those fake accounts at the they have taken down. apparently linked to the kremlin. this is the first -- the why it matters. this is the first time a social platform has said there was a coordinated campaign to hack 2018 already. >> all right, mike allen, live in washington, d.c. >> thanks, mike. >> we'll read axios in just a bit. you can sign up for the news letter. >> that does it for us on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning. >> see that. >> yeah. >> no, i can't start the show once? >> i was reaching back to get something important. >> it's wednesday, august 1st the. >> juicy news here. >> i did. >> oh, my gosh. >> i'm here every day. you can see springsteen on broadway. or andrea. >> yes.

with us, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. nick compesorri. and -- >> you woke up late this morning. >> and nbc news. a round of applause, please. chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell. [ applause ] >> is that for the nats over the mets? >> oh, you got that in. >> sorry about your mets. >> thank you, guys. good job. i'm wide awake now. and also with us capitol hill correspondent, and host of kasie/dc. >> congratulations, andrea. >> she's up 4 hours a day. it's all about coffee. since you told that to "instyle" i think about it all the time. all the shots. the espresso shots.

>> let's hope it's healthy. >> it must be. after hearing the news this morning. a revealing admission from the government. health and human services had warned the trump administration that separating kids from their families would be dangerous to the children. the president did it any way. so he did it knowing exactly what would happen. he also continues to tell supporters that the free press is the enemy of the people. and as you can hear, the results are chilling. it's getting bad out there. paul manafort also back in court this morning. after prosecutors kicked off their case against him. we'll have the latest on that. >> boy, i just -- andrea, i'll talk to you and mike, who -- have been around a little bit. through difficult times. in covering difficult stories. watching whether donald trump goes to the vfw and the press,

he points at the press, and whips the crowd into a frenzy to boo at the press there. whether he whips the crowd into a frenzy to boo and take the free press in tampa. this is part of his shtick. but let's just say it. this is what autocrats do. this is what autocrats do because they hate anybody that's fact-based. and that holds them to pow ore. people that don't want their power checked. do exactly what donald trump does to the free press. >> i -- i -- i have covered seven american presidents in all these years. and none of them have liked the press. they have always -- it's been adversarial. there's been tensions. but they welcomed it and tolerated it. even during the worst of times. we went through impeachment. and lord knows -- bill clinton did not love the press. but we have only had three white house press briefings in the entire month of july. that is extraordinary. >> it is. >> and the quality of those

briefings are limited. >> and mike barnicle, it's not just republicans that don't like the press. as andrea said, bill clinton loathed the press. >> he really -- it -- >> barack obama had very little use for the press. always thought they got it wrong. that's what presidents do. they just -- like the geico commercial. the guy scores the soccer goal, he's on his knees around the stadium. that's what they do. what presidents do, they hate the press. they can't stand the pres. but they don't try to whip their audiences into a frenzy to hate the press. and point fingers. and do what donald trump is doing. >> well, i mean, he has effectively changed the culture around coverage of his presidency. and you saw it vividly last night on display again in florida. we have seen it every time. it's worked for him.

the upsetting factor is that you see the pictures on tv. specifically last night's pictures. from florida. and, this is an administration and a president who has presided over effectively orphaned over 700 children today. who don't know where their parents are. they're here in the united states. because they were separated from their parents. the crowd obviously cares less about that than they do about haranguing the media. >> they also care less about the fact that donald trump is -- is coordinating foreign policy with vladimir putin, an exkgb spy. it's an excellent distraction. blame the press for all the things you're doing. >> that is the ultimate mystery to me. it includes the republican party, the house and the senate, how sit that we have had effectively war declared in the united states of america by russia. war declared on us.

carried out. an act of war carried out on us. and they seem not to care about that. that is the huge mystery. >> you used the right word. the strategy. not a reaction to one store i have. the strategy. to undermine the source. so anything negative you hear about him, you're not to believe because, consider the source. i won't go there this morning. some of the pictures we saw last night. this does not end well. >> it does not end well. and i think the publisher of "the new york times". >> a.g. salsburger. >> he said this ends in violence. as e he continues to whip people into a frenzy. donald trump is doing it again, because, you -- you don't look at what happened in helsinki. you don't ask if you're in the crowd, what did they say behind closed doors? you don't ask why he suddenly listed sanctions against an oligarch. you don't ask why he shift sod

abruptly on our position towards iran. what went on in that meeting? that's what's so troubling about this. sit all a strategy. it's like rudy giuliani bumbling around on tv. they know now, more really, really bad news is coming. it sews that donald trump lied about everything involving that meeting. where -- they were conspiring with the russians. not colluding. that's not -- let's not use the word colluding. they were conspiring. it was a conspiracy. no collusion? okay. no collusion. a conspiracy. criminal, possibly. but he distracts the people in the crowd. calls it fake news. and hopes he can get away with crimes. >> and because of what he said about the press and bob mueller when those stories and reports do come out, he'll be able to say to the people, consider the source. these are the people that visit out for us. we'll get to a lot of those

moments from last night's tampa rally in a minute. first, president trump created more confusion about whether he'll try to avoid a government shutdown over his bid to secure money for the border wall. the president has privately told aides he was committed to keeping the government open. telling him he recognizes the political cost of a shutdown before the november elections. yesterday, he escalated his public threats of a shutdown, taking to twitter to warn this pip don't care what the political ramifications are. >> oh, boy. >> our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades. and there is no way that the democrats will allow it to be fixed -- >> can i stop you. our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades. i'm sorry. i mean, call it fake news if you want. but donald trump's own administration has records on your internet google machine

that show, willie, that immigration, back into mexico. we had a negative net flow in the final years of the obama administration. more immigrants were going back to mexico than coming to the united states. so, again, everything is littered with lies. it's -- it's just preposterous. >> and he overstates again the criminality of the people coming through. he went on, there's no way the democrats will allow to be fixed without a government shutdown. border security is national security. and national security is the long-term viability of our country. a government shutdown, he says, is a very small price to pay for a safe and prosperous america. the president reiterated that threat in his rally in florida last fight. >> we're going to have tremendous border security that will include the wall. that will include the wall. a lot of people don't know it. but we have already started the wall. we got $h 1.6 billion.

