we're going to bring them over the line. >> wow. president trump is known to contradict himself. >> is he really? is he really? >> yes, a tiny bit. >> never happens. it's hateful that you would say that. >> so this time he's contradicting himself about being on the campaign trail. >> okay. >> the midterm vote is now just 99 days away. while the president is not on the ballot, his presidency certainly is. good morning, everyone, and welcome to "morning joe." >> 99 days away. >> that's so -- how did that happen? this has all gone so quickly. it's been so fun. >> you want -- it to be nine days away would be great. >> please, end it. >> 99 bottles of beer on the wall. >> something like that. >> let me ask you, obviously 100th day, couple people were talking about it. what's the state of play right now? there's always a back and forth and there will be more back and forth as we move forward, but where do the democrats, where do

the republicans stand in terms of confidence on whether trump is going to be stopped or whether everything he's done the first two years are going to be validated? >> i think if you looked over the course of this year, people broadly think democrats are likely to retake control of the house. still kind of a coin toss in the senate. about a month ago you heard republicans getting sort of this surge about optimism that maybe they could hold on, that the economic news and some other things and trump not having created, at least by his standards, too much chaos for them, that things were swinging back in republican's direction and then helsinki happened, the separations of families on fworders happened, other things that blotted out all the things that republicans want to talk about, they all came to a fore front. now today democrats incredibly confident and optimistic and republicans back to pessimism and thinking the house is probably gone and we maybe can hold on to the senate. but the blue wave feels stronger

now than it did 30 days ago. >> think about the three things that happened in the past 30 day. first of all, north korea has gone south. secretary of state pompeo admitting that the north koreans haven't slowed down. in fact, they may be creating more secret sites to build nuclear weapons. so, that north korea deal went down the drain. john already talked about helsinki. and lying over all of this, this is something that you'll relate to very much, after katrina, there were so many evangelicals who i went to church with that we were -- we would do daily relieves after katrina over to mississippi and louisiana and they were shattered. their faith in george w. bush were shattered by what they saw on the ground in mississippi and louisiana that nothing was being done. well, the question, where are the children that mika has repeated over and over again. i'm hearing from evangelicals

that supported him, this is not who we are. >> well, and you can hear about the russia investigation constantly, but in my opinion, that's not going to move voters. but my mom, my sister-in-law, they voted for trump. they do not like these babies who are separated from their parents. and that's a story that is just an albatross, as it should be. torturing children on the border of our great nation. and it's something that donald trump can't run away from. >> but they can vote according to their pocketbooks, steve ratner, and for that, many are doing you would say pretty well. >> in fact, don jr. said. >> don jr. said. >> don jr. is busy, but don jr. said and i heard other trump people say this, too, barack obama never even got above 2 percentage points for one quarter. isn't that amazing? donald trump got 4.1.

never. >> we're going to do a little fact check on that but the fact is that obama got above 4% in three quarters. look, the tax cut is still incredibly unpopular. only minority of americans support it. there's a story on the front page of the times that the republicans are not campaigning on it. remember john heilemann will know more about this than i do, 42 open republican seats, something like that not running for re-election. so now these are open seats that the democrats can take on in the house. >> dana roar balker running, too. if he would just stop speaking russians, maybe the republicans can hold that seat down. devin nunes, that sort of distracting. there are a lot of people that are facing a tougher time than they thought. but it's really interesting. we always say that people vote their pocketbooks and been saying this for a very long time that they don't in off year elections. we'll see what the 4.1 is in the

third quarter. most economists say it's going to go back down significantly. but we shall see. but, you know n '94, bill clinton had a great economy, but he was seen out of touch with the mainstream of america. and there's a massive republican tidal wave, 2006, the economy was going pretty darn well, but again, that was post katrina. that was in the middle of iraq. nancy pelosi became speaker of the house. people don't always vote their pocketbook in midterm elections, often they vote in reaction to what they've seen in the past two years on cultural issues or even a leadership style. >> yeah. and the political science on this is always pretty clear, which is it is a base motivated election. the economy i think is pretty safe to say is much more a driver in a presidential year. my own view with no evidence whatever, so nothing new there, is that the approval rating, the

job approval rating probably has seven or eight points, maybe even a little more of what i think of as 401(k) trumpers right now. i think there are people who are looking at their statements, people who are on the right side of the economic equation any way. they see their numbers going up for all sorts of reasons. and so they're willing to not really dive in to this russian novel story that no one can quite figure out. and they're willing to suspend their bizarrely in my view, but they are willing to suspend their ordinary moral judgments about how this president conducts himself and is now representing us on the world stage. but i would not, if i were in the white house, count on that lasting until 2020. >> we'll see. joe, your latest column in the washington post really speaks to this entitled trump finally

feels gravity's unforgiving poll and reads in part, quote, trump's stunning victory created such disorienting shock waves across washington that neither democrats nor republicans understood what the accidental president admitted to me a month after his win. the election could have been held 20 different times, but that was probably the one day i would have won. the president-elect said in december of 2016. everything came together at once. the resulting political horror show produced daily by trump has left journalists and politicians reeling but has failed to alter a few basic rules of politics. first, presidents with approval ratings in the low 40s lose their majorities in congress. second, kowtowing to ex-kgb agents erodes support with registered independents. third, lying about payoffs to a porn star and a playboy model rarely helps with swing-state voters. republicans hoping to save themselves from the political storm that will soon wipe away their congressional majorities

would be well served to speak out against trump's most destructive policies, which are anti-conservative, ill liberal and sure to bring doom to the once grand old party. party could be over. it could be. >> first of all, john, i'm very humbled to have my piece read on the "morning joe." >> well, it's a good piece. it's what we are talking about. >> this is your show. two of your's, but morning joe, that's you. >> well. >> so it's good that you get your pieces on your show. >> i also -- >> you have pull with the guys that run the place. >> that was somebody else. so, it does -- it seems that trump's victory was so shocking that i think a lot of pundits, a

lot of politicians, i think a lot of republicans have overstated his strength and his magical powers, his gravity-defying political powers. but at the end of the day, this man is still a 40% president. show me a 40% president, and i will show you a loser. no, no, no, i'm serious. show me a candidate that has -- by the way, his re-elect, his re-elect, according to the latest merit polls, his re-elect in michigan is 28%, in wisconsin it's 31%. show me a guy with a 30% re-elect. i will show you a loser. somebody that loses midterms and somebody that loses a re-election. i just think too often people

overstate his political strength because they were so shocked that he won last time. >> look, i think that's -- the shock is one thing. i think the degree to which his behavior and the ways in which he's departed from republican orthodoxy, various ways he's thrown washington into chaos, the fact that his base which is not 42%, his base is 35. the fact that those people are immovable even in the face of things that so many people object to strenuously causes us also to overfocus on the potency of the base. in the end, he's great to have a potent base. barack obama rested on his base. donald trump rested on his base and both of their bases are rock solid. again, 35, you're a loser. and even if you get those extra ones that meachum is talk about, push up to 40, 41, which is where he is right now. historically speaking that's a disaster for an inparty president, 40% approval rating, you're going to get wiped out in

the midterms if everything we know from history holds true again. >> jon meacham, my dad supported richard nixon and supported richard nixon until the final week. we were taught growing up that walter cronkite was a communist. my dad watched him and loved him. when he said that's the way it was, he believed that's the way it was but he still believed it was all a plot by "the washington post" and "the new york times" and walter cronkite and the mainstream media to take richard nixon down who they hated. and i remember the morning in 1974 where my dad was reading the newspaper and it's just like the scales fell off of his eyes all at once. and he may have said a couple of words that i can't repeat here, the second one was damn it. and then he said, if this man -- by the way, this is a guy my dad had worshipped since '52. if this man has done one third

of what they're saying he has done, he should be thrown in jail tomorrow. this is a disgrace. but he said that broken but after the tapes, there was no denying that richard nixon had acted abhorrently. >> well, this is the week. we're in the anniversary period between supreme court decision in which nixon had to turn over everything. he turns over the smoking gun tape where he's ordering the cia to block the fbi from investigating watergate, a conversation that took place i think on june 23rd. so within a week of the break-in. and we forget because in our movie-tone version of history, we naturally telescope everything. and so we think, break in. robert redford and nixon gets on the helicopter, right? that's kind of the popular

version of watergate. maybe howard baker pops in if you're from tennessee. what really happened was 27 months elapsed. congressional investigate, two special prosecutors, saturday night massacre, tapes dribble out, phrases like expletive deleted enter the conversation. and the fabled moment which is big among the npr left in the country which i love, there's a lot of liberals now who are saying, where is barry gold water when we need him, which is just -- we should all retire when people are saying that. what they mean is that goldwater and hugh scott and john rhodes went down to the white house and they told nixon he had to go. they did it on august 5th, after the tape came out and then nixon is gone by the 8th. so these things take time. i suspect your dad's expletive deleted remarks probably happened about this point in the

summer of '74. quickly to john's point, 34, 35%, that was joe mccarthy's national approval rating after the army hearings. if they take trump back to moscow in an orange jump suit, 35% of the country will be with him. that's just the way american politics works. >> one of the president's republican allies, congressman darrell isa says he doesn't think republicans will pay the price in the fall if the president has proven to have lied about the trump tower meeting. >> if he's proven to have not told the whole truth about the fact that campaigns look for dirt and if someone offers it, you listen to them. nobody is going to be surprised. there are some things in politics that you just take for granted. >> so you don't think this has anything long-term impact? he wouldn't be the first politician or president to misrepresent things? >> well, you know, businessmen

listen to almost everyone that might be helpful. by the way, they make pragmatic decisions about how to make bad stories go away. >> darrell issa, not my dad. in that case. first of all, so extraordinary. even in my little office as a member of congress, if somebody came to my chief of staff and said, hey, the russian government or the iranian government has some dirt on your opponent, my chief of staff would have said, hey, listen, we'll get back to you in a couple of days. what's your name again? what's your phone number? we'll call you back. would immediately call the fbi. would immediately call the fbi. this is not a close call. anybody out there thinking if you listen -- if that's what

darrell issa thinks, holy cow that is condemning. and here they keep moving the goal post for donald trump. they're lying about donald trump. donald trump didn't know. now if donald trump knew -- what's the big deal? no, nobody does this. nobody has ever done this. nobody has ever done this that i know of has gotten dirt on an opponent from a sworn enemy, russia, iran, you name it. >> never seen it in now almost unfortunately 30 years i've been doing this and covering republicans and democrats in the presidential races and other races. the thing i want to say about darrell issa just goes to the thing he's saying here which is that republicans aren't going to pay the price if it turns out that donald trump is lying. i just want to say that actions speak a lot louder than words. donald trump is retiring from congress, right? so he can spin a rosy scenario for how republicans won't pay any price for donald trump's behavior, but it seems like on the basis of his own political

calculations of what was going to happen in his own district, he may have had a different view of what the blood bath would look like this fall. >> donald trump has already lied about russian agents coming to his office. donald trump has already master mined the coverup on air force one where he lied and said that the meeting was about adoption, which by the way, over the weekend, a prosecutor said this is perfect to show the guilt, the conscious guilt at the time that something big happened in that room because you wouldn't lie about it if it was innocent. >> sure. but look, i think one of the problems we have here a little bit is that it's a bit of a he said/she said. giuliani was saying yesterday on a sunday show, there's five people who will say donald trump did not know about this russian meeting up against michael cohen. i was working in the washington bureau of the new york times in the summer of 1974, so i was sort of watching all this. meachum can contradict me, but

my recollection were the tapes were the defining moment because you heard him on tape saying this. so far i don't think we've quite seen these tapes from michael cohen. he can wiggle and twist his way out of every box people try to put him in. >> what's the end game for saying something like that? it's obviously clearly something you wouldn't want to support, the president lying about a meeting? >> lobbying money? their own personal self interest, constantly, that's all we see on display consistently. among republicans who are choosing to prop up these lies and to devalue truth and factual accuracy in the american public. and it's really disgusting. i can't believe that we're at the phase where, you know, the $12 billion bailout for agriculture because of a dumb policy decision and all of these so-called fiscal conservatives can just get behind it because they're going to go with trump

no matter what and we're just seeing where people really do not stand for much except the ideology of power. >> think about that really quickly. again, and ron johnson and i can't believe i'm quoting ron johnson because he backed down to donald trump over and over again. ron johnson correctly said this is soviet style economics. you adopt a stalin in five-year foreign policy. the five-year plan, right? and you have tariffs. you destroy the economy. and then you come in behind it and after destroying the economy for these farmers, you then prop them up with a $12 billion centralized state payoff after i just got to say a lot of farmers are already subsidized. like the big farm interests? so this is subsidy on top of subsidy on top of subsidy.

