important to recognize is that we go through the straits of hormuz probably once a week. unlike, again, north korea, we are not always in proximity of north korea. we are not always a clear and present danger to the north koreans. we are always a clear and present danger to the iranians from their standpoint. and as we transit the straits of hormuz and look at the missile engagement zone there, any misstep on the part of a junior officer, on the part of a fast attack boat could have dire consequences. the president has to be very, very careful about how he plays his hand on this. >> and, in fact, richard engel, the oil supply from the persian gulf go through there. we've been through these crises before. back, in fact, you know, during the reagan years, there were the kuwaiti ships that were being escorted through the straits of hormuz. >> this is not an isostraighted country. it's not tucked up in the corner

of north korea. it is right in the heart of the middle east. heart of the persian gulf. most of the world's oil transits in and around that area. it is a strategic place from a military point of view. and as the admiral was just saying, if president trump thinks he's going to have a do-over with north korea with iran in that his tweets and escalating rhetoric will somehow end up with a summit that's going to lead to an important photo op, it could be that he's misreading the situation. that's one way of looking at it. the other would be, looking at it through his temperament. this is kind of what all of us in the media and all analysts i've spoken to always feared would happen one day. that the president would be at night, up late, angry and tweet a military threat against another country. i think that says quite a bit about where we are in the world right now. and then the third way of looking at it is, why is this

happening? why the focus from pompeo, from this tweet on iran? nothing really has changed on the ground in iran. iran is still trying to abide by the nuclear deal. it still wants to maintain its trade relations with europe. it almost seems like this government, which is full of iran hawks, is trying to lay the groundwork for some sort of increased confrontation with ir iran. >> exactly right. and admiral, as richard's point and yours as well, iran is not isolated. iran has relationships in france and germany and the uk. they have diplomatic relations. economic ties. yes, their companies i'm told authoritatively are going to have to back out because they can't risk being cut out of commerce with u.s. banks, the u.s. financial system. this -- they can squeeze really hard. the iranians are turning to the chinese to fill that gap. but you cannot really take down

iran's economy as effectively as you could squeeze north korea. they are part and parcel of the european commerce. but this is coordinated with saudi arabia and iran which has long wanted this move. saudi arabia, rather. and with israel against iran, which has long wanted this sort of u.s. support. >> i think the president has to be very careful as he approaches iran. iran is not isolated. probably more importantly, as we begin to look at the balance of power in the middle east if we allow the iranian hard-liners to continue to strengthen their position in iran, it creates all sorts of problems in saudi arabia, in iraq, across the middle east. and by emboldening the hard-liners through this bombastic rhetoric, then all you're going to do is begin to, one, isolate the u.s. more from our ability to kind of help manage the middle east as best we can, but also, again, you'll emporthose hard-liners in iran

and that creates a lot of problems for our allies in the region. >> admiral, one other point. rouhani is already weakened politically because he backed the iran deal and the u.s. disavowed it. he already has problems at home. the hard-liners are ascendant. what covert action may be done by israel? we saw they can go into a warehouse in the middle of tehran and take out all these nuclear secrets or with us and others. what can we do to try to precipitate regime change? what might we be doing? >> yeah, well, again, what we might be doing is something i certainly wouldn't be at liberty to discuss. it's never as easy as it appears in the movies. everybody always seems to think that, you know, with one little bit of misinformation, with one super spy you can get in there and effect great regime change. it doesn't happen that way. at the end of the day, the people that will change the regime in iran are the iranian

people. and we need to be in a position to support them where we can, when the time comes for them to do that. again, i think by increasing the rhetoric, all we're doing is strengthening the hand of the hard-liners. if you look at suleimani which is their covert branch, he's one of the most popular guys in iran. and all we're doing now is playing into his hand which will allow him to take additional steps outside of iran to strengthen his hand and weaken rouhani's. that's bad for the u.s. >> admiral, thank you so much for your insights and our great richard engel. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you. back here in the u.s., the coast guard has retrieved that duck boat. the boat that sank in branson, missouri, on thursday. so many questions about safety ignored and other allegations. 17 people died. the ntsb says they hope to have a preliminary report in the