and we've started large portions of the wall. but we're going to need, even the way we negotiate. we're going to need more. we're going to get more. and we may have to do some pretty drastic things. but we're going to get it. >> i think you have already done enough drastic things. especially separating the kids from their families. leaving hundreds of kids when they're ever going see their families again. probably abusing them. i would define that as child abuse. i wonder about the legal ramifications of abusing children. >> the reports of 9 and 10-year-old kids struggling -- zh still waiting. still waiting. not knowing when they'll ever see their families again. i don't think that is how you treat children. >> there's another claim that the democrats want ms-13 to run the country. again, of all the people that come here, immigrate here illegally, donald trump's own government statistics show, go on the google machine, if you

don't have one, go to your neighbor's house, they got a google machine. and that google machine, they'll help you type the words in if you don't know how to spell 'em. that google machine will show that of all the people that came here illegally, something like 0.03% were gang members. it's -- it's -- it's -- you can't round it up to 1% even. and those lies. who believes those lies? we have to start saying this. who is stupid enough -- who is dumb enough to believe lies that can be disproven within 30 seconds of a google search? >> people who want to believe those things. we see the elements of classic strong arm politics. the attacks on the press. we're also seeing the appeal to the danger of minority groups that there are shadow we forces

that are undermining our country, right? people coming from outside the country to change the culture. you see that time and time again. the mystery is always ugly. it always ends badly. now we have it in the united states. >> kasie hunt, the numbers are showing shifts. is there anybody in congress at this point. >> people are driving their cars. it's donald trump's disapproval rating. 58% ditz approve. >> democrats are looking good. >> 51% democratic candidates. 39% republican. that will get worse with every threat of a shutdown. >> republicans were feeling better earlier this summer the. there were a couple of weeks where they thought, okay, things seem to be moving in our direction. that has evaporated in the most recent weeks in the polls that you're seeing. and, there's an increasing sense of, i wouldn't go all the way to

despair but of kind of throwing their hands up in the air. the shoutdown talk. it's -- he says one thing one day, one thing the next day. the people i talk to, they say who the hell knows what he'll do? we're trying to convince him not to go down this path. it could send our whatever slim chances we have of holding on to the house, potentially put the senate, which they had been confident about, at risk. but, at the end of the day, this president, the way he makes decision, you know, a lot of times, members of the congressional gop don't understand he doesn't seem to understand the connection between what they do for him and what he's doing every day in office. >> so, his numbers were higher, willie. donald trump was getting to mid 40s in the middle of the summer. then you had the missing children. children ripped from their mother's arms. >> we call them missing. we're not aloud to see them. i don't e know where they are. can we account for them all? >> right.

that's an ongroing crisis. number two, putin's poodle. he played putin's pood until helsinki, according to european papers. it shows him to be weak and feckless. and now, possibility number three, a government shutdown. talk about three bad things lining up for republicans over the past couple of months. >> and, by the way, also andrea's rotting about north korea now. despite the grand summit and the agreement they signed together, building ballistic weapons again. we knew they were making nuclear fuel again already. so in terms of foreign policy, we got another window into it last night. he talked about talking to the leader of iran. maybe we'll talk. it's good to talk. as far as you can tell, and nobody is better dialed into the state department and foreign policy community than you are, what is happening from the top in terms of foreign policy? and how is the state department dealing with it? >> it's not just the state department. it's the intelligence age sis. mike pompeo was as close to the

president as anybody could be as cia director. he was briefing him every day. people in the state department were initially encouraged. the fact that john bolton can tell sarah sanders to tweet out an invitation to putin without telling pompeo. mattis, or dan coats. >> my gosh. >> one day, let's talk. the next, it's they'll see the worst consequences. >> by the way he only communicates with dan coats through you. >> on stage. >> on stage. in aspen. >> and pompeo had to go out yesterday, on cnbc, within an hour of the president, or the day before, excuse me, within an hour of the president saying, i'm talk to rouhani and anybody

without preconditions. and pompeo sat down and said, here are the preconditions. one, two, three. as we speak, he's leaving for malays malaysia. >> is there any guess, any guess, in state, anywhere, in the insell the community, as to why donald trump suddenly, after meeting with vladimir putin has done a 180 on iran. one of putin's most strategic allies. and now is saying, i'll meet with him. not from a position of strength. if you have putin's poodles, you would have what? >> it's so -- erratic. that's the problem. there's no consistency. there's no strategy. and, when we -- they're talking about on capitol hill, and we saw it yesterday. the facebook. and, the -- fisphishing. the attempted cyberattacks

against shaheen, mccaskill. on friday, he had less than an hour, his first national security meeting he hosted on defending russian hacking. now, shaheen confirmed it again. that russia is already in our electorate -- our electric grid. in our infrastructure. that's what dan coats was warning about two weeks ago when he said the red lights are blinking. they're finally waking up to the cyberwarning the. the first meeting was last friday. it was less than an hour. >> so russia, iran, north korea, all certainly pivot points in our face. what is the relationship in dealing with this between pompeo, jim mattis, and john bolton? >> john bolton seems to be the outlier. but he's the one listening to

the president. perhaps feeding him information. and going ahead with the tweets and not consulting his other national security cabinet members the way national security advisers are supposed to. i have not seen a national security adviser off to this kind of start since john poindexter. >> wow. >> historians will know how that ended. >> but who's leaking? they all say this is how it's going. la, la, la, la, la. and then, suddenly, the next second, and i don't know if it's bolton. i don't know who sit. you have your sources pip won't ask you. but it's very -- >> it's the president. >> the administration will leak the next second that north e korea is cheating on missile technology. it's like they're undermining the president at every turn. >> the truth is, the intelligence assessments have been -- have not been politicized. you have to give to it pompeo

and now gina haskell and dan coats. they have tried to be as honest as they can. you have the president now going off on his own. it's the erratic nature of the foreign policy. people can't ignore the tweets because he act es on it. >> you know, andrea brought up the facebook story. i wish e we had booked somebody that -- >> that's done some reporting on this. >> and that has shaved. that would be ideal. >> we'll find that person. it might be nick. he's got this scruffy thing going on. >> it's very intentional. >> it's very "miami vice." >> he's the chris pratt of the morning joes. >> am i crockett or tubbs? >> influential. >> so great to be here. >> incredible.

>> thank you, guys. >> i don't know how you do it. i watch you all the time. >> getting back on the train. we'll do our show today. >> really? she's amazing. still ahead on "morning joe" we'll have more on the president's rally last night in tampa. where it seems clear that trump doesn't purchase groceries themselves. >> you know, because sometimes they fingerprint you to get the milk. >> and they make you do the eye scan at the airport. and day two of the trial. >> if you signed up for clear. >> i love clear. they say, you are clear. you are clear. >> it's incredible. >> here's a problem. >> i'm too old. >> if you're over a certain age, your fingerprints are worn out. so they don't work. >> that's us. >> young kid, put your fingerprint in. it's not going to work. then they go, you're too old. >> is that a med tall fact? >> well, of course, willie. as we were escaping turkey in

'73, we did put the acid on there. >> we'll have to tell them to train their people to say, use your eyes, they're beautiful. instead of, you're too old. >> they don't have it at every airport. but when they do, it's beautiful. also, day two of the trial for paul manafort. we'll tell you where the defense is laying the blame. and law professor jonathan turlly will tell us why he's gambling against all odds. plus -- >> can we go back to the picture? doesn't that remind you of somebody? >> i don't know who it could be. >> it's nick after a long time. >> have you seen them in the same place at the same time? coming up, danny cevalos with the three ways rudy giuliani's strategy could hurt trump. >> only three? >> really?