>> but we have to cut the deficit, joe. there's a lot of deficit in washington. >> absolutely none. still ahead, steve eluded to it a few moments ago, we have a full fact check of the president's economic claims that he made, and some of it starts with a simple google search. >> why don't people -- why don't my friends and family just turn on the google machine? just crank it up in the backyard -- >> as elise just said, the truth has been devalued. and people must not care. that's what this president has done. >> mika, i don't understand. so many of his lies, so many of his claims can be completely blown out of the water with 30 seconds and just, again, borrow your neighbor's google machine. >> they don't care. >> 30 seconds. and it is a proven lie. by the way, from a thousands different accurate sources. >> this president started off by saying, look at my crowd size, it's the biggest one, when it

was clearly the smallest and people didn't care. >> type in trump lie pops up. >> i give trump this, when he puts his mind to it, he's a master messenger and he has branded the media as the enemy of the people and took it up with the publisher of the new york times. >> that's right. >> when he is at the stage where he is comparing the u.s. press, the free press, to an enemy on the level of isis or al qaeda, that's a real problem for truth and accuracy. >> you are absolutely right. >> again, the truth is 30 seconds away. check out google. check out yahoo. check out whatever search site. >> got to care. >> msn, of course, yes. >> we'll get into "the new york times" aspect of this story in just a moment. first, let's go to bill karins on the check of the forecast. bill? >> joe f we can get people to do and this stop using your weather app on your phones to get the hourly forecast, we would be all set. >> he doesn't do that. he calls you. >> yeah, that would be smart. so the rain is already back in

the picture of a nice weekend for so many people from the ohio valley, great lakes to the east coast. the humidity is back, too. along with it, a rainy week. a lot of heavy rain this morning through eastern north carolina moving up through virginia, virginia beach, norfolk to richmond and it will arrive in d.c. and also towards baltimore this afternoon. philadelphia north wards the rain should hold off later this afternoon towards this evening. and this week is just like what we started with last week, it's going to get humid. we'll have on and off rain all week long for the east coast. how much rain? well, this is through friday. the next five days, two to four inches of rainfall the southeast all the way through the mid-atlantic. no reason to be watering the grass this week once again. here is the week ahead forecast. i will add, it stays hot in the west and stays dry and of course we have that car fire, six fatalities and the blaze still mostly unchecked. they're just trying to protect structures at this point. as we go throughout the week, the heat continues in the west too. summertime storms in the southeast. by the time we get to wednesday, here is all the heavy rain on

the eastern sea board. much of the western haft of the country remains dry and hot. finally as we end this week on friday, i think the flooding problems are going to be worse northern georgia, up state portions of south carolina and through much of the southern appalachians we have to watch a lot of the rivers and lakes and streams closely. areas like new york city, enjoy your monday. this is by far the best day of the week. low humidity, temperatures are comfortable. the august humidity will arrive as we go to the middle to the end of the week. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. the fact is, there are over ninety-six hundred roads named "park" in the u.s. it's america's most popular street name. but allstate agents know that's where the similarity stops. if you're on park street in reno, nevada, the high winds of the washoe zephyr could damage your siding. and that's very different than living on park ave in sheboygan, wisconsin, where ice dams could cause water damage. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours.

now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good.

are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi.? a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. okay. so on friday president trump was very quick to celebrate the release of new economic data. >> why not? happy days are here again. >> in a hastily arranged set of remarks, the president made a number of economic statements. >> now, this was 4.1 growth second quarter. >> he was so excited about -- >> good stuff. good stuff.

>> so what you have to do is check them out and you get a sense of whether or not he's telling the truth. let's take a look at some of his claims. >> okay. >> i am thrilled to announce that in the second quarter of this year the united states economy grew at the amazing rate of 4.1%. >> that's very good. >> he is correct about 4.1% growth. >> 4.1. if you can do that for a year, brother. >> here is thing, most economists would not use the word amazing to describe it. in fact, president obama reached that mark four times, including three times higher than trump's 4.1%. trump's quarter would tie just the 13th best quarter under bill clinton and the 14th best under reagan. >> so you're saying that bill clinton had 13 better quarters than -- >> yes, but trump calls it amazing. >> it might be amazing. >> 13 quarters is like three years worth of quarters, right?

that's a lot of quarters. >> that is a lot of quarters. but i will say this, steve. i remember bush w. had, what a 5.6 or a -- it was like amazing when the number came across there. >> actually. >> and the economy seemed to be growing. well, here again, if he stays at 4.1 the rest of the year, i'm going to say great job, great for americans, great for everybody involved. but most economists were saying, just like they were predicting the deficit was going to rise because of reckless entitlement spending and defense spending and every other kind of spending you could think of, there were a lot of economists who two weeks ago were saying, hey, we're going to have a higher quarter this time and then it's going to go back down to 2%, 2.5%, correct? >> essentially. we can look at some numbers and you can see both historic and what looks like it's going to be

coming in the future on this chart here. so to your point -- >> oh, you have charts? >> that's nice. >> that's very nice. >> walked right into that. >> well to the point about higher quarters in the past, you can see first of all obama's four quarters of growth -- >> let me stop you right there. we'll get to all the charts. jon meacham, you look at all those numbers, it will fascinating that donald trump will say bill clinton beat 13 times, amazing, remarkable, the greatest thing ever. barack obama would have had gdp growth of over 5%. and he would get out there and give a speech of we understand that somewhere in america people are still eating rats for dinner, so we're not going to celebrate this yet. like barack obama could never embrace good news. he always had to parse it. he always had to apologize for those left behind. it's just the opposite of donald trump. somewhere in the middle is a leadership style that actually

works. >> i think that's right. and i think this is a great exhibit in one of the running themes in the books about this era is going to be that donald trump was as much a reality show impar sar owe as he was a real estate guy. he just pretends what he wants to be true is true. and has now inflicted that faux reality on all of us. >> yep. >> one of the great ironies of we always dislike in others what we fear is true in ourselves, it's no mistake that this is the guy, no coincidence that he coins the term fake news. he's the embodiment of it. >> here is another one of the president's claims on friday. >> the trade deficit, very dear to my heart because we've been ripped off by the world has

dropped by more than $50 billion. 52 billion to be exact. >> the trade deficit did drop. it was also the largest it's been since 2006. according to the bureau of economic analysis. >> all right. so, steve, first of all, there's so much we have to correct here. i'm just going to quickly say something about the trade deficit. donald trump will say the chinese stole $82 billion from -- another way to put that is, americans got $82 billion worth of cheaper products. so much of the trade deficit is fueled by us importing goods that are competitive that actually make working class americans lives much better. so when he goes around the chinese stealing. no, the americans have the freedom to decide for themselves. do i want to go to the grocery

store? do i want to go to walmart? do i want to go to target? do i want to get these items cheaper for myself and for my family? most of the times they say yes. >> and they say yes. the trade deficit did play a role in this. to re-enforce a point you made, 4.1% growth we got in the first quarter, these are goldman sachs estimate and show it trailing off as the quarters go on. the other point i would make on this, if you see this red line, this is the year over year change in the growth rate. so you can see, it's gone up, it's gone down. there's nothing extraordinary, at least yet, about donald trump's growth rate. now on the trade deficit which relates to these numbers if we can look at the next chart, you'll see that in fact, this 4.1% isn't all it's cracked up to be. of the 4.1, .8% is the stimulus that president trump enacted. the spending cuts and spending increases in the tax cuts that specially destroyed our fiscal

balance. ironically another .6 of the increase is the chinese importing a lot more soy beans in this past quarter to get ahead of the tariffs that are coming. so when you cut through it all, the actual adjusted, fairly adjusted base growth rate of the economy was actually 2.7%, not 4.1%. >> okay. >> so here is more from the president on friday. >> we've accomplished an economic turn around of historic proportions. >> hold on. can we play that again? i like that one. >> here we go. >> we've accomplished an economic turn around of historic proportions. >> this comes from the guy who has all of his club championships that he won in his office because he cheated. >> and his "time" magazine. >> and fake covers of the "time"

magazines, the greatest turn around in american history. anybody who goes on a google machine can see that you showed part that the economy '08 was here. went up and then it has been a steady, slow, gradual, economic increase. that's good news. but it's good news from bush to obama to trump. >> sure. we can show that in the context of jobs f you want. so trump talks about all the jobs he's created. 3.5 million. but let's put that in some context and compare the last 18 months of obama where he created 206,000 jobs a month to the first 18 months of trump where he created 193,000 jobs a month. >> let me stop you here. i don't understand that because it actually looks like barack obama created more jobs per month in his last 16 months than donald trump created in his

first 16 months, but that can't be true because donald trump and a lot of people on television that are news readers actually are talking about the exploisive trump economy. you're not actually saying -- hold on. help me out here, you're not saying, are you, that barack obama actually created more jobs his last 16 months -- >> 18 months. >> so it's more. >> close to 18 months. >> you're not saying that barack obama created more jobs in his last 18 months as president? god, that would be the last year and a half. that would be really hard to do, than donald trump has in the first 18 months, are you? >> you know, i am saying that. >> no. hold on. >> but the president says he's. >> statistics don't lie. >> wait, john, john, do you believe -- show this chart again. i just think because donald trump says this is the greatest economy we've ever had. happy days are here again. donald trump has not created as

many jobs his last 18 months as barack obama did his final 18 months? >> finally i do believe it, joe. >> do you really? >> because of the fact that i, on your advice, have become very familiar with the google machine and have been using it quite aggressively recently. i want to correct one thing you said about the steadiness of the economic growth. you want to not talk about the george w. bush part of it because that administration ended with the financial crisis that drove the country to a new depression. since october of 2010, steve, i think is correct is that is when the now 90 some months of consecutive job growth started. october 2010 with barack obama and we've been on a steady path ever since then. >> what happened on september 15, 2008, was not good for the economy? >> i am saying that. we don't want to put bush in that same continuum. >> this is staggering. elise, if you talk to any trump