coming weeks or months but could take up to a year to get a definitive answer after the boat encountered near hurricane-force winds on table rock lake. survivor tia coleman who tragically lost nine members of her own family, including her husband and three children were ca recalling the moments after the boat capsized. >> when the water filled up the boat, i could no longer see. i just remember, i got to get out. i felt like if i was able to get a life jacket, i could have saved my babies because they could have at least floated up to the top. somebody could have grabbed them. and i wasn't able to do that. >> going home, i already know it's going to be completely difficult. i don't know how i'm going to do it since i've had a home, it's always been filled with little feet and laughter. and my husband. i don't know how i'm going to do it.

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fall. >> say that again? >> vladimir putin coming -- >> did i hear you right? >> yeah. >> okay. that's going to be special. >> that was a moment but only one moment in an hour-long interview. the director of national intelligence then releasing a statement days after that moment to ease any concerns from the oval office writing in part, some press coverage has mischaracterized my intentions in responding to breaking news presented to me during a live interview. my admittedly awkward response was in no way meant to be disrespectful or criticize the actions of the president. joining me now, ashley parker, white house reporter at "the washington post." and msnbc contributor charlie sikes, contributing editor at the weekly standard. welcome both. ashley, you've written about

this, and the fact is the white house was really angry. and viewed it as you reported, going rogue. but the fact is, he did not in that statement, walk back from any of the other things he said in an hour which was a wide-ranging interview. i want to play one exchange about vladimir putin. >> so again, we should be very wary around the former kgb leader who is leading their nation? >> i think anybody who thinks that vladimir putin doesn't have his stamp on everything that happens in russia is misinformed. it is very clear that virtually nothing happens there of any kind of consequence that vladimir putin doesn't know about or hasn't ordered. >> you would think the white house would focus on the fact that he disagreed with the president's characterization of the mueller probe and of russia's involvement in attacking the u.s. a range of subjects, whether north korea could be denuclearized in a year as john

bolton said. they chose to focus on the fact he did laugh and it was awkward. he was responding as -- i was laughing, frankly, because it was just so surprising considering the blow up after helsinki. >> you're right. it was an incredibly awkward moment and a great interview you conducted. what was so striking was not just that one moment. that was one of many. what was so striking is not that coats repeatedly went off script or wasn't prepared. it was that, frankly, he was incredibly candid. he sort of said what he believed. he openly disagreed with the president on a number of issues. the president's handling of a number of things. that was a classic example of him. he doesn't speak to the media that frequently and that candidly. but it exposed the janning gap

between the president who does dictate policy and politics and just about everything else and the rest of his staff who privately and at times pouring out publicly does have some real concerns with what's going on over there. >> and charlie sikes, there were large number of people at this invitation only security conference. this is not the only forum aspen has during the year. this was generals and national security advisers. chris wray from the fbi, rod rosenstein, the head of the nsa. so the fact is, all of them were on the same page saying that the intelligence assessment was accurate, and they were all disagree with the president. >> yes, no question about it. this president is isolated within his own government. i rewatched some segments of your interview. and it's more extraordinary even in retrospect.

in helsinki, donald trump actually name-checked dan coats. said what he had said about the russian interference and then essentially threw him under the bus. this is a difficult choice and i know there's no one right answer, but if there was an occasion for someone in coats' position to say, look, i need to resign after what happened, this would have been that occasion. bill kristol tweeted out he chose dishonor over being fired. he's probably going to end up with both. i say that with a lot of respect for dan coats. but there's no way you are the director of national intelligence who is so alienated from the president's policies and has been so disrespected who can really stay in that job and be effective. >> the counterargument, charlie, that some people are making is that if he stepped down, some yes person, man or woman, would be put in the place in charge of 16 intelligence agencies. you have the president today