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the trial for the president's former campaign chair took off at lightning speed yesterday. >> you ne what they call that docket? >> what is th? >> the rocket docket. no, they do. >> with the cross-examination in day one, the jury consists of six men, six women, four alternates. they painted paul manafort as a shrewd liar who felt he was above the law as he hid money to evade taxes while living a lavish lifestyle. he denies 18 counts including bank fraud. the defense in the opening statement city roed in on his former business partner, rick gates who was manafort's

co-defendant until he decided to flip. the defense is pinning it all on gates the. >> it's funny. they're pinning it on gates who didn't have a money for a lawyer. you look at the pictures of manafort, it's gates carrying around a backpack. gates carrying all of manafort's stuff in all the picturepicture. it's like his bag man. his boy. and -- they're trying to pin it all on him. he took all the money. >> so the claim is that manafort is on trial, quotes because of one man. rick gates. joining us law professor at george washington university jonathan turley. and legal correspondent danny savelas. >> it's fair to say they don't have a lot to work with from everything we have seen in public. so, i guess, trying to distract

the jury and point to rick gates and say this is all because of this guy, i guess? i guess that's one of the only strategies they have, right? >> yeah, just not very convincing. the -- this guy was -- he was not responsible for the creation of 30 bank accounts. for moving tens of millions of dollars around the world. this is -- i think going to be a very dubious type of defense. etch if you were to convince the jury that rick gates is dirty, he was still your aide. he was still the guy you picked. but, the government is piling on, because, look. most of the jurors have maybe one bank account. when you have 30 around the world, it's very hard to tell a jury that that was not there for surreptitious purposes. in fairness to manafort, the

government is overplaying the class warfare card. they're talking about his opulent lifestyle. including an ostrich jacket. >> what? >> willie geist sporting for years $15,000 ostrich jackets. would you agree, if that's a crime, lock us away. >> i got mine at burlington for $150. >> you paid the full $15,000? >> i did. i go from that -- >> honestly, who does that. >> jump into my paisley smoking jacket. it work well in tandem. jonathan turley, you write many about paul manafort. >> hunter thompson once described the fleeting fortunes of gamblers as blinking todays, dumb beasts, with no hope. paul manafort is about to

discover if he's one of those blinking todays. rather than take a plea, pan fort has taken the gamble of a trial. he is in the worst possible legal position of having to run the tabls by not only beating 18 counts in virginia but then beating 7 counts in a separate trial this washington. while he needs to beat all the charges, special counsel robert mueller needs only one conviction on one count to put manafort away for as much as a decade. that is what it means to play the house. the house usually wins. right now, las vegas would give m manafort about the same odds of acquittal at it would give the baltimore orioles to win the world series. so why hasn't manafort sought a deal with mueller. why? danny? >> good question. he's been holding out for the possibility that he might get a pardon. but also, sometimes you get defendants and clients who just don't see the case the way the

prosecutors do. that can be a very, very dangerous things. i think ultimately, a safe prediction here. manafort will be convicted. he's charged with tax perjury, not tax evasion. this shows me the government needs a win, wants a win, will probably get a win based on the charges. tax the perjury. very light burden to meet. it's something that the government will have very little difficulty show. based on the exhibits we know they'll introduce. and the witnesses we know they'll call. >> kasie hunt, jonathan turley brought up your baltimore orioles. >> that was low. that was low. entirely unnecessary. we're having a bad year. >> i'm a cubs fan. >> they are 42 games behind the boston red sox. >> i don't want to you can that about. >> it's pretty bad. so jonathan, any theory at all? what's your working theory for why paul manafort did not seek a

deal when it was in his best legal interests? his family's best legal interests for him to strike that deal? >> there's a couple of reasons. in fairness to the orioles, the difference between manafort and the orioles is people actually want the orioles to win. the problem with manafort is he doesn't have a friend in this town. i think he's basically concluded that his best strategy is a pardon strategy. i can't imagine he thinks he'll run the table in both of these cities. he's remaining loyal to trump. i think he hopes that a pardon will do what a trial and any other option will not do. that is to wipe the table clean. he's preserving that option. the other possibility is that either mueller doesn't have enough to offer him. that is mueller would have to say, you'll have to plead to nothing. because even one count will put him away for as much as a decade. or manafort doesn't think he has enough to offer as a deliverable. at the end of the day, this

looks a lot like a pardon strategy. >> there does seem to be coordination between manafort's team and rudy giuliani. we find out yesterday or the day before from rudy about the premeeting. f fordon jr. that had to come straight in manafort's lawyers getting a readout on what gates told prosecutors. >> i think so. paul manafort is the biggest fish to go on trial. he's the first one. he knows a lot. he's very vulnerable. the reason he's holding back and gone to trial, i have a theory. this is a man who works for decades for some of the most odious despots around the world. he was investigated previously and always got arn it. beat the odds. he worked in an area of lobbying, foreign lobbying where

enforcement and oversight was pa thetic. i think he thought he could goat around it. he was caught up in his own spin and believed it. now he thinks the pardon will do it. >> let's look at your piece. howgiuliani's free zpln wheeling media strategy could hurt trump. he introduced a premeeting. over the course of the day, proceeded to shoot down his own story. by tend of the night on fox, he said, the meeting never happened. i don't know what you're talking about. how could his strategy hurt donald trump? let us count the ways. >> three major ways he's violated criminal defense attorney 101. there are probably more. but three is a good place. don't adopt wholesale what you client tells you after the first meeting. we have seen this with rudy.

he goes out there armed by what his learning from his qulints. here's the reality. clients always burn their lawyers. they tell them the version they want the world to be. not necessarily the version of what the prosecution thinks the facts are. sometime they tell you a version that is not what the factual facts are. that's a common, common mistake for defense attorneys. the other thing is, don't insult the prosecutors. complain about the burden of proof. criticize the facts. don't call prosecutors corrupt. and most of all, one of the things rudy is blowing here sthat he goes on these shows, and he thinks it's just a chat -- he's just hanging out. he doesn't stay on message. i watch his body language. when ank eers ask him questions, he leens back, twiddles his thumbs. >> it's like he's hanging out at a bar talking. >> exactly. he thinks they're hanging out on set.