supporte supporter, they will tell you, i support him because you know what, the economy, we have a record economy and record job growth and record this. we don't. we don't. we don't. we don't. go to the google machine and you'll see that barack obama wz more successful in creating jobs his last 18 months as president than donald trump has been his first 18 months. that simple. >> a lot of the role is cheerleader in chief, giving and projecting confidence in the economy and that's something that -- >> devaluing the truth. >> he has done that -- >> we don't need to say turn around. >> he takes it way too far. it's one thing to be pro business and to convince the business community that, yes, he's going to be anti-regulation, enacting policies that are more favorable to the business climate, but then just to all out lie. that does not help anything. >> steve, what you just said, very true. you talk to just about any business owner and they will tell you that he is more pro

business. that regulatory relief helps a lot. yes, they will take those tax cuts. they don't think it was done. as well as it could have been done, but any tax cuts are good tax cuts. there is no doubt the business community is more favorable towards his policies than barack obama's policies and actually think they have somebody in the white house that actually understands what they're going through. that said, ublgd have said the same thing for george w. bush when the economy collapsed at the end of 2008. so that alone -- even if that is the case, that alone is not making the economy better than it was under barack obama. it's just not. >> and it's not. look, there's no question the business community is happy with this and that he's given them a lot of stuff, but i think what we should also talk about is the average worker and where the average worker sits at the moment relative to what trump is proclaiming as a turn around of historic proportions. >> the average worker, elise, if

i'm a democrat, i'm talking about the average worker that got stiffed by these tariffs. they'll be paying more when they go shopping. they got stiffed by the tax cuts. they went to the richest americans. and they've gotten stiffed by health care, pre-existing conditions, forget about it. donald trump and his administration are trying to obliterate protections that congress laid down when it comes to pre-existing conditions and we'll talk about lower wage growth under trump in a second. >> there was a really disturbing stat that i read recently something like 70% of renters -- 70% cost the average income coming in goes to rent in a lot of major cities. that's completely unsustainable for workers to have to pay 70% of their income every month. i don't see how we don't -- we've had ten good years post the recession. how do we not have a dropping

off the cliff soon? >> and what about wages? are they going up? >> they have to be going up because donald trump says they are. >> ivanka visits a lot of workers, and i think that helps. >> she also visits, iowa, by the way, but more on that later. >> more on that later. isn't it the ultimate litmus test of the administration whether you make the average worker better off or not. >> they get to meet ivanka. >> under obama, the average worker got pay increases of about 0.8% a year. that's after adjusting for inflation. that's that line i just put up. >> right. >> under trump, it has actually dropped to 0.3% a year. so in fact, wage increases under trump have gone from 0 .8% under obama to 0.3% under trump. >> right. >> the last two quarters wage increases -- these are all after adjusting for wage. the last two months they have

been zero, no wage increases for the average american. >> just from 40,000 feet, the u.s. economy under barack obama and the first 18 months donald trump pretty good, right? again, it's a slower, gradual growth. trump will probably be annualized at maybe 2%, 2.5%. just like obama. but again, pretty good, steady growth over time. >> you know -- >> it's not 3%. >> yes. exactly. in a year of somewhat diminished expectations of what we can perform and produce, 2% is a reasonable number, 2.5% is a reasonable number. but the problem is as my last chart shows, it's not getting to the average worker. >> right. >> and the key thing about trump is that if you look through all of his policies, find me one that is actually helped the average worker. tax cuts for the rich, tariffs, deregulation. i don't think so. >> also tearing to shreds any hope for health care reform. >> health care.

>> that would help working class americans that would take care of their kids with pre-existing conditions that would take care of the elderly. they're talking about slashing funding for nursing homes when you look at what they want to do with medicaid. >> democrats are salivating about taking health care out on the campaign trail this fall. >> i just checked the google machine on your question -- no trump policies that help workers. still ahead in may he called michael cohen honest and honorable. >> this rudy, yeah. i remember when he called michael cohen -- >> he did. >> honest. >> 100%. >> and honorable. >> but yesterday he called him a pathological liar. >> what? >> uh-huh. >> apparently he was the president's lawyer, though. which is kind of interesting that the president employed a pathological liar as his lawyer. >> i don't understand, america's mayor said he was an honest man. >> rudy giuliani has done a 180 on the president's former fixer.

we'll talk about why next on "morning joe." >> very confused. ♪ ♪ ♪ let your perfect drive come together at the lincoln summer invitation sales event. get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus $1,000 bonus cash.

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all right. president trump's lawyer, rudy giuliani, is dismissing michael cohen's claim that donald trump as a candidate knew in advance

of the june, 2016, trump tower meeting with russians. just over two months ago on may 6th, giuliani described cohen has a, quote, honest, honorable lawyer who, quote, doesn't have any incriminating evidence about the president. >> rudy giuliani -- >> yeah. >> honest? >> what do we do with this character? >> john heilemann, you're going to have somebody be your personal lawyer for 20 years or so, i guess it has been 20 years already. >> not quite that long but a while. >> you want a guy around you who is honest and honorable so it makes sense that rudy and trump would say that cohen is an honest lawyer. he's your fixer. >> he's your guys with you don't want a scum bag as your fixer. you want a guy who is honest. >> and loyal. >> fast forward to yesterday and here is what giuliani had to say. >> uh-oh. >> what? >> now i've listened unfortunately, fortunately for my client's point of view, to many, many hours of tapes and

the man is a pathological, manipulator, liar. i didn't know that. i didn't know him well, but i knew nothing bad about michael cohen until all of this started to happen in the last couple weeks. >> until he stopped covering up for donald trump. >> former chief of staff at the ci, a and department of defense now an nbc national security analyst, jeremy bash. also here with us on set, nbc news foreign correspondent keir simmo simmons. >> good to be here. >> rudy giuliani has transformed. >> he's so sad that michael cohen isn't a boy scott afterall. >> jeremy bash, it seems to be a tale of two cohens here. [ laughter ]. >> he was the best fixer. he was the worst fixer. >> that's right, joe. look, i do think that this claim by michael cohen, we don't know yet whether it was verified,

that donald trump knew in advance about the meeting in trump tower that he approved it and welcomed the support from the russian government delegation. that is potentially the most significant development in the whole russia investigation. and the reason is because up up donald trump has been able to say, you know, i don't know what my son, people in my campaign have been doing. i had nothing to do with it. michael cohen knows every single detail about the trump organization, about the business dealings in russia, he can say and testify or provide testimony to bob mueller's team that donald trump was briefed about this, he welcomed this, he knew that it was a russian government delegation and this under mines every other single claim that donald trump has made. >> donald trump knew enough about that meeting to get everybody on air force one and lie about it. but you've really done a deep dive into people that were at the meeting.

>> thanks for the dicken's reference. look, we got close to the kremlin. for example, i can tell you the billionaire was on vacation with the spokesman for president putin just last week. so they are pictured together with their wives. the whole russian heirarchy, if you like, the top of that establishment is like this. >> like london. >> i think one of the interesting insights into all of this is what we're talking about is the behavior of obscenely rich people. this is how they behave. they believe that everything that they say, if they say it is right. that's what obscenely rich people do. and their children.

their entitled children they empower them to make the same kind of success. in a sense if you step back, the real connection is about how very, very rich people behave and how they behave towards each other. >> i think you told me when you spent some time in london that was your takeaway at least about london is it was very closely held and, you know, everything happened in london and everybody seemed to know everybody. what we're learning not only from keir but others it's even tighter in russia because as you say -- >> it depends. you have nice parks. >> small country, couple universities. a lot of these russians are now in london. property owners. they have parts of football

clubs. i want to come back to what jeremy said about the michael cohen assertion. there's a question. will it be verified or not. are there tapes that demonstrate this. jeremy, one of the things that we know, at least from the reporting on this, is that michael cohen is saying to people that there were other people present in the meeting at which donald trump, he alleges, was told all about this meeting and what its purpose was and so on. one of those people -- i'll offer this not for somebody who has been named but a reasonable person to start asking about is hope hicks who was pretty much in every meeting that donald trump was in at that point in time in the campaign and who has already talked to robert mueller. talk about the various ways -- that's one example -- other ways in which the cohen assertion could be, in fact, verified. >> there are other opportunities to have corroborating evidence. there was a discussion in the

house intelligence committee report that came out about a month and a half ago about a blocked number that donald trump jr. called before and after that meeting. obviously, bob mueller can access who that blocked number was. there will be documents, there will be calendar, other people who were in the meeting with donald trump. there are other ways to corroborate this. i should think if donald trump was briefed on this we'll know about it and it will be in the bob mueller report. i just think it's also important, now that we have so much about the trump tower meeting to remind ourselves it was not just a meeting with don't jr., it was with paul manafort and others. it was with the russian delegation. not just about adoptions it was about sanctions and what they would trade in order to interfere in the elections. >> i would add one thing. not just that we can speculate bob mueller might find out. i think there's a chance bob mueller already knows this stuff. he's talked to people already

who would have been present at the meeting. he has this information. it's another example ways in which bob mueller is miles ahead of where we are and the things we think we might learn one day are things he might have already nailed down at this hour. >> i have some doubts about whether the others were led up to meet the president other than candidate. i wonder if that's true. i've spoken many times. the idea that president trump knew about the meeting, i signed up. did they actually meet, i'm not completely convinced. >> jeremy bash thank you very much. still ahead, president trump escalates the threat of a government shutdown before the 2018 mid-terms. and get as word of caution from some republicans. "the washington post" robert costa joining us us with his latest reporting. plus the president puts his fear on the mueller probe on full display launching his most

personal attack against the special counsel yet. >> did you believe now nervous he was. just petrified. >> a fraidy cat situation. >> he was in a fetal position tweeting under a desk. >> he was very, very scared and the tweets were full of ties and riddled with fear. you can almost imagine him. >> makes me sad. it's hard. . was he shaking that bad? >> it's not good. we'll talk to senator richard blumenthal about those tweets and congressman eric swalwell on the committee investigating russia. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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. welcome back. >> any red sox fans here? >> yes, i'm one. >> any yankees fans or are you a mets fan?

>> i'm a red sox because i hate the yankees. i hate the yankees. >> we need to go out and see a mets game. >> they have to win a few first. >> mookie is cute. >> she likes mookie. >> it's monday, july 30th, 2018. still with us, john hallman. >> he seems sweet. >> nbc news foreign correspondent keir simmons. he's adorable. former aid to the george h. w. bush white house and state department elise jordan. and author of "the soul of america," the soul of america himself john meacham. >> you earned so much money on that book, can you buy me a book. have all your relatives been calling and asking for things because you're so rich now because of that book? >> no. i don't actually answer the

phone. we have like a green acres phone, eddie albert, we get on top of mr. drucker's store and i stay off the roof. >> you have arnold the pig answer the phone for you. >> yes. >> it would be cool if you got the boat. the boat paid by the soul of america. >> joining the conversation -- >> i have a quick question. has you're comparing 1960s sitcom animals, all right, we got a showdown between arnold the pig on "green acres," the smartest animal in town too versus "mr. ed," who do you go with? >> the pig. 100%. i liked the talking thing is kind of cool. the notion that a horse could talk, i like that. but the pig is the smartest

creature. pigs are smart. >> my mom loves the pig. >> your pigs can do higher math. >> all right. also joining us political reporter for "the washington post" and moderator of washington week on pbs, robert costa. >> neither "green acres" or "mr. ed" is airing. >> and law prove for at george washington university, mr. turley. >> arnold or mr. ed? >> mr. ed. >> chicago cubs is the greatest baseball team on earth. >> wow. >> so he's going to start like that. >> cut his feed. ing? >> right to the news. president trump spend part of his weekend lashing out and questioning the credibility of robert mueller's ongoing investigation. in a series of tweets yesterday

trump claimed there was no collusion and since he says so he thinks everyone should believe him. he called mueller's probe a witch-hunt and an illegal scam. he went on to write nervously. is robert mueller ever going to release his conflict of interest with respect to president trump with respect to the fact we had a very nasty business relationship. i turned him down to head the fbi one day before appointment as special counsel and comey is his close friend. also why is mueller only appointing angry dems some of whom who have worked for crooked hillary. including others have worked for obama and why isn't mueller looking at all of the criminal activity and real russian collusion on the democrat side, podesta dossier? nbc news reached out to the special counsel's office and received no response.