tweeting, when you hear the fake news talking negatively about my meeting with president putin and all that i gave up, remember, i gave up nothing, all caps. we talked about the future of both countries. also we got along very well, which is a good thing, except for the corrupt media. the bottom line is you have nobody in the u.s. government, so far, who has been briefed about what went down in that private meeting. certainly not the dni. and i don't believe others have a real read out. we're hearing it all again from mosc moscow. >> the first few days were particularly stunning as you had intelligence agencies that should have been part of the process all throughout and should have been briefed after the fact. kind of scrambling the way journalists were trying to figure out what happened, and the best read-outs are coming from moscow. that's not a good situation for these agencies. and even the white house will privately acknowledge it's not a

good situation for their press operation when reporters in the public is basically hearing moscow's spin when there's radio silence from this administration. >> regarding that tweet, ashley, your reporting and, charlie, you can comment on this. your reporting and mine is that john bolton got a call from the president saying i want this to go out. this invitation to putin, despite he was not happy about all the criticism of helsinki. and so he wanted it to go out and told sarah sanders to send it out. and to the best of my knowledge, he did not consult the national security cabinet. not just coats. i don't know, but so far we do not have confirmation that he told pompeo or mattis. charlie? >> yeah, look. this is not normal. this is not okay. there is huge danger. not just with north korea but also with russia and now with iran. and i take your point you don't

want someone to resign on principle and then be replaced by someone like corey lewandowski. at some point there has to be a sense of urgency and a willingness to communicate what is going on as opposed to simply saying these things in private. >> okay. to be continued, i suspect. this is not the last word we're going to hear about all of this. ashley, thanks for your great reporting. and charlie, thanks for joining us today. coming up, from the corner of the oval office. can there be a corner in an oval office? a former white house stenographer on the importance of recording history and how it all changed under president trump. stay with us. e. hey, no big deal. you've got a good record and liberty mutual won't hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. you hear that, karen? liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges... how mature of them. for drivers with accident forgiveness liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident.

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as president trump again takes aim at the media over his mixed messages about russia, a former white house stenographer is speaking out saying she quit her job because she believes the president lies to the public. part of a discrete team tasked with recording and transcribing the president's every word to the press. she wrote in an op-ed in "the new york times," it's clear that white house stenographers do not serve his administration but rather his adversary, the truth. she joins me now. she's the author of the new book "from the corner of the oval office." thanks for joining us. you've seen so much over different administrations and didn't last long in this one because you felt that the president was getting in the way of proper transcription of his words. >> that's right. during the obama administration,

when i started as a stenographer, we were always in the room with the press. we knew the schedule the day before. there was protocol. and when president trump and his administration came in, all of a sudden, we had no idea what was going on. we weren't present for the first abc interview. we found out afterwards that it had transpired. and so all of a sudden, we were chasing the press as they chased president trump. which is dangerous because we're really there to create a transcript of everything he says in front of the press. >> it's really important to have your microphone at the ready. let's say on air force one where it's sometimes very hard to hear the audio because of the airplane noise or when we're going out and shouting questions in front of marine one and the engines have revved up. so why was he so averse to having the microphones there? >> so it turns out president trump does not like to have a microphone near his face. we found ot out early on. my boss went over to the press office. they were like you can't have a microphone anywhere near his face which is problematic all of the time, especially on air force one. the plane is so loud. you have to have a microphone

there. so by them saying you can't have a microphone near president trump's face, it all of a sudden was like, we can't do our job. >> is it the visually doesn't want? >> i am not sure. but either way, by him refusing to have a microphone close, it means we can't record him, accurately transcribe what hie says to the press and that leaves him vulnerable to being miskwoeft misquoted. >> there's a dispute over what he said in the cabinet room. was he saying no to silvia vegas or not in terms of whether he believes russia was responsible for hacking? there was no microphone there to record it. >> right. and so all of that could be clarified if we had a microphone there, a stenographer there and also if a stenographer is there recording and transcribing, that means there's a transcript they would then hold up and say this is the official white house transcript and they're choosing not to do that. >> a lot of revelations in the book "from the corner of the

oval office." >> thank you for having me. >> it's a real treat. coming up, all about that base. the approval ratings soar with his own party. what about everyone else? the inside scoop coming up next. >> thanks very much. this is not a bed. it's a high-tech revolution in sleep.