he doesn't consider the fact that, oh, there are other people watching. you watch some other attorneys when they come on air. michael avenatti i cited in my column. he stays relent lessly on message. he has bullet points. every answer is scripted. it looks like rudy, by his body language is considering the answers for the first time when they're asked to him. >> isn't it true that the rules don't apply to rudy giuliani. he's more of a publicist. going out. blowing fog into the conversation so people can't find where the truth is. >> i think you're totally on to something. from the beginning, the notion that rudy is going to a warehouse and going through banker's boxes of documents, no. others may be doing it. but not rudy. he says things at the are later inconsistent. if he was familiar with the discovery, i don't think that

would be happening. >> jonathan turley. i'm curious where we are right now. as we go through this process. give us a 30,000-foot snapshot of where you think the mueller investigation is right now. i'm curious. after, as the manafort trial starts. after 20-plus russians have been inditd. after the u.s. government has provided frensive evidence that shows exactly what vladimir putin's gru did, when, where, how, what they did. what key strokes they used. what buildings they were in in russia when they did it, where are you right now on mueller's investigation? and what do you see as the bigger risks if not to donald trump to his associates that were talking if not coordinating with russian agents like -- like roger stone may -- people

believe roger stone may have been coordinating with -- >> a victory in the manafort trial is not a big victory per se. it doesn't mean he's innocent. doesn't mean he shouldn't have been prosecuted. it doesn't say that much about the investigation. in terms of obstruction and collusion, i don't think the ball has moved materially closer to trump. i think the greatest dangers remain, as i've said before, on the margins. on the borders. coming from mcdougal and daniels controversies. the risk that donald trump jr. could be in if anybody supports these accounts. what i'm looking at primarily is not a direct hit on obstruction

or collusion. but whether some of these collateral issues. >> when you say collusion, conspiracy, right? you're talking about, a conspiracy? >> what they need to show for collusion, and maybe mueller has something like this, would be a quid pro quo. any type of wink wink, nod nod agreement with the russians. for example, there might be change of sanctions if they help with the elections. that is the kind of evidence that would materially change this situation. >> right now, your biggest concern if you're in the trump orbit would be with don jr. would you put roger stone in that group? who else do you think would be in that group? who might be in the greatest legal danger? >> i think there's two dangers. one is that the collateral investigations could come close to the white house. i think they move closer. the other great danger is trump's response to something like an investigation or indictment of his son.

that creates a great unpredictability for the -- trump team. as to how he might respond. he could very well respond as a parent instead of a president. he could issue a bunch of firings and pardons. this thing could change and turn on a dime. i think everyone is watching that closely. i think that where i would be looking as a criminal defense attorney is on the edges. >> wow. jonathan turley, thank you so much. danny cevallos, thank you. even in florida i have had a great career. i have had a lot of fun. i've done great. i've done really well. beyond anything i could have ever expected. and then i ran for president with no experience and i won, isn't that interesting? >> more ahead from president trump's rally in florida. we'll be right back. the fact is, there are over ninety-six

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we learn yesterday that the department of health and human services actually warned the trump administration about what separating families crossing the border illegally would do to children. here's what his top hhs official

told senators yesterday in the committee hearing. >> who thinks that the family separation policy has been a success? raise your hand. did anyone -- any member of this panel say to anyone, maybe this isn't such a good idea? commander? >> during the deliberative process over the previous year, we raised a number of concerns. in the program, about any policy which would result in family separation. due to concerns we had about the best interests of the child. >> so, you had officials in the trump administration warning the white house about the concerns they had that this would have a detrimental impact on children. >> let's go will you tthrough t.

the attorney general saying this palsy will send a message. don't come to the country. the policy flies in the face of everything that america's based on. which we'll put aside for a second. the president -- the president himself own this is policy. it's not a law. it's a policy. put out by president trump. you had the dhs secretary doing a press conference saying this policy will send a message. send message to keep people from coming here. and then, you have ivanka trump tweeting, thank you, president trump, for revoking the policy. but now you have thousands of children whose lives have been probably perm nntly marked by this. think about. you have a child, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 16. imagine your child being removed from you. from your life with that child far week. how about a month?

how about that child living in a facility for four months, being asked to clean toilets. being told not the make a lot of noise. not the cry, baz you won't be touched. how about having that child taken away from you and that child sitting there for days, weeks, and months, not knowing if and when he or she will ever see their family again. how about what that mother is going through? physically, actually, sick. not knowing if she'll every hold her child again. imagine that happening to you. because that has happened to people coming to this country seeking asylum. that is happening right now. hundreds of children may never see their families again. and that is this president's policy. this is owned by president trump. melania trump went to the border. and asked these empty questions about when and how these families will be put back

together? reunified. she said she wanted to know. she doesn't care. she's planning christmas at the white house. ivanka trump, thanking her father for revoking the policy while these children's lives hang in the balance? they still wait in the facilities to be reunified. where are the questions? where is the message to america that they -- we'll try to fix this. nobody cares in this white house. they want to turn away from it and pretend it didn't happen. so we ask, where are they? and by the way, why can't we see them? know how many there are? see their faces? when a child is missing, often you put the face on television. these children are missing. we don't know where they are, who they are, and how they'll be reunified with their families. they are missing. and by definition, ask any doctor, ask any child welfare

specialist, ask any psychiatrist, ask yourself, is this abuse? this is abuse? this is abuse. being levied by the trump administration on innocent children. we'll be right back. you're turning onto the street when you barely clip a passing car. minor accident - no big deal, right? wrong. your insurance company is gonna raise your rate after the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen. maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different insurance company.

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coming up, facebook finds more fake accounts that could be trying to influence the upcoming elections. the big question is whether the government is on top of it. plus, president trump is back on the campaign trail, trying to whip up votes and ends up whipping up his supporters into a frenzy against the media. we'll speak with two senators who were in that very revealing judiciary hearing on the family separations. amy klobuchar and shelden whitehouse. "morning joe" is coming right back. top priority. until i held her. i found my tresiba® reason. now i'm doing more to lower my a1c.

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everybody in washington. i know the good ones. i know the bad ones. i know the wonderful people, and i know the scum. >> you know, his neediness, his weakness for having to have positive things said about himself is a bottomless pit. >> it is. it's incredible. >> it's like that scene in one of the avengers movies where dr. strange throws lokey down and he keeps going down and down. it's bottomless. it's sad and pathetic. what's it like going through life needing that much affirmation at every single step, every single step of the way. >> it's very destructive is what it is. that's what we're about to report at the top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, august 1st. still with us -- >> is it august really? >> it's aug.

can you believe it? >> mike barnacle is with us, nick confessore, kasie hunt. joining the conversation former fbi special agent and msnbc contributor clint watts. associate editor of the washington post david ignatius, former chair of the republican national committee michael steele joins us. yay. good to have you all on board. >> willie, it's august. can i talk to willie about august? >> very briefly. >> don't you find that new york city is at its finest, now it's the best in august. i don't know whether new york city or new orleans, louisiana, smells better in august. >> on bourbon street, you get the heat, the asphalt, the bus fumes and the dog urine that's been on the sidewalk now for 11 months is able to seep up and

create a vapor in the air. >> wow. i'm always wondering -- >> next to the piles of trash. >> where willie is going to go with this. >> it's like orson wells said will eat no cow before its time. we will drink no wine -- >> it's the greatest city in the world but it has some summer smell issues that should be addressed. >> mike barnacle, any chance to talk about johnny carson. >> the king. >> i want to talk about johnny carson. >> the king. >> can you believe that americans got to see that guy 90 minutes a night for free for as long as they did? has there ever been anybody -- >> no. >> better on tv than johnny carson? >> no. three decades of sustained excellence at 11:30 each evening. to go back and watch some of the clips from the old carson shows, they're still rel ceevant today. they're still amusing today. >> he is at his funniest, a lot

like letterman when he told a joke that misfired. that was even funnier. he would stare at the audience. >> i'm glad i gave you that time that we can never get back. >> do you know who johnny carson is? also johnny carson's best insight, clint watts -- >> because i don't watch tv. >> this is for politicians as well, you win america in the central time zone. that's what johnny carson believed. so true. >> where i'm from in missouri, everybody watched "the tonight show." that's the standard thing you would watch. >> thank you, everybody. more now on the president's rally last night in tampa, florida, stumping for republican candidates, ron desantes for governor and rick scott running for the senate, although governor scott did not attend. in his comments, trump let loose a stream of false and flogged claims. >> lies actually. >> here is one of them.

it seems clear that trump doesn't purchase groceries himself. >> only american citizens should vote in american elections. which is why the time has come for voter id, like everything else. voter id. you know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. you need id. >> willy, when is the last time somebody asked you for -- >> he doesn't care. >> a retnus scan when you get your milk. >> donald trump pushing a cart through the kroger or stop n shop. >> i'm going to say never been in a grocery store. >> it's possible. >> you want those crackers? i need two forms of ids.