>> so, jonathan, just curious where are you right now with a lot of things that happened over the past couple of weeks. and, obviously, donald trump lashing out furiously at the special counsel, independent counsel. it's as if he expects something to drop over the next week or two. where are you right now on the mueller investigation, what you know of it and where you think it's headed? >> i think the current development is very serious. he's one witness away from a potential catastrophe. if any of those five witnesses breaks and supports michael cohen this will get real bad real fast. it's not that the meeting will establish a crime of collusion even if what cohen is saying is true, but what it would mean is that donald trump jr. would be in serious jeopardy of a criminal charge. if mueller was to go after donald trump jr., i think we

would see a very rapid chain of events and it would not end well for anyone. i think that donald trump very well could match his past visceral language with similar language. company start to fire people. and that would have a cascading effect. it would probably take us right to the door step of impeachment. thus far, there isn't any corroboratation from michael cohen and the fact is he's not a very credible person. unlike rudy giuliani most of us have actually heard bad things about michael cohen. he must not have been around for the past year not to hear bad things about michael cohen. cohen is not really redeemable as a witness. he needs to have support from some of the people in that room. >> and robert costa, what can you tell us about the attitude

inside the white house, what's going on there, why donald trump went on this scream again yesterday morning. we see it in the past when the heat is turned up on him. what happened this weekend? >> my sources meeting with them over the weekend they are on high alert. look what's happening on capitol hill. don't ignore it with regard to the mueller investigation. you have top trump allies proposing these articles of impeachment now, a contempt of congress for deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and that option is sitting out there for president trump being proffered by his allies saying if you do want to move on mueller, if you do believe you have an excuse to go after the department of justice over this document fight you can go after rod rosenstein. it's sitting there as a political target and that has made some trump allies on edge if mueller does start to take some real action legally that the president could consider making some moves at doj. >> john, there a couple of back

benches that are going after rod rosenstein. at the same time you have republicans in the united states senate shoulder to shoulder in support of robert mueller, in support of the investigation moving forward. you have richard burr the chairman of the senate intel committee saying last week that all the fisa warrants made sense and were logical, no wrongdoing there whatsoever. you talk about open warfare among republicans, the saturday night massacre, what is playing out between the white house and justice department, it would be 80% of the senate and, you know, probably 50% of the house republicans going after each other and the president. it would be a bloodbath 99 days out. >> 100%. i think -- but that was true, but broad support for rod rosenstein among senate

republicans and even many house republicans who don't want to say so publicly, that was true before helsinki. after helsinki. the degree of strength that rod rosenstein has among everyone but the nunez caucus and mark meadows caucus who is engaging in this ridiculous impeach rod rosenstein. it's just pure kabuki. he won't be impeached. but the extent that there's a caucus that likes to make that kind of noise, the counter caucus, the broader support for rod rosenstein is off the charts after helsinki. >> post-helsinki you really, really have to be taking your political future into your own hands even as a reif you're going after robert mueller's indictment of what does he have, 23 russians now? and clear evidence -- just in black and white -- that they tried to rig the 2016 election.

>> they tried to intervene, yeah. i think you can under estimate how much the russians are watching. we talk about the, you know, american foreign policy you should always view through american domestic policy. russians know that. when i speak to people in the kremlin i get a clear impression that they understand the politics here and they are making moves. so just, for example, after helsinki, some in the kremlin told me we won't talk about this any more. we need to keep quiet about this. now we had president putin offer president trump -- >> i don't like washington in the fall. you're my patsy, you come to moscow. >> can you under estimate that again and again. remember when i was in north korea last year and a north korean official told me we watch "morning joe". >> huge.

>> this country is going through this incredible angst and clearly that has to happen but don't under estimate how around the world he's being watched. >> the world is watching. >> so john meacham, where is the soul of america in the age of devalued truth, starting at the top and the relationship with russia that we could never expect? >> you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. lies are good starter, but they are not good finishers, and again and again in american life we've had periods where we had distrusted institutions, we had people who thought they could put a fast one past us and sometimes they did for a time. but ultimately the great experiments in self-government that the founders put together created a document, created an ethos that because it takes into

account that we're flawed, we're driven by appetite and ambition, it gave us a chance for reason to take a stand against passion in the arena. this is what the constitution was made for. what would have stunned the founders, they would have taken until 2016 to get a demagogue like this as a president. the document was kraefted to try to check our worst impulse, and joe mccarthy took four years, watergate took 27 months. jim crow took a century. you know, we've been in dark places before. we just have to remember that what makes us best is when we're strong and when we open our arms. >> jonathan turley, elise here. the column about how michael cohen is panicked and that makes him dangerous. you're talking -- you were talking about some of the behavior that we might see if donald trump jr. is himself more

imperilled. is michael cohen at this point still hoping for a pardon or any acting out or has that ship sailed >> yeah, no. i think donald trump is probably more likely to give hillary clinton a pardon right now than michael cohen. any pardon strategy is gone. this over mutually shared destruction strategy by cohen. i don't really get it. usually you threaten that. you don't usually commit the act. he started out with that. the pardon, i think, is no longer an option. he's putting all of his money on mueller. i'm not too sure that strategy will play out for him. he's not that valuable of a witness in one sense than he is in another. his proximity makes him very draws dra dangerous to the president. but to have the lawyer say he'll

try something new he'll tell the truth. that's not a roaring endorsemen. it's basically saying i'm john dean without the guilt. not that great of a witness to put on the stand. >> jonathan turley, thank you very much. president trump used twitter to once again shut down the government for tougher immigration laws. he tweeted yesterday i would be willing to shut down government if the democrats do not give us the votes for border security which includes the wall. must get rid of lottery, catch and release, et cetera. and finally go to system of immigration based on merit. we need great people coming in to our country. trump's warning comes ahead of the september 30th deadline for congress to strike a deal to fund the government, raising the possibility of a showdown just 37 days before the mid-term elections. the potential funding battle would come amid efforts by

republicans to confirm the president's supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh by october 1st. following his meeting on wednesday with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and paul ryan president trump signaled that he was on board with the leader's strategy to fund the government through smaller packages of spending bills. mcconnell said friday talks over funding the border wall would have to wait until after the mid-terms. bob costa, i think immigration is a great issue to go into the mid-terms with to remind e around the stench around this presidency with the separation of families going on with hundreds of children who may not ever be reunited with their families again because of president trump, jeff sessions, kirstjen nielsen and ivanka trump by default since she's counselor to the president in support of families. >> are republicans afraid of the shutdown >> mika makes an important point

on immigration. ivanka trump in 2016 went to the suburbs of philadelphia and vulnerable republicans right now are very unese i about the president focusing on immigration. but my sources say the president talk about this witch00, his words about the russia investigation, hammering a proposed border wall. all about juicing up that republican base because talking to pollsters inside the party and people conducting focus groups they are concerned a blue wave could be coming. the quarterly growth, the tax cut not enough to get the trump voter to come back out in the mid-term elections. it's back to the wall, back to immigration, back to going after robert mueller. that's the strategy. >> boy, that is, steve rattner, that's a rough strategy for donald trump and i'm sure probably speaks to why recognizes are afraid. i mean coming to the district.

and you've talked about it this morning already, the "times" has a story on the front page but poll after poll after poll shows the rank-and-file just aren't buying this tax cut. in fact, it's deeply unpopular, especially among working class americans that republicans need. >> it's got a 30% approval rating. americans got to give him a little bit of credit on figuring things out. what they figured out 85% of this tax cut going to businesses or people making over $75,000. the average american gets $600. not a lot of money. on the shutdown question there's 13 legislative days between now and the election. there's a lot at risk. history would tell you shutdowns hurt the party that perceived to create the shutdown. but democrats need 60 votes in the senate. they have to get some democrats

to get over the finish line. >> going to be awfully tough. keir, i want to talk about london again. it's on my mind. since i can't talk about chelsea. let's talk about theresa may and boris johnson, news this week, don't know if it's accurate or not, but boris johnson now is becoming good buddies with steve bannon. true? do you see those reports? >> steve bannon has been in the uk and has been making friends. and not just with the former foreign secretary but with others much further to the right. >> do we expect a challenge to theresa may from boris johnson? >> just to put simply what's happening in the uk is the government is hanging by a thread and what the conservative government is frightened of is if they break that thread and go for a general election spend up with a very far left labor party

in power. that, by the way, would turn things upside down. the leader of the labor part in the uk has some sympathy for russia. he has interesting views on europe. the potential for things to really unravel around brexit and echo around the world economically which where things here should worry b-i guess, is great. >> is there a possibility of another coalition government in britain where it gets to the point where it looks like you'll have boris johnson teaming up with other right-wing parties. >> you need another election to have it happen. you can predict the outcome of an election, particularly the way that the electorate are these days here and in the uk. what's happening is very detail internal politics within the ruling party in britain with the big picture of them desperately

trying to cling to power. >> keir simmons thank you very much. robert costa, thank you as well. >> robert, what are you working on today? >> keeping an eye on the mueller investigation. where is this report? when is a subpoena coming for president trump? is rudy giuliani going to don't dance around the idea of doing an interview. decisions have to be made on both sides. >> still ahead on "morning joe" from cruel to inhumane to careless and incompetent show you senator blumenthal describes the government initial child separation policy and subsequent efforts to deal with it. the connecticut democrat joins us next on "morning joe". ♪ feet. & with edge-to-edge intelligence you've got near real time inventory updates. & he'll find the same shoes in your store that he found online

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resolution on protecting the press. we'll get to that. curious as to what you know about where the separation policy stands? we know they ended the policy but still a lot of children's lives hanging in the balance. are they going to be able to resolve this completely? >> hundreds of children are still separated from their parents. >> do we have a good number on that? are we in the hundreds? >> there are no good numbers. >> no good numbers. why are there no good numbers. why can't we get the government, why can't we get the fraugs to give us good numbers on how many children they seized from tarms of their parents and have now lost? >> that is the question we're going to be asking tomorrow when we have i.c.e. come before the judiciary committee. we'll have a hearing. and the question of whether this policy is a result of incompetence and carelessness or deliberate cruelty. right now what we have is benign

neglect. children are separated because of the incompetence and carelessness and the policy itself and americans should be angry about it is the result of consciously and purposely inflicted cruelty. >> the focus on i.c.e. is misdirected. the focus is on the policy. this would be like americans being angry at tsa if donald trump decided to seize babies from mothers arms when they are going through the metal detectors. >> that's exactly right. that's why we've urged the chairman of the committee, chuck grassley not just have i.c.e. but the office of refugee resettlement, department of homeland security leadership in general and the department of health and human services. they all bear responsibility. >> why are they still separated. what's the crux of that? are the parents deported? are the parents out of country and now the kids are stuck in america? what's happened? >> some parents have been

deported on the promise that they would be reunited. that was a false promise. some of the parents are still in this country, but the department of homeland security doesn't have sufficient information to bring them together. we've received closed briefings and the basic conclusion here is that this policy is a result of a conscious effort to deter asylum seekers from coming to this country by convincing them that they will face more pain here than they would by facing the murder, violence and gang warfare in their own country. >> so i understand that's what sessions, that's what trump wanted to happen. what i don't understand is when they implemented the policy, how were they not able to trace -- how were they not able to put 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds back with their parents? whose ultimately -- who ultimately fumbled that responsibility?