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a brand-new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll found that 45% of voters approve of the 4s approve of the president's job and 52% disapprove. 88% of republican voters approved of his job performance and only 9% of democrats do and 36% independence. >> let's get to our msnbc contributors. and our senior political mark murray. to you first, my poling expert, the wizard of all poling. let's talk about his overall strengths and look at a couple of things here. the big numeratber is good for

and he's holding onto the base. i saw something that kornacki reported over the weekend. >> just depending on his numbers and whether the families separation at the border and his approval at helsinki. the second big take away is republicans are actually becoming more prone than they were a month ago. 88% of you mentioned of the approving of jobs and strong approval going up in the polls. as the party and the base is stronger, the middle is weaker. we end up seeing independence disapproved of him and more tellingly on the generic ballot, you have independence breaking by more than 20 points for a democratic control congress. the ride ght is getting stronge

and the middle is weaker for him. >> the approval of russia. 51% disapprove mamong republicas and 26% approve. it was taken on the day before and the day after of hielsinki o it bridged that gap. >> there is been a little bit of news that occurred since then. this is among republicans and maybe sort of dwindling base of republicans, the overall republicans is shrinking some what. they are sticking with him, this is the shoe in the middle of the fifth avenue crowd. this is one more take away and mark correct me if i am wrong, i would take from the polls of the enthusiasm gap. the number of democratic voters that say they are really chopping at the bit to get to the polls in november verses republicans. that is something that can

really make a difference because i hear turn out is really important. >> in ahm midterm election. the whole issues at the border and separation policies and zero tolerance and everything that we see. that seems unpopular. 31% of polls approved of that and 58% disapproved. >> there is so many issues where the president is upside down where he thinks the country wants to be and where his base wants him to go. the key number in the poll to me is 88%. if anyone wants to understand why the president keeps on doing these unpopular things, 88% of his party approves of the job he's doing and so as long as those numbers stay up there, he'll continually do things that a majority of the country does not like. mark, the numbers on the mueller probe should continue or not unchanged, 46 say yes and 38%

says say no. >> on the bigger question of that, you ended up having those numbers were unchanged back in june. the polls was taken entirely after those jewuly 13th and indictments of intelligence officials. what was interesting was while those overall ended, did it change? we saw a growth of 12 points that russia was behind it and by eight points more back a year ago, you end up having people who believed that it did alter the outcome of the election so you see where the news did change some opinions. >> let's talk about the democratic party. its got a six point advantage in terms of which party you want to control congress. the democrats are having sort of a split personality and in more of which direction to go.

this is a referendum on donald trump already. can they play yeah, you can take out in the bronx and conner lamb and you know western p.a. and take your pick, find your candidate, district by district or do they need a national message? >> i think they need to make cheer to their individual members and their individual challengers that you run the best away for you to win the district because you know being pure and losing is no achievement, right? and so i know the parties are going to have a robust discussion going into november and it is to have a more interesting elections going into november. willingness is the only thing here and out, you know, connor lamb, won his way and cortez won her way. you can't flip those districts and democrats are dumb if they

behave like they can. >> you are going to hate me in this. how important is winning these midterms for democrats if they have any shots at defeating donald trump reelection. >> no democrats should be thinking about 2020. they should be thinking about 2018 because they hate what the president is doing right now without a democratic break in terms of one of the houses is flipping, there will be no hope. to be continued. >> love you all. ruth marcus, thanks, more ahead, we'll be right back. it's pretty amazing out there. the world is full of more possibilities than ever before.

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keep the conversations going going @mitchell reports. chris jansing is up next. >> good afternoon, i am chris jansing here on msnbc headquarters in new york. ready for trial, this man is in court today, paul manafort's trial is scheduled to start this week. >> trump's tirade. the president spent this morning going after iran of what he called robert mueller is a witch hunt. plus, battle for independence, a new nbc polls show big democrats for democrats having it in november. will they be able to agree how to capitalize on it and can they convince one of their parties biggest stars to hit