>> going to need to see your passport. are you an american citizen like they're asking on i-95. meanwhile, the president of the united states continued to pit his concerns against journalists. the president continued to attack the reporters. here is what the president said and then the first person viewpoint from cnn's chief white house correspondent. >> fake news. fake news. they are fake. every night it's the same thing. wouldn't you think they get tired of these speeches? wouldn't you think? >> stop lying! tell the truth! tell the truth! >> there we go, right there. it's you.

[ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> clint, first of all, you know, sulzburg is right, his attacks on the free press will lead to violence. >> right. >> you see what happened there. people don't ever want you to compare donald trump to people in the past who used similar tactics to whip up frenzy, so we won't. we can talk about erdogan, this is what erdogan does to the free press. it's not so free anymore. he kills and imprisonens more than any other leader in the world. putin, of course, has always done it. assad is actually now borrowing from donald trump, talking about

fake news. tyrants, autocrats across the world are now stealing notes from donald trump. >> it's highly effective. there's polls out that show how effective this is amongst trump's base. they're repeating lines that the kremlin will also say. we didn't interfere in the election, even if we did, it's no big deal, everybody does it. it's also interesting there, seth rich is brought up again on a sign there. that is a conspiracy that -- >> didn't the russians help push that? >> everybody has tried to push it from the right to the alt-right to the russians who tried pushing this conspiracy that the dnc's e-mail did not come from the hack. we just had an indictment come out from the mueller investigation -- >> did anyone ever apologize for that? i know it's russian propaganda, did hannity ever apologize? >> wikileaks was a big part of that, repeating this conspiracy. those falsehoods.

>> alex, did sean hannity ever apologize to seth rich's mom and dad after he got murdered? >> i don't know if he had a direct apology. he pulled back on the story. we would have to see if he ever actually apologized to the family. i don't know. >> that was russian propaganda pushed seth rich and we saw signs in the audience, even though it's been disproven. >> it's been completely disproven. we have an indictment to show it, most detailed indictment really in terms of cyberattacking. these are propelling an alternative universe people believe falsehoods. >> what kind of person believes lies that could be so easily disproven by going on google? >> it is what i call the preference bubbles and social media nations. i'm going to pick out information that suits the story that i want and that suits my community. so, you know, implicit by us, i want to believe this. my friends want to believe this. we're going to push it. >> i feel angry.

nbc news political reporter ali to answer your question was on the ground at yesterday's rally and she spoke with a woman near the media pen. take a listen. >> another thing the president talks a lot about is the media. he calls it fake news. >> we were just harassing jim -- him. yeah, we don't like him. we don't like him. >> why? >> he's a weasel. he's a weasel. he's just -- he's not even professional. you're professional. maybe he ought to take some tips from you. i've seen it with my own eyes how they lie. i was at the inauguration. i saw -- i was there. so you can't tell me what happened. you can tell the people, but i know what happened there. i was there. i was there for four days. i know there was a lot of people there. they take pictures as we're slowly coming in. and then say, oh, this is all that showed up, you know, stuff like that. you're playing with people's heads. and they're believing it, which

is disturbing. >> you know, for a long time, nick, a lot of people believed that neil armstrong didn't walk on the moon. speaking of johnny carson, it was a sound stage in burbank. facebook has basically been the artery through which so much of this garbage has flowed. facebook bares a disproportionate responsibility for these lies being spread and these communities being built and people being able to glob on to these communities. i don't say that being critical of facebook. that's just the cold hard reality. and you've been doing some research. of course you've been diving deep into facebook for a long time. the russians picked that up in 2016 before some of us did that, hey, if you really want to twist the facts, facebook is the best

megaphone possible. >> look, we've seen here the new media landscape, which is that newspapers and things you see on facebook on obscure websites are treated as equally resourceful or valuable or accurate. there's no monopoly on what's the truth anymore. as george costanza once said, it's not a lie if you believe it. this woman clearly believes we're all in ka hoots to lie about the size of the inauguration. she can go on facebook or twitter and find a profusion of articles that will support her belief and seem reputable and seem accurate. we're in a universe people can pick their facts and people like us aren't trusted by some of those people. >> by the way, let me just say, this is what we really have to start being clear with trump supporters, you're not picking your facts. you're picking your lies. >> yeah. >> you are deciding if it's crowd size or if it's vladimir putin or it's seth rich. you are choosing what lie makes

you feel better getting through the day. >> generally it's not just politics anymore, either. it's public safety. there was a poll in texas that was just done. one in four don't think the benefits of vaccines outweigh the costs. this is another public safety, public manipulation of information. and it fits in with a lot of the conspiracies. >> facebook and twitter and all the other social media components have put them on a level playing field with the new york times. that's what happened. >> at the same time, willie, while facebook is actually profiting off of these lies being spread and democracy being damaged, the new york daily news fires half of its reporters. >> cuts their staff by 50%. i mean the president of the united states over the course of the last three years, then candidate trump, could have shot down a lot of this stuff. he had chances to and hasn't. in many respects they're allowed to grow and flower at an event. nick and i were talking, they saw more than usually these

q-anon signs trump working against the deep state, the pizza gate conspiracies leads to shots fired. it was never squashed by trump's campaign, never squashed from trump's white house so it flowers and grows. >> david ignatius, the lies just continue. and facebook has even allowed a guy whose name i won't even repeat here to talk about first of all a guy who is being sued and should be sued by sandy hook parents who have to run and hide in fear after their 6-year-old children were gunned down in school because of lies that he spreads, this past week he talked about the assassination of robert mueller and appeared, appeared in my opinion at least and a lot of other people's opinions, be calling for the

assassination of robert mueller. why is there even a question whether people like that should be allowed on facebook or not? >> facebook has some very serious thinking to do about how it lets people share information and ideas but also is mindful of the need for safety. the first amendment is tricky. the first amendment allows us to say hateful speech. it's always been true about our country. watching the film from florida, trump in florida, you just sense how many angry people there are in the country. the way trump is stoking that anger and yet i have this feeling, joe, that there's something in trump's tone in this last week that's defensive. all the signs tell us that this angry base just isn't big enough to carry him through the midterms. >> no. >> and he's getting more intense. he's doubling down on some of