>> and that's what the american people deserve to know. and we don't know the answer yet. we'll begin finding out tomorrow. but i think there has to be accountability. >> isn't it remarkable we don't know? isn't it remarkable >> there was a plan? >> there was no plan. you know when i visited the border, now almost six weeks ago, what i saw and i said it when i came back was no plan, no path, no system for reuniting these children with their parents. i looked into the eyes of a 2-year-old girl in her father's arm who faced possible separation from her father, and he was close to tears. but he had walked 30 days across mexico to escape the violence and persecution in his country simply so his daughter could live and have the opportunity to be in this country, but there was no plan to keep them together, there was no plan to reunite them if they were

separated. there never was. and that is the really untold story. >> i feel like we have to call a time-out right here for viewers who may not understand the laws of this land. it is legal for people to come to this country and seek refugee status and when they come here that's when we're supposed to have a review. and we're supposed to have judges, courts look at it. and, of course, donald trump's answer is separate the children, deport the parents, and fire all the judges. says he doesn't want any judges any more. doesn't want any more due process for refugee status which, again, is that's the basis of our country. donald trump's parents, donald trump's mother came to america from overseas, mika's mother and father escaped hitler, came to

america, mika's mother went across the atlantic, actually got -- the boat got hit by a german torpedo which was a thud, but escaped, escaped nazi oppression. >> so did my dad in 1935 came here at 17 years old. he had not much more than the shirt on his back. spoke no english. he was a penniless refugee who would have been sent back under trump's current policies. there is a legal protection but there's also a great american tradition. >> exactly. that's our story. >> exactly. we're a nation of immigrants. >> there's something that also is really troublesome, i mean everything about this policy is troublesome, but texas tribune had been reporting about 70 children under the age of 2 have been representing themselves at asylum proceedings. how does this happen in america? >> i know.

>> sir, i want to move on to a different topic and a different venue for you which is your role on the judiciary committee. bret kavanaugh coming before you guys. you have been raising some concerns about the scope of the committee's inquiry, ability to get all the records from the time he was in the white house an also about where he stands on the question of the nixon president. i want to talk about both those things. where we are. not so much about the political maneuvering, will he protect robert mueller, how serious is the scrutiny your committee will give to this nomination. >> first of all, we need the documents and right now we're being denied all documents we need to review this nomination. the reason we need the documents is that there's no telling what he may have written and what's relevant when he was staff secretary to president bush. we know that on some of the issues like the signing

statements related to illegal detention he took certain positions. but we need to confirm what he tells us by having all the documents. the question is what are they hiding? why are they concealing some of these documents sydney won't meet with this nominee and certainly would urge my colleagues to vote against him if we are denied those documents. second, on the issue of presidential power he has a very expansive view of what the president's powers can be. first of all, the president can refuse to enforce a law if he feels that it is unconstitutional. second, he should be able to fire the special counsel for any reason or no reason at all. and that makes him a possible deciding vote also on the subpoena power, he's questioned the validity of the tapes case. that was in the watergate area and decided unanimously by a

supreme court in an opinion written by the chief justice warren burger a nixon appointee. this questioning of the issue of when the president is above the law is extremely serious. if his position is the president is above the law, i don't see how any of my colleagues can vote for him. >> senator, without diminishing the importance of everything you said, in the real world of politics it seems like the republicans are absolutely locked in step here on whether maybe rand paul but mostly locked in step. three red state congressmen who voted for gorsuch. is there doubt he'll be confirmed. >> there is doubt. mainly in these documents, if we get them, there may be bomb shells and smoking guns and other very revealing evidence that goes to his views on these critical issues, not just presidential power but also roe v. wade and his committing

apparently passing the trump litmus trump to automatically overrule it, on health care issues. we need to take this case to the american people and i think the american people are going to want a check and balance on this president particularly. i think they are going to want someone who is in favor of a free press. especially with this president. >> so, let's talk about republicans and the mueller investigation. you, of course, have a couple of house republicans who are playing the role of vladimir putin's poodles, embarrassing themselves. on the republican side in the senate some strong words, again, from richard burr the chairman of the intel committee saying fisa warrants were actually in line and the judges, the republican judges did the right thing there. it seems that more and more republicans are speaking out strongly for, in support of

robert mueller's investigation going to its end. >> there's no question that trump's cronies in the house are threatening impeachment of rod rosenstein, which is very impactful. and also threatening special counsel. we have republicans in the senate beginning to show some signs of resistance to this consistent concerted campaign against the special counsel. remember this campaign has been ongoing for some time, not just the president calling it a witch-hunt, but also some of his -- i hesitate to say stooges but surrogates in the house saying that it is all made up. we know from the close to 30 indictments and five convictions there's a lot of evidence. >> russians, by the way, they are not just covering for donald trump any more, they are not trump's churmps any more, they

are vladimir putin's useful idiots. this is a russian story that these republican dupes in the house of representatives are covering for vladimir putin. they should get their contributions converted to r rubles now. >> the remarkable thing about this indictment, no way these russias were freelancing. they are military intelligence operatives under orders from vladimir putin. instead of inviting him to this country, he should be indicted in this country. and the people who are cozying up to him are simply aiding and abetting ongoing attack on this country. >> it continues. >> senator blumenthal you say stooges. >> we don't. richard blumenthal, thank you so much. >> i do like putin's poodles.

>> there's a few republicans in the house of representatives who are literally covering up an enemy's attempt to undermine american democracy. think about how remarkable that is. how do you go back to your constituents and say i'm trying to impeach the guy that is running an investigation against our enemies trying to infiltrate american democracy and undermine it. try to put that one on a bumper sticker. >> joe, i really think you're doing an injustice to the dogs of america. >> okay. >> senator, thank you. we'll be watching as you present a resolution today on the press as well. we'll get to that. coming up the trump-cohen drama goes public and getting ugly. we'll bring in a former judge and u.s. attorney from the office now investigating the president's former fixer. we'll be right back. ♪

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republicans. tweeting yesterday morning wow highest poll numbers in the history of the republican party. that includes honest abe lincoln

and rb. there must be something wrong, please recheck that poll and many did check, according to gallop, trump's approval rating among republicans is 88%. at the same point in their presidencies, dwight eisenhower's approval rating was 92% among republicans and george h. w. bush's approval was 93%. four and five points higher than trump's respectively. he needs to heck chcheck his nu. he really needs to search. up next more on the conversation we were just having with senator blumenthal, that the white house had absolutely no plan to reunify the families i want separated at the border. that's next on "morning joe". oh!

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information to locate hundreds of missing parents to reunite them with their children. a federal judge overseeing the court ordered reunification of more than 2,500 migrant children has ordered the administration turn over a list of all parents deemed ineligible for reunification by wednesday. let's bring in msnbc correspondent jacob for more on this. are they going to be able to track down all these families and reunite them >> that's the idea, mika. this thing is almost absurdly far from over. on friday the trump administration basically declared victory saying they had reunited by this court imposed deadline the eligible, what they call eligible 1880 something, 1882 children systematically separated from their parents by the trump administration. the overall number was 2,500 kids. what we learned in court from the trump administration on friday actually went down there and sat in this courtroom to listen to the judge talk to trump administration and watch

them battle it out with the aclu. there were 650 kids, senator blumenthal didn't know the number. 650 is the number of children that the government deemed ineligible to be reunited with their parents and didn't reunite them. the judge stepped in and basically said there are missing parents. he calls them missing parents. go find them. the government was refusing to provide the aclu information, specific detailed information that would help them track down these folks in their home countries including 431 parents who were deported and can't get back to this country to be reunited with their children. this information being handed over by wednesday and track them down. >> jacob, you said 650 the trump administration saying 650 young children are quote ineligible to be reunited with their parents, ineligible on what grounds? how did they define ineligible >> right. that's such a good question.

let me be clear. those children were separated in the exact same way at the exact same places that the kids that were deemed eligible were separated. the only issue with these children is they say some of these parents, 431 of them were already deported. that's it. they just got deported before they could get-together with their children. another small portion of that group has some form of criminal convictions but we don't know why or what kind. they are focused on 120 of these parents, who they say waived the right to reunification with their kids. but it's sort of a hard argument to buy because we know from affidavits filed in court many of those parents said i actually signed those forms in error to give up my children, i didn't understand them. they were different languages. >> jacob, are these judges raking these government bureaucrats over the coals? i can't imagine any judge with a thousand kids missing, 650,

however many it is right now, i can't imagine any judge rake, not raking these bureaucrats over the coals and demanding that they provide answers. are they doing that? >> of course. the bottom line a plan for reunification if it wasn't for this judge down in the southern district here in california. he said very clearly on friday, there never was a plan. these were like a bunch of different stove pipes, doj, hhs, the department of homeland security that never even talked to each other. he said, look, step one is getting the eligible children back together. step two is you guys basically finding the parents you said were ineligible and we're going to reunite, even if i, the judge, didn't tell you to do this and come up with an actual plan to do this. and, step three, that this never happens again. all of these agencies you would think would talk to each other, all federal government agencies involved in the care of migrant children at the border, would talk to each other and they're not talking to each other. he said this can never happen

again, was basically his parting thoughts in court on friday. >> jacob, thank you very much. pbs's "front line" is taking a closer look at the crisis with a new special entitled "separated children at the border." here is a clip featuring an interview with former acting director of i.c.e. >> when you heard the tape, the pro publica published of the children waling, what was your reaction? >> i didn't hear the tape. >> come on. >> i did not hear the tape. i've heard many children cry in my 34 years. i don't need to hear. >> can i play it for you? >> yes. >> it is a young girl who asked to call her aunt, she has the number memorized. how can you not condemn that? >> look, i've seen a lot of terrible things in my 34 years. what we have to address the border. >> do you not sympathize -- >> absolutely. i'm a parent. it is sad, but when a government chooses to enforce the law and

they separate the parents being prosecuted, just like every u.s. citizen, person in this country is separated when they're arrested, people want a different set of rules for an illegal alien. >> and "frontline" correspondent martin smith joins us now. martin, obviously quite an interview. what else did you find out from the former director of i.c.e.? >> well, look, he takes a very simple approach to this. it was abundantly clear after talking to him that he sees this as a simple case of there's a law about how you legally enter the country and he's going to enforce it. and the president has accepted that kind of approach to this. you know, if you want to have a humane process of deciding who can come and who deserves to come, who is fleeing violence and needs asylum, you have to have judges. you have to have a robust asylum