these anti-media themes, his nationalist themes. but there are angry people who respond. polls tell us there are not that many of them. we see him backing away from some of his positions on tariffs, on other trade issues, understanding that the country as a whole is an indifferent place. i have to remind myself that that rally in florida as scary as it is not a good snapshot of america right now. >> well, it's not only, michael steele, not a good snapshot of america, it's not a good snapshot of a working majority for donald trump. there's been some rallies where the crowd sizes are not as big. the generic ballot is breaking badly against generic republicans. you could in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 if you had had a democrat that was a demagogue would go out and be a truther because

there were times during '05, '06 something like 45% of democrats believed george w. bush knew about the 9/11 attacks. so there's crazies on both sides. the difference is you have a president of the united states who is promoting the craziest and most dangerous of theories. >> i think it really goes to this idea of justification. you go back and look on the democratic side those who believe george bush was somehow behind some mass conspiracy within the government regarding 9/11 and everything that fell from that. there's this sense of justification. they'll look for any kernel of narrative that justifies that belief, that thought. you see that now also being played out here. and what trump has done very cleverly is given it the cover of fake news. everything falls into that category. it justifies everything and

anything now that they want to say or believe not just about the media but about those who espouse a particular perspective that trump or his supporters do not like. so, it's not a question any longer of just our friends in journalism, but anyone who begins to now espouse this particular narrative that they don't approach or appeal to, that's fake news for them. and you see what's happening, which is really interesting, donald trump also given license and cover to these december pets around the globe picking up this mantra and using it in their nations to suppress and hold back their media and to justify those actions because, again, it doesn't fit their narrative. >> kasie hunt. >> i wanted to pick up on something david ignatius was saying that this isn't something that's spreading, that there are still a lot of good people in government. while that may be true, i was on

the trail and speaking to a senate candidate who shall not be named that had an anecdote that suggests that this perniciousness is really spreading and was relating the tale of a town hall meeting that they held and somebody in the audience put their hand up and said when the president eliminates abc news, cbs news, cnn, nbc news, will you support that? will you be on the president's side? this candidate was so taken aback that this is where the discourse has gotten to. and the fact that this president is not pushing back against it, you remember that moment with john mccain where somebody stood up back in 2008 with a conspiracy theory about barack obama and mccain pushed back hard at that person and said, no, this is not true. this is a conspiracy theory. this president is an american. there is a very sharp difference

between how our politicians before trump dealt with these theories and how we're seeing them evolve in this era. there's a reason why we were set up as a republic and not a direct democracy. the more i talk to republicans the more i realize how much pressure they're under to buy in from what the voters are hearing from president trump and buying from the internet. this fake news strategy the president embarked on is working and showing up across the board. >> it's one thing to hear from the president, willie, and it's what they read on facebook and it is what they watch on some -- you can't say the right wing shows because there's nothing conservative about them, but certain pro-trump shows that will actually have lower thirds calling the investigation into vladimir putin's attack on american democracy, they will label that a witch hunt. >> and to answer your earlier

question in the segment, seth rich's parents say fox has never apologized to them. fox pushed that story for a week across its network, they had the story up, the conspiracy theory story on their website, they did retract it after six days but rich's parents said they never received an apology and they are now suing fox news over the story. let's move to the trial of the president's former campaign chair. it got off to a swift start with jury selection, cross-examination of the first witness in day one. joining outside alexandria, virginia, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delanie. you were inside the courtroom yesterday. what did you learn? >> good morning, willie. i learned that the prosecution painted an astonishing portrait of greed and deceit. they allege that paul manafort committed this massive fraud. we've seen this in documents, but it's another thing all together to see a member of robert mueller's team articulate this before the jury.

they essentially say that manafort was paid $60 million but that wasn't enough for him. he had to stash some $15 million in foreign bank accounts to avoid u.s. taxes. and then in 2014 when viktor yanukovych was sent packing in exile to russia, manafort needed cash, so he began committing bank fraud, overstating his income, defrauding banks, ordering false profit and loss statements for his businesses because what he had were a bunch of valuable properties in new york, hamptons and other places. he needed to extract cash to fund his lavish lifestyle. prosecutors talked about some of the things he bought including a 15,000 ostrich jacket. that was the news of yesterday is what is paul manafort going to say in defense to this massive document case. they're going to blame rick gates, his right hand man who

testified against him. the problem with that, willie, is that the prosecution already filed a massive indictment against manafort and gates before gates flipped. they were prepared to prove this case without gates. their position is we don't have a star witness, we have two dozen witnesses and hundreds of documents. today we're going to hear from an fbi agent who may start walking through some of the allegations against manafort. >> in fact, blaming rick gates and saying he's the one who embezzled millions of dollars himself of money he was supposed to be managing for paul man fort. thanks. david, what's your take away from yesterday's opening round in the manafort trial? >> well, here we go basically. here we are in court. we have to remind ourselves, paul manafort was donald trump's campaign chairman until late august. he was put there by one of trump's closest friends who recommended him to jared kushner and ivanka trump.

and we have to remember the degree of arrogance comes through in this first indictment. there's a second case that's coming after this alexandria case that will deal with the issue of his role as an unregistered foreign agent, but the arrogance about money. paul manafort is a money who spent money like water and was constantly looking for new ways to get more money, looking for places, according to the indictment, to hide it. final thing that i'm struck by with this case is maybe it's obvious but there was no effort on the part of the trump campaign with a guy who had streaming issues of financial and other irregularities, no effort whatsoever to vet him before he became campaign chairman. nobody looked. nobody asked. that's a startling aspect when you think about the trump campaign and how it operated. no questions asked. we'll hear more as the trial goes on about the connections

that manafort had, the issues involving russia and ukraine, but again, nobody asked any questions. >> and i'll tell you in realtime, mika, the kids were so desperate to get cory lewandowski out of there and to get manafort in there -- >> yep. >> that the entire process everything i heard at the time was rushed and, in fact, a statement was put out before trump even came down to his office that morning to back him into a corner, to accept manafort. >> i remember that. >> but trump said time and time again that manafort is the best. i need him to get the delegates. we don't know how to get delegates. he knows how to get them. and people saying that paul manafort played a small role. >> he headed the campaign. >> he headed the campaign at the most crucial point. they were -- there was a growing frustration that they were getting the vote totals but weren't getting the delegates to match up with the vote totals. so trump decided if he wanted to

get over the top and wanted to end this sort of battle with ted cruz and others, he needed to bring in paul manafort. he made the decision. and you know he said manafort helped him get there. he was critical at that phase of campaign. still ahead on "morning joe," administration officials think family detention centers are just like summer camp. would they send their own kids there? that was asked in a hearing yesterday and we'll show you the answer when senator amy klobuchar joins the conversation. we'll also ask her about those facebook developments that we've been discussing. that's all next on "morning joe." break a trip. and at expedia, we don't think you should be rushed into booking one. that's why we created expedia's add-on advantage. now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. ♪ add-on advantage. discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip.

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removed eight facebook pages, 17 facebook profiles and 7 instagram accounts all created between march of 2017 and may of 2018. and first discovered two weeks ago that have engaged in divisive social issues, including white supremacy and the abolish i.c.e. movement. more than 290,000 accounts have followed at least one of those 32 pages or profiles. facebook says it doesn't yet know who is behind the accounts, however, evidence and clues indicate russia may be behind at least some of it. >> nick -- >> explosive on many levels. >> you've been following this for some time. >> i'm struck by two things. first of all, it's the same play book of 2016. it's not even inventing new content. it's finding the extreme polls in american politics and amplifying them. the second thing i'm struck by is that it's facebook telling us

this. it's facebook conducting the counterintelligence. my question for clint here is where are our intelligence agencies and it is unusual or strange that facebook is the one finding and vetting and showing this to congress? >> yeah. russian election interference is the biggest thing in terms of 9/ 9/11. there's no real leadership in the u.s. government for how to go about this. facebook is i actually think doing a great job over the past year of improving their techniques. they have their signatures down. they will hit a wall of unknowns, things they cannot figure out. you notice they said we think it could be linked to russia but did not firmly attribute. who can do that? that's why we have the u.s. intelligence agencies and have the u.s. government. we have not seen a coordinated, organized effort going back to 2015 on what we would do with russian interference. we had a 30 minute meeting last friday.

when i talked to people in the government, they said we're ready to go, but we don't know what to do or we're not being given the mission to pursue it. this needs a task force. there needs to be a task force set up to bring these agencies together. i think lindsey graham talked about in the past few days, why can't we put this together? we have the parts but there is no wheel to really get this thing in motion. >> mike? >> nick, there were so many offensive elements of facebook, people who are on facebook with just offensive messaging. how much is facebook bound in terms of the first amendment in terms of removing that? >> zero. it's a private company. it's a private platform. facebook is a dominant platform for politics right now but a wholly privately owned private garden. so facebook can do what it wants, but the flip side of that is it can do what it wants and it can decide who gets to be on the platform and who doesn't. and the problem they're having still is they can't decide if

they're a platform or a publisher. what they've done is taken the world's biggest op-ed page and allowed anyone to post on it. >> don't they call it a space? >> they call it a space, a platform, a community, a social network. >> so only when they want. >> i see the commercials. >> got it. >> where they're trying to rebrand themselves and puppies. they don't actually put on the parts of facebook where they have somebody calling for the assassination, appearing to call for the assassination of robert mueller. >> because if that happened on facebook -- >> accusing robert mueller of running a child sex ring. i haven't seen that on facebook's cute 30-second ads. if they want to be honest with the american people for once f they're going to put this fillth and garbage on their platform, they need to put it in a 30-second commercial or we'll do it for them.

>> that was my question for nick, what's the argument? what's the argument inside facebook for creating a platform for a person who pushes sandy hook conspiracy theories and forces parents to move seven times because they're harassed by people who follow his conspiracy theories? what's the debate inside facebook about that? >> i think there are two debates, two problems. i think facebook officials are terrified about being cast under regulation and pummelled and rx on the hill for allegedly banning or down voting -- >> this is something else. >> and second, look, facebook is a huge company because it's all automated and scaled. they can't possibly put people in place to look at all the content on facebook and decide if it's good. >> but we're talking about a guy who was "the new york times" today who is facing parents of

sandy hook to move seven times after their children were slaughtered the friday that they were getting off for christmas break in 2012. this is not hard. >> i think they have bought into the idea and sense that they have to balance out conservative opinion and been caught flat footed. i know, joe. they've been caught flat footed by alex jones. the point i'm pointing to is broader. >> that big of a crowd. >> and they can't -- if they get into the business of regulating that content, they are out of business. it kills the golden goose. that is the problem for them. >> let's bring in member of the senate judiciary committee, democrat from minnesota, senator amy klobuchar. you're working on legislation on this given the conversation we've just been having, what can be done? >> well, mika, back in february i was on this show and said the same thing. and that is that we need rules of the road in place and that's

the bill that i have with senator mccain and senator warner that's called the honest ad's act that simply says you have to follow the same rules that tv and radio and print does in that you have to put the ads out there and then you've got to put disclaimers so we know who is paying for them. facebook has voluntarily done that now since the zuckerberg hearings. he said, okay, we'll follow the rules. they've also said they would support our bill. but until then we have gotten no support for the bill and we now suddenly a bunch of the big media companies are saying, you know what, we're now establishing that this foreign entity russia tried to influence our election. they're getting bolder as dan coats said. the red lights are flashing. it's time to protect ourselves before the next election. that is why they discovered these fake accounts that were basically trying to sew more discontent and it wasn't about candidates, it was about issue ads and current law says you've got to put those ads out there so people can see them.

ever since facebook did that, these fake accounts haven't been buying those ads. >> david ignatius, pulling back a little bit and not just talking about the ads, we have discussed here how facebook provides news to more than 50% of americans and asked what if they tried to buy ads or cbs in the 1970s, would the government allow that to happen? would that have been regulated? the person we're talking about today who not only is running a sandy hook conspiracy, he appears to be provoking his viewers and listeners to assassinate robert mueller. if you look at the clip, that's my opinion when you look at that clip. facebook can't regulate that? that's a close call. that's a situation where the

secret service should probably be called if somebody is trying to get thousands and thousands of followers to provoke them to assassinate robert mueller. >> let me take that chemical weapon that senator klobuchar. we were an angry country, people say all kinds of things that sound like incitement to violence. we've been talking this morning incitement of violence against journalists among other things. senator, how do you see the proper role of the federal government in reducing that kind of speech without going over the line, either the specific line or in the case of facebook a desired line to be a community where lots of people can participate. how do you see that working? >> well, you can have programs. if facebook won't do it, other applications will and other sites will and that's where you can have rules of the road about civility. you also of course if someone is trying to incite or threaten or

stalk someone, it can be a violation of criminal statute. when it comes to the president, this is a guy that wakes up every morning and tweets whatever he wants but doesn't respect the amendment that allows him to do it. so, while it may not be illegal for him to go after journalists, i think the president of the united states has an obligation to uphold and embrace our constitution and that means the first amendment and that means setting an example for the rest of the country and that's not what he's doing with how he treats the press and how he treats individual reporters and gets his supporters to call them out. that's not leadership. >> senator, you also questioned officials at yesterday's hearing on family separations. we want to play for viewers these comments from department of homeland security and health and human services officials trying to defend the administration's policy that separated hundreds of children from their parents at the u.s./mexico border, comparing family detention centers to a