process. the president says he doesn't want judges. well, that's what judges are for. >> right. >> to judge whether or not somebody -- has a decent case to make. so holman says enforce the law. >> did you sense from him and do you sense from other i.c.e. officials and other people who tried to tackle this issue a frustration, a belief that you hear out of this administration that people in the past have brought children up with them to make their passage into the united states easier? >> you know, he didn't -- he didn't harp on that, and i have heard that from some. but, look, you know, i went down to salvador for the making of this documentary, and my producer was covering this for the last year, was in mexico, guatemala, el salvador. these people are fleeing violence and these children and their mothers or fathers need to get out of the situations

they're in. they're not just looking to make this easy to get in. >> what's the fate of these children, especially if they can't be reunited with their families, which it sounds like is a legitimate possibility for a good number of them, what will happen to them? what do we even know of their status right now, how they're doing? >> well, it is an excellent question, mika. we don't know. we don't know what's going to happen. we talked to one man who was put on a plane back to salvador. his daughter had been separated from him at the border. he was told that she -- if he agreed to be deported, she would be reunited. eventually she was reunited with him. but there are others who went back under the pretense that if they agreed to be deported they would get their child back, which is really a violation of their right to file a claim for asylum and have a court hearing, due process. but in any way, you know, some of -- like was mentioned by

jacob, there are people that speak a native language in guatemala who were asked to sign a form in english. they didn't know what they were getting into. there were some that were illiterate. but these are people that have legitimate claims from what i saw, not by and large criminals as is -- as they are described. >> martin smith, thank you so much. the new "frontline" documentary, "separated children at the border" premieres tomorrow night on pbs. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thanks so much. so let's talk about the politics of i.c.e. they will be talking to the director on the hill. right now it seems most democrats are trying to distance themselves from comments others have suggested that i.c.e. be abolished. >> yeah. i mean, look, that tape, that interview is -- many democrats, certainly the base of the party,

that kind of comment, the chilling tone of, well, you know, this is sad but, you know, these pembroke the law. >> right. >> that's going to fuel this debate for democrats, especially those thinking of running for president in 2020. you have kristin gillibrand now, elizabeth warren on the strong "we must abolish i.c.e." front. we have people like kamala harris who say we have to fix it. fixing i.c.e. is the easy position. in the democratic party where there's so much energy on the far left in the base -- >> but if you abolish i.c.e., what replaces it? >> for the moment all i want to say is that the political dynamic is going to pull democrats to the left. you have a couple of big voices saying "we must abolish it." it will become a litmus test. if you want to run for president, you have to say you will abolish it or radically reform it. >> still ahead on "morning joe", we will bring in a former

prosecutor who has sharp advice for the president's former fixer, michael cohen, and a retired judge who says some members of congress need to be investigated for trying to intimidate the deputy attorney general. plus, democratic congressman of eric swalwell. "morning joe" is coming right back. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good. lactaid. the real milk that doesn't mess with you. and for chocolate lovers, try rich, creamy lactaid chocolate milk. happy anniversary dinner, darlin'. can this much love be cleaned by a little bit of dawn ultra? oh yeah one bottle has the grease cleaning power of three bottles of this other liquid. a drop of dawn and grease is gone.

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man: we hold these truths to be self-evident. woman: that all of us are created equal. woman: until we became one nation under trump. man: these truths are self-evident. woman: brett kavanaugh on the supreme court endangers protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. woman: puts a woman's right to choose gravely at risk. man: and threatens to continue selling out america to powerful corporate interests. woman: we hold these truths to be self-evident. man: and we will hold our senators accountable. end citizens united is responsible for the content of this advertising. i mean why is obama campaigning? he ought to be out working. he ought to be out --

but every time i look at him he's campaigning. >> wow. president trump is -- >> i'll go six or seven days a week when we're -- i'll go six or seven days a week when we're 60 days out, and i will be campaigning for all of these great people that do have a difficult race, and we think we're going to bring them over the line. >> wow. president trump is known to contradict himself while on the campaign -- >> is he really? is he really? never happens. >> i wouldn't -- >> that's hateful you would say that. >> yes. this time he is contradicting himself being on the campaign trail. >> okay. >> the midterm vote is 99 days away. while the president is not on the ballot, his presidency certainly is. good morning, everyone. welcome to "morning joe." >> 99 days away. >> oh, that's so -- how did that happen? >> well, i mean -- >> this has gone so quickly.

>> i would think you would want it to be 99 days. >> closer to this being over. >> nine days away would be great. >> please end it. >> 99 bottles of beer on the wall. >> something like that. >> let me ask you, because obviously 100th day yesterday, people were talking about it. what is the state of play right now? there's always a back and forth and there will be more back and forth as we move forward, but where do the democrats, where do the republicans stand in terms of confidence on whether trump's going to be stopped or whether everything he's done the first two years are going to be validated? >> i think if you looked over the course of this year, people broadly think democrats are likely to retake control of the house. still kind of a coin toss in the senate. about a month ago you heard republicans getting sort of this surge about optimism that maybe they could hold on, that the economic news and some other things, and trump not having created, at least by his standards, too much chaos for them that things were swinging a little bit back in republican's

direction, and then helsinki happened. >> yep. >> the separation of families on the border happened, other things that blotted out all of the things that republicans want to talk about. they all came to the forefront, and now today democrats incredibly, incredibly confident and optimistic and republicans privately back to pessimism and thinking the house is probably gone and we maybe are going to hold on to the senate, but the blue wave feels stronger than 30 days ago. >> think of the three things that happened in the past 30 days. first of all, south korea has gone south. secretary of state pompeo admitting that the north korean's haven't slowed down and in fact may be creating more secret sites to build nuclear weapons. that north korea deal went down the drain. john already talked about helsinki. and lying over all of this, and i know it is something you will relate to very much, after katrina there were so many evangelicals who i went to

church with that we were, you know, we would do daily relieves after katrina over to mississippi and louisiana and they were shattered. their faith in george w. bush was shattered by what they saw on the ground in mississippi and louisiana, that nothing was being done. the question is where are the children that mika has repeated over and over again. i'm hearing from evangelicals that have supported him, this is not who we are. >> well, and you can hear about the russia investigation constantly, but in my opinion that's not going to move voters. but my mom, my sister-in-law, they voted for trump. they to not like these babies who are separated from their parents, and that's a story that is just an albatross, as it should be. >> right. >> i mean torturing children on the border of our great nation and it is something that donald trump can't run away from. >> but they can -- they can vote

according to their pocketbooks, steve ratner, and for that many are doing, you would say, pretty well. >> well, i mean in fact john jr. said -- >> not everybody. >> john jr. said, then i've heard other people say this too, that barack obama never even got above 2 percentage points for one quarter. isn't that amazing? and donald trump got 4.1. i mean never. >> we're going to do a little fact check on that, but the fact is that obama got about 4% i think in three-quarters. but, look, the tax cut is still incredibly unpopular. only a minority of americans support it, and there's a story on the front page of "the times" today about how republicans are not even campaigning on it. john will know more about this than i do, but i think there are 42 open republican seats right now, not running for election. you know how hard it is to flip an incumbent so these are open seats democrats can take on in the house. >> and you have dana rohrbacker

running, too, and if he would stop speaking russia maybe the republicans could hold down that seat, too. devin nunes putting a hammer and sickle in the o of the gop which is distracting. you know, it is interesting. we always say that people vote their pocketbooks, and been saying this for a very long time, that they don't in off-year elections. we'll see what the 4.1 is in the third quarter. most economists say it is going to go back down significantly. but we shall see. but, you know, in '94 becoill clinton had a great economy but he was seen as out of touch with the mainstream of america, and there was a massive republican title wave. 2006 the economy was going pretty darn well, but, again, it was post katrina. it was in the middle of iraq. nancy pelosi became speaker of the house. people don't always vote their pocketbook in mid-term elections. often they vote in reaction to what they've seen in the past

two years on cultural issues or even a leadership style. >> yeah. and the political science on this is always pretty clear, which is it is a base-motivated election. the economy i think is pretty safe to say is much more a driver in a presidential year. my own view with no evidence whatever -- so nothing new there -- is that the approval rating, the trump job approval rating probably has seven or eight points, maybe even a little bit more, of what i think of as 401(k) trump pers rigers . i think there are people looking at their statement, people on the right side of the economic equation anyway. they see their numbers going up for all sorts of reasons, and so they're willing to not really dive in to this russian novel story no one can quite figure out, and they're willing to

suspend their -- bizarrely in my view, but they are willing to suspend their ordinary moral judgments about how this president conducts himself and is now representing us on the world stage. but i would not, if i were in the white house, count on that lasting until 2020. >> we'll see. joe, your latest column in "the washington post" speaks to this. it is entitled "trump finally feels gravity's unforgiving pull." and reads in part. trump's stunning victory created such disorienting shock waves across washington that neither the democrats or the republicans understood what the accidental president at mighted. he said in december of 2016, everything came together at once. the resulting political horror show produced daily by trump has left journalists and politicians reeling, but failed to alter a

few basic rules of politics. first, presidents with approval ratings in the low 40s lose their majorities in the senate. third, lying about pay-offs to a porn star and a playboy model rarely helps with swing state voters. republicans hoping to save themselves from the political storm that will soon wipe away their congressional majorities would soon -- would be well-served to speak out against trump's most destructive policies which are anti-conservative, ill-liberal and sure to bring doom to the once grand old party. the party could be over. >> no. >> it could be. >> first of all, john, i'm very humbled to have my piece read on the "morning joe." >> well -- >> pride of place. >> it is a good piece. it is what we are talking about. >> your name is "morning joe." this is your show. but "morning joe", that's you. >> my music going as well. >> so it is good that you get

your pieces on your show. >> i also, mika -- >> you have pull with the guys that run the place. >> i have cleaning products to be selling at the half hour. no, that was somebody else. so it does -- it seems that trump's victory was so shocking that -- that i think a lot of pundits, a lot of politicians, i think a lot of republicans have overstated his strength and his magical powers, his gravity-defying political powers. but at the end of the day this man is still a 40% president. show me a 40% president and i will show you a loser. no, no, i'm serious. show me a candidate that has -- by the way, his reelect -- his reelect, according to the latest

nbc marris polls, his reelect in michigan i believe is 28%. in wisconsin, it is 31%. show me a guy with a 30% reelect, i will show you a loser, somebody that loses mid terms and somebody that loses real electio reelection. i think too often people overstate his political strength because they were so shock that he won last time. >> yeah. look, i mean i think the shock is one thing. i think the degree to which his behavior and the ways in which he has departed from republican orthodoxy, various ways in which he has thrown washington into chaos, his fact that his base -- which is not 40%, but 35 or something, the fact those people are immovable even in the face of things people object to so

strenuously causes us to over-focus on the base. barack obama rested on his base, donald trump rested on his base, agent both bases are rock solid. again, 35, you're a loser. even if you get the extra ones that meacham is talking about, you push up to 40%, 41% which is where he is right now, that's historically a disaster. you will be wiped out in the mid terms if everything we hold from history holds true again. >> still ahead on "morning joe", don jr. met with russians at trump tower in 2016. >> yes, he did. >> and the explanation why and who knew about it has changed multiple times. >> it was about adoptions, right? >> no, it wasn't. now a top republican in congress suggests that story may change yet again. we'll talk about that, but first here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> good monday morning. this will be an active weather week once again with flooding concerns and more fire risk and of course all atext is on the carr fire that is just on the border of redding.

already five fatalities including two firefighters. we have seen 500 structures, hundreds of homes have been burned. it was 110 degrees for four straight days last week, it will be about 100 to 105 for much of the upcoming week, no rain in site. the containment, again, less than 10%. it is extremely difficult for these firefighters. imagi imagine being on the front line, the heat from the fire and the heat from this time of year. we have strong thunderstorms out of oklahoma overnight. dallas catching is break, they're weakening just in time. eastern portions of oklahoma and abilene, texas with strong storms. the humidity and the rain is back in the mid atlantic region. these are tropical downpours moving from maryland and delaware. there's a possibility for three inches of rain today alone. potential flooding on the east coast. extreme heat and fire weather on the west, and unfortunately not a lot changes. even into wednesday, there's the heavy rain in the east, hot in

the west. 102, boise on wednesday. finally we end this week just like last week, with all of the wed weather and the flood risk in areas of the southern appalachians, carolinas through the mid add lan titlantic regio. this will be wettest weather in boston, which we have already done. new york city on the northern fringe of the heavy rain this week. maybe an inch or two this week. areas to the south, a lot more. enjoy today, nyc, the sunshine while you have it. you are watching "morning joe." we will be right back. thing sayr like a beach trip, so let's promote our summer travel deal on choicehotels.com like this. surfs up. earn a $50 gift card when you stay just twice this summer. or, badda book. badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com

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told the whole truth about the fact that campaigns look for dirt and if someone offers it you listen to them, nobody is going to be surprised. there are some things in politics that you just take for granted. >> so you don't think this has any long-term impact? he wouldn't be the first politician or president for that matter to maybe misrepresent things and he gets over it? >> well, you know, businessmen listen to almost everyone that might be helpful. >> yeah. >> by the way, they make pragmatic decisions about how to make bad stories go away. >> darrell issa. >> which is why -- >> darrell issa, not my dad, in that case -- first of all, we're going to run the table here because it is so extraordinary. even in my little office as a member of congress, if my -- if somebody came to my chief of staff and said, hey, the russian government or the iranian government has some dirt on your

opponent, my chief of staff would have said, hey, listen, we'll get back to you in a couple of days. what's your name again? what's your phone number, we'll call you back? would immediately call the fbi. would immediately call the fbi. this is not a close call. anybody out there thinking that if you listen -- if that's what darrell issa thinks, holy cow! that is condemning. here they keep moving the goalposts for donald trump. they're lying about donald trump, donald trump didn't know. okay, now if donald trump knew, what's the big deal? no, nobody does this. nobody has ever done this. nobody has ever done this that i know of, has gotten dirt on an opponent from a sworn enemy, russia, iran, you name it. >> never seen it in now almost unfortunately 30 years i've been doing this and covering republicans and democrats in the presidential races and other races. the thing i want to say about

darrell issa though that just goes to the real -- the thing he is saying here, which is that republicans aren't going to pay the price if it turns out donald trump is lying, i want to say it just like actions speak a lot louder than words. darrell issa is retiring from congress. >> uh-huh. >> right. so he can spin a rosie scenario for how republicans are not going to pay any price for donald trump's behavior, but it seems like on the basis of his own political calculations of what was going to happen in his district, he may have had a different view about what the blood bath is going to look like this fall. >> and donald trump has already lied, steve ratner, about russian agents coming to his office. donald trump has already masterminded the coverup on air force one where he lied and said that the meeting was about adoption, which, by the way, we saw over the weekend an attorney, a prosecutor say this is perfect to show the guilt, the conscious guilt at the time that something big happened in that room because you wouldn't lie about it if it was innocent.

>> sure. but, look, i think one of the problems we have here a little bit is it is a bit of a he said/she said. guilliani was on one of the shows basically saying there are five people that will say donald trump didn't know about the russia meeting up against michael cohen. you know, i was working in washington for "the new york times" in the summer of 1974 and i was watching all of this, and meachem can contradict me, but in my recollection the tapes were the defining moment because you heard him on tape saying this. now, maybe michael cohen has tapes that are equally condemning, but we haven't quite seen them. he has been able to wiggle and twist and worm his way out of every box people tried to put him insofar. >> but at least for darrell issa, what's the end game of saying something like that? it is obviously something you wouldn't want to support, the president lying about a meeting. >> lobbying money. >> with russian agents. >> their own personal self-interests constantly. that's all we see on display consistently among republicans who are choosing to prop up

these lies and to devalue truth and factual accuracy in the american public. it is really disgusting. i can't believe that we're at the phase where, you know, the $12 billion bailout for agriculture because of a dumb policy decision and all of these so-called fiscal conservatives can just get behind it because they're going with trump no matter what. we're just seeing where people do not stand for much except the ideology of power. >> think about that really quickly. again, ron johnson -- i can't believe i'm quoting ron johnson given the fact he has backed down to donald trump time and time again. but ron johnson correctly said it is soviet-era-style economics where you first of all adopt a stalin five-year foreign policy. the five-year plan, right? and you have tariffs. you destroy the economy, and then you come in behind it, and

after destroying the economy for these farmers you then prop them up with a $12 billion centralized state pay-off, after, i just got to say, a lot of farmers are already subsidized. like the big farm interests. so this is subsidy on top of subsidy on top of subsidy. >> but we've got to cut the deficit, joe. >> right, thank you. >> there's a lot of serious deficit hawks in washington. >> yeah, absolutely none. >> all right. coming up, rudy guilliani opinion of michael cohen has transformed over the past two months apparently. >> the shape shifter. he's like the next man. >> quite a metamorphosis. apparently so have cohen's opinions of the president. what it all means for the next significant stages in the russia probe straight ahead on "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." president trump's lawyer, rudy guilliani, is dismissing michael cohen's claim that donald trump as a candidate knew in advance of the june 2016 trump tower

meeting with russians. just over two months ago on may 6th, guilliani described cohen as an honest, honorable lawyer who, quote, doesn't have any incriminating evidence about the president. >> all right. so let's stop right there. can we keep it up for a second? so rudy guilliani, honest -- >> what to we do with this character? >> if you are going to have somebody be your personal lawyer for 20 years or so, i guess it had been 20 years already. i don't know how long it was. >> not quite that long, but yeah, a while. >> still, you want a guy around you who is honest and honorable, so it makes sense that rudy would -- and trump would say that cohen is an honest lawyer. >> of course. >> he's your fixer. you don't want a scum bag as your fixer, a guy who is honest enough you can relax. >> and loyal. >> and loyal. >> fast forward to yesterday and here is what guilliani had to say. >> what? >> now i listened unfortunately, fortunately for my client's point of view, to many, many hours of tapes, and the man is a

pathological manipulator, liar. i didn't know that. i didn't know him well, but i knew nothing bad about michael cohen until all of this started to happen in the last couple of weeks. >> until he stopped covering up for donald trump. >> joining us, former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, now an nbc national security analyst, jeremy bash. also here with us onset, nbc foreign correspondent keir simmons. good to have you both with us today. >> good to be here. >> rudy guilliani has transformed in so many ways and some of it is heartbreaking to watch. >> yes. >> it is just so sad michael cohen isn't a boy scout after all. >> jeremy bash, it seems to be a tale of two cohens here. he was the best of fixers, he was the worst of fixers. >> that's right, joe. look, i do think that this claim by michael cohen, we don't know yet whether it is verified that donald trump knew in advance about the meeting in trump

tower, that he approved it and that he welcomed the support from the russian government delegation. that is potentially the most significant development in the whole russia investigation, and the reason is because up until now basically donald trump has been able to say, you know, i don't know what my son, i don't know what people on my campaign have been doing, i had nothing to do with it. but if michael cohen, the person who knows every single detail about the trump organization, about their business, about their business dealings in russia, if he can say or provide testimony to bob mueller's team that, in fact, donald trump was briefed about this, he welcomed this, he knew it was the russian government delegation, think it undermines almost every other claim donald trump has made about the russia investigation. >> donald trump knew enough about the meeting to get everybody on board air force one and concoct a lie about it, but you have done a deep dive into people who were at the meeting. >> yeah. >> you talked to some -- >> i know them. thanks for the dickens

reference, by the way. look, it is close to the kremlin. for example, i can tell you that the billionaire behind the meeting was on vacation with the spokesman for president putin just last week. so they're pictured together with his wife. so i mean the whole russian hierarchy if you like, the top of that establishment is like this. >> is like london, everybody knows everybody. >> yeah, us british guys, russian guys, same kind of deal. i think one of the interesting insights in all of this is that what we are talking about is the behavior of obscenely rich people. >> right. >> this is how they behave. so the russian oligarchs, they treat people like pawns. that's what many rich people do. they believe everything they say if they say it is right. that's what obscenely rich people do. and their children, their entitled children, they empower

them to go and try to make the same kind of success. so in a sense, if you step back the real connection is about how very, very rich people behave and how they behave towards each other and treat the world. >> coming up on "morning joe", our next guest is accustomed to judging things and he calls the push in congress against rod rosenstein a, quote, baseless, shameful campaign. a former u.s. district judge for the southern district of new york joins us straight ahead on "morning joe." [music playing] (vo) from the beginning,

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i would ask the special counsel to put out his report and show us what he's got. you know, show your hand. it is long enough now, the country's been -- >> the final report or -- >> the final, get it over with. make a case to the justice department you have to continue to investigate. the obstruction thing is crazy. he had a right to fire comey.

that's what it is all about. he had a right to say to comey, give flynn a break. there's no investigation at the time. not only that, he didn't tell him don't investigate him, don't prosecute him. he asked him to exercise his prosecutorial discretion because he was a good man with a great war record. i've been asked that many times, take the man's life into consideration, either go easy on him or this time you can pass on him. you do sometimes. >> how about trying to create a new crime. no collusion. now we have obstruction by tweet. whoa. i don't think the congress -- >> tweet. >> yeah, obstruction happens this way. hey -- or there's a gun. it doesn't happen by -- he has 80 million followers. >> a lot. >> sitting here looking at the federal code, trying to find collusion as a crime. >> it is not. >> collusion is not a crime. everything that's been released so far shows the president to be

absolutely innocent. he didn't to anything wrong. >> what is that? that's -- what is that, federal prosecution for fools? >> yeah. >> of course, rudy doesn't talk about how the president of the united states. >> debasing himself. >> -- kept out of the oval office and told the russian foreign minister and russia's ambassador to the united states, i fired the fbi to get pressure off of us, he's a nut case, wouldn't drop -- wouldn't drop the russian investigation. time and again, there's evidence that he was pressuring comey to drop the russia investigation, and when he didn't trump admitted he fired him because of it. >> it is really hard to know where to begin when you watch something like that. >> i wonder what's hard -- who believes that? >> well, it seems like -- didn't seem like anybody was questioning him. >> go to the google machine, and you see that everything he said is just foolish. >> yeah. >> and actually doesn't line up with what actually happened.

>> joining us, former assistant united states attorney in the criminal division of new york. and member of the house judiciary and intelligence committee democratic congressman eric swalwell of california. good to have you all. >> thank you, guys for being here. judge, let me start with you. how do you even begin to try to figure out what rudy guilliani is saying there, when he's a former u.s. prosecutor like you, understands -- >> my successor. >> yes. understands that investigations have to run their proper course, and you just can't shut down an investigation after actually the united states government's figured out that the russian government was actively trying to undermine our democracy. >> i think it would be a crime to shut down this investigation

early, and that people seriously try to make that argument makes absolutely no sense. there's an awful lot of material here that has to be coordinated, and the idea that you would cut it down early or the idea that you can dismiss the conversation that the president had with jim comey so cavalierly, it has all of the hallmarks of a criminal case. >> yeah. >> get the witnesses out of the room, and then the president doesn't say i was just trying to help a friend. he said, it didn't happen. >> judge martin, you have a column in "the washington post" entitled, the baseless, shameful campaign to discredit rod rosenstein. in it you write in part this. the claim that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein or anyone else involved in the fisa application the something inappropriate is wrong. while freedom caucus members call for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate rosenstein, it mayer more appropriate to appoint a special prosecutor to

investigate an attempt to corruptly obstruct justice by members of congress who so obviously use their office to intimidate the deputy attorney general and to undermine the credibility of special counsel robert mueller's investigation. >> judge, you have republicans in the united states senate who agree with you, that the fisa judges, the republican-appointed fisa judges, did the right thing. >> and anybody who looks at that warrant application, reliability is the key. what does it say? this man has provided reliable information in the past. you've got an informant like that and he's not somebody with a criminal motive or any obvious motive. another interesting thing is that in the second -- in the first renewal application, they put in there that steele became so upset when comey went -- put out the letter saying they're reinvestigating hillary clinton that he went public.

so it was very clear that steele was somebody who was very interested in hillary clinton succeeding. >> so, congressman, i will ask you what i asked senator blumenthal before. do you look at the republicans in the senate, people like richard bure, head of the intel committee, chuck grassley, it seems that most republican senators are saying do the right thing, let him continue his investigation until we know all of the facts about how the russians tried to disrupt american democracy in 2016? >> they're giving us hope they have the bipartisan legislation to protect bob mueller. they should bring it to a vote immediately. i think it is really unacceptable that mitch mcconnell won't, but also their investigation is our last chance to fully understand what the russians did. you know, bob mueller can only tell the world what he can prove beyond a reasonable toubt. there's a lot of other things we can learn to protect our ballot

box you may not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that congressional should have been able to prove. we should put it in the hands of experts and elders to tell you how we are so vulnerable, who worked with the russians and what the government response was. we have 200 members of congress on board bipartisan, but we need to take it outside of the capital because we don't know what to do if it happens again. >> daniel goldman, you a former ex federal prosecutor, have free advice to offer to michael cohen, which is to shut up. but could he help himself by talking to an extent or why shut up? >> can i as a guy who only practiced law for a couple of years and just practiced insurance defense for the most part answer that question? no, it does no good. >> no good at all? >> why isn't this guy shutting up? >> when we say shut up, it means shut up in public. obviously he should run in and

talk to the southern district. >> that's what i was figuring. >> the only explanation i can glean from this is because he -- who he -- the primary target he would testify against is the president and his sort of surrogate rudy guilliani who are on the attack constantly, that michael cohen i think is trying to burnish his own image in the public. >> he's playing a pr game in the public which really doesn't matter to robert mueller or the prosecutors in the southern district of new york or all of the people who his life is in their hand. >> not only does it not matter, it hurts his cooperation. >> right. >> a prosecutor does not want the evidence in an investigation out there in public for a variety of reasons. first of all, it will make cross-examination easier against michael cohen. but more importantly, other wys necessaries will be able to change their testimony to fit the evidence that they would not have known. >> they can prepare. >> that's why it is not helpful for the prosecution for michael

cohen to be talking. >> judge, he is only undermining his ability to get a good deal from the southern district, right? >> i think they are unhappy with what he's doing certainly, an obviously it will depend on how much good information he can give them and how much corroboration there is for him. >> elise? >> so do you think that members of congress have been obstructing justice in the russia investigation? >> they're stopping justice in the russia investigation. we saw that when we would bring people in like don jr. or michael cohen and ask direct questions about the trump tower meeting and don jr. would refuse to answer. you know you have subpoena power and you don't have to take the rue fu refusal, but each time we would say, make donald trump jr. answer, but they would say, no, we're here under a voluntary scheme, which is what they set up. they protected them at every single stop.

since they ended their investigation we learned about cambridge analytic, about roger stone's extensive contacts and we're learning more and more about michael cohen. these guys are going to learn the hard way in november i'm afraid. >> daniel, we really need to look at this from 30,000 feet because in the past we talked about the house members protecting donald trump. but is it not fair to say that after mueller's last round of indictments a couple of friday go ago where the united states government actually identified russians that were trying to undermine american democracy, that at this point if you are trying to stop mueller's investigation you're not just a dupe for donald trump, you're a dupe for vladimir putin and you are getting in the way of an investigation that's trying to get to the bottom of how the russians tried to undermine american democracy? >> that indictment set forth how the russians went forward, at least in one way to infiltrate

our election. >> right. >> what bob mealer has not ton at any point and i think this is intentional, he has not included any evidence of american involvement in any of what we call collusion. collusion is shorthand for conspiracy to defraud. >> why has he done that? >> for a couple of reasons. one is what we talked about with michael cohen. he doesn't want to let the public or other witness he know what evidence he has. two, i think he wants to wait and make a very measured and complete decision as to whether and what extent americans were involved. so he's going to keep it all confidential because there may be people that aren't charged that should not go -- be named in public or there may be people who will be charged. but he's basically gathering all of the evidence and doing what a professional prosecutor would do. >> right. >> and then he is going to make a final decision as to who is going to be charged and with what, and he's not going to leak anything and he's not going to

let anything out there. but i do think he's going to indict people. i think when that indictment drops it is going to be a bombshell. >> judge, finally, what's next? what do you think is next? >> think dan is right. i think mueller is not going to do anything until he has the whole thing put together, because if you have to put out something devastating to the president, you don't want to put out little pieces one at a time. >> uh-huh. member of the intelligence committee, congressman eric swalwell. former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, daniel goldman. former judge for the southern district of new york, john martin. thank you all. >> thank you all. up next, president trump suggests the media is putting american lives at risk. it is just one of several lines of attack from a weekend war of the tweets. we will run through it briefly next on "morning joe." preparing classic campfire trout. say what? trout. trout. all right. you don't think i need both? why does he have that axe? make summer go right with ford america's best selling brand.

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new laptop with 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes start them off right. with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. save $200 on this dell laptop at office depot officemax. we are off to -- okay, out of the room. so john, really quickly, you sent me something from buzzfeed. all i got to say, it's about time. charles koch has done what i've wanted republican donors to do for a very long time. enough of this nonsense. this is an anti-free trade, anti-immigration, anti-nato, anti-american in many ways, policy, group of policies, that

aren't conservative. like, you know, like i said last week. they're not only anti-conservative, they're ill liberal policies. for libertarians like charles koch, enough's enough. they're actually running ads against republicans in pennsylvania. they're running ads for heidi hide heightcamp. they say they're more willing to strike out against trump's radical big spending policies. >> the koch brothers are at the center of a network of conservative money that's going to spend $4 million in the course of this midterms. they have been basically a partisan group for a long time. what charles koch said in these interviews around their big aspen-based yearly conclave this past weekend was "we made mistakes." >> right. >> it was a mistake for us to be purely partisan. we should be about our ideas and not about party because now our

party's been hijacked by this president who's not really conservative. we're now going to change the direction of our spending and we're going to spend money on people who uphold conservative and libertarian principles. and we're going to try to punish those republicans who have capitulated to the president, particularly on issues like trade, that are not conservative or in line with their philosophy. it's a big, if they follow through on it and make spending decisions consistent with this new line, it will have a big impact. >> for people like you and me who are -- have always been conservative/libertarians. you probably a little more libertarian, be a little more conservative. you sit there and go, wait a second, this is the biggest spending group of republicans since the last time republicans -- >> respective if their spending -- >> listen, biggest spending bills ever. tariffs. trump and republicans picking winners and losers.

and then they have a socialist bill to bail out farmers who are already being bailed out. some huge agricultural companies are already being bailed out. this is socialism. why should charles koch spend his money -- >> right, and go against everything that he always has stood against. you know who is upset though, joe, steve bannon says that yn they should just get in line and they need to get on board and the master political strategist of roy moore's -- >> yes, yeah. >> i think that probably means charles koch is doing something right. >> mike, why -- >> we're off delay -- >> i've always said -- >> careful, loopy. >> why is that only directed at me? >> i've spoken at groups before like club for growth and always told them if you give americans a chance to vote for a real democrat, a republican spending like a democrat, they'll vote for the real democrat every time.

and these are big government republicans. some of these policies are just downright socialist. >> no, you have to do what you do here day after day and keep calling them out on this. the thing for the farmers. even bernie sanders probably looked at that and said, wow, i don't know if i would go that far. >> trump enacts emergency policy to enact tariffs that hurt farmers and then he enacts an emergency policy to blow 12 building more dollars on the first emergency he enacted. that is socialism. you're picking winners and losers and you're picking them badly. >> joe, this is the gas lighting of the american people. he's like president gas light, okay. and this is the problem. you call him a day trader, okay. this is what happens when you govern from news cycle to news cycle. and you don't like the reaction

to the news cycle. so you overreact the other way. >> you know what this reminds me of, this is marie le pen who dumb conservatives in america said, oh, we love her. stupid republicans in america said, oh, we hope she wins. she's a socialist. she's a socialist who happens to be a racist at the same time. that's what they're getting here. they say, oh, well give us two supreme court justices and we will vote for a socialist who adopts vladimir putin -- >> go to loopy. >> you know who also likes her, steve bannon, a big fan of le pen. when you look at what we're talking about here, the spending decisions, is this the first sign of the donor class maybe being a force for positive change in the republican party? >> only if they scare him enough. because all he cares about is -- john, is his own political ambition. john, think about sorting through that tweet storm of

yesterday. but i always look for good news somewhere, okay. so when he was talking about angry dems yesterday, i think, okay, this is a new video game. forget about angry birds. we now go to angry dems. demonizing the other people. but guess what, what happens in 99 days? james carville said something to me the other day. you know who's going to change the narrative in this country, women are. >> i agree with that. fundamental realignment. women are fed up. >> it is -- >> right? >> you know, charles koch, other big republican donors, could literally change tomorrow not by scaring trump but by scaring republicans who have been kowtowing to a guy who has an anti-trade policy, socialist redistribution of income, plans to cover up his tariff policies. those congressmen, congress

women, senators, will be a lot more responsive, won't they? >> and i think that the koch network is a lot more reliable than donald trump. they say they're going to do something and that's usually what they do. donald trump, i mean, you go out on a limb defending his helsinki summit and, you know, with vladimir putin and then the next day he says he forgot, "n" apostrophe "t." >> this has been fascinating. we'll talk about it more tomorrow. that does it for us. no "f" bombs in the 9:00 hour, please. thank you, mika, thank you, joe. good morning, everyone. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today. starting with shut it down. president trump unleashing ago sharp new threat. build me my wall or i'm going to shut down the government. here's his challenge though,