summer camp. >> with regard to the frcs, i think the best way to describe them is to be more like a summer camp. these individuals have access to 24/7 food and water. they have educational opportunities. they have recreational opportunities both structured as well as unstructured. there's basketball courts. there's exercise classes. there's soccer fields we put in there. >> would you send your children to these centers, ms. higgins? >> i certainly think that in general practice people would prefer to be free to move about. i can tell you that the centers that i saw did as described have schools and -- >> so you would send your child to these centers? yes? no? >> that's a difficult question to answer. yeah, that's difficult to answer

because you wouldn't send your children there. i'll answer for her. people as you said, in your words, ma'am, you said people would prefer to be free. you don't take children and imprison them and think that a soccer field or a basketball court is going to replace their parents or their family. are you idiots running this country? you seem like child abusers to me. you seem like people who kidnap children and make excuses for holding them indefinitely, deporting their families and then saying it's like a summer camp. this is insane. this is insanity. >> you know, mika, the difference between a summer camp and what they're talking about is you get to go home from a summer camp and see your parents. and right now we have -- because of this coldhearted policy that should never have happened, we have 711 kids, that's 23 classrooms of children, that are waiting to be reunited with their parents. and the kids i talked to at the

border, the little boy who never knew if he would see his mom again but thought she was looking for him who is 10 years old and his mom flees honduras because she's domestically abused, he didn't like being at that alleged summer camp. he wanted to be back with his mom. >> i would think so. >> so senator, let me ask you, 711 children, that's basically 711 amber alerts with these children spread across the country, if you called today to the agency involved here, could they tell you today where each of those children are in terms of location? >> i think they know where the kids are but they don't know where 433 of the kids' parents are because many of them have been deported, they're scared they're going back to countries where there's a lot of violence. so you have a situation where over half of the kids they don't actually know where their parents are. there's one in minnesota where they just found where the

parents are. i cannot tell you the destruction of this policy. in fact, one of the witnesses commander white from health and human services did admit under oath that he had told his superiors about the devastating effect this would have on kids and that's exactly what all the pediatricians and doctors said. yeah, maybe we'll fix this. maybe we'll reunite because of pushing this administration, most of these parents with the kids, but we're literally just cleaning up a mess that they made instead of moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform which our economy needs, which we should be doing for this country, which came through the senate with a very strong vote and yet this president keeps stopping it from happening. >> senator amy klobuchar, thank you very much. >> it was great to be on. >> thank you. please come back especially to talk about this. david ignatius and clint watts, thank you both as well and the depravity, the violence and the callousness of this policy says everything you need to know about this administration. coming up, president trump

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up next, is donald trump colluding with democrats? that's the title of a new op-ed from the the former chairman for the committee responsible for getting democrats elected to the house. steve israel joins us next to explain his theory. i landed. i saw my leg did not look right. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot.

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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. . joining us now from new york, steve israel. he is the author of the novel "big guns." we want to get to your piece in just a moment. i know you are a mets fan. i saw something here. 25-4 they lost last night. >> the 9th inning was pretty good. >> scoreless 9th. let's talk about the piece.

it's interesting as to what is behind the threat for the government shutdown. steve writes in part, is donald trump a savaunt who knows his only path to reelection is to help elect a congressional majority. in 2020 he won't be able to cast down ballot blame in his own party. this president is in desperate search of a foil and what better foil than democrats in control of congress? there is something the wall street journal floated a similar theory that there might be some strange -- >> there is no rational explanation even from an irational president for him to demand a shutdown of a federal government in a mid term election unless he wants to help democrats. here is the experience in which i base this theory. i chair the campaign committee.

october 2013 brutal mid term environment. president obama had been elected in 2012. we were about half way through. the generic ballot was flat lined. i was basically cold calling candidates offering them knife sets if they would agree to run as democrats. then october republicans shutdown the government over the affordable care act. within days i no longer was cold calling candidates. i didn't have enough time to return their calls. the generic ballot preferred democrats by double digits. 80% of voters disapproved of the shutdown. 53% blamed republicans compared to 28% who blamed the president. it shifted the environment. what donald trump is doing right now is he is playing with fire. republicans don't shut down the government in an election year because they know it is fire. they only do it in off years. donald trump says let's shut it

down. why? maybe he wants to elect democrats. maybe he knows shutdowns hurt republicans. he cannot afford to run in 2020 against republicans. he needs a foil. >> are you buying it? >> actually, i am. i am going to take your tongue out of your cheek because i think you spot on. i have been saying this for six to eight months now. he is largely ag nostic as to who controls the house and the senate. the senate is beneficial for supreme court nominees. the president doesn't give a damn about this legislative process. the better foil for him coming out of 2018 is to spend the next 18 months parading against nancy pelosi and setting them up as the narrative for his reelection. so it's not so much about the

party. remember, donald trump is not a republican. we keep acting like donald trump has been a stalwart of the republican party. this is a political convenience for him. he is going to use the party as a political convenience for this election cycle to set up his re-elect should he decide to pursue. the democrats offer the better ballot. >> the president's promise to be on the campaign trail he said six or seven days a week -- >> just to go back to something you mentioned. i would like to thank the mets for pushing down the -- so thank you for that. but congressman, my question for you is what do you think democrats might do to screw up their chances in the mid term elections? we have heard a lot about

abolish i.c.e. a lot of these districts that you guys need to win. that is a different contour than where you need to win to take back the house. >> there are about 58 competitive districts on the battlefield right now. that may change with a few more or less. of the 58 the most i can count in terms of democratic defending districts is 10 to 11. if you are running in brooklyn, new york your message is going to be different than if you are running in brooklyn, iowa which happens to be in one of those competitive republican districts. the one thing that concerns me is democrats will continue to be fixated on the need for a gold plated inside the beltway boiler plate message that just doesn't work in the diverse range of districts they need to win. talking about abolishing i.c.e.

and impeachment, it may rev up our base and that is important. more important the majority is winning in right of center districts and trusting democratic candidates to find the message that works in those districts. >> are you worrying about too many candidates running as resistance fighters? >> i am worried about democrats trying to struggle to find a national message that just doesn't fit with the local mentalities. a good message is what you think people should say. it's tapping into how they feel. voters feel differently in kansas which is a competitive district versus the west coast and the east coast. >> steve israel, thank you very much. always good to see you. coming up, paul manafort apparently had a rare animal-based wardrobe, in this case a $15,000 ostrich jacket.

we'll preview day two of his criminal trial ahead on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ see my vest made from real gorilla chest ♪ ♪ grisly bear underwear ♪ poodle on my noodle ♪

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please. aaagh! being in the know is a good thing. that's why discover will alert you if your social security number is found on any one of thousands of risky sites. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, august 1. >> did you see who is here? >> i did. woman of the hour. >> i'm here every day. >> you can see springsteen on broadway or you can see andrea. >> with us we have mike barnacle. >> i'm here. >> and -- can we have a round of

applause, please? >> is that for the mets? sorry about your mets. >> thank you, guys. i'm wide awake now. also with us kasie hunt. >> congratulations to andrea. >> we are all honored to be around andrea who is up 24 hours a day. it's all that coffee. it's all the espresso shots. >> let's hope it is healthy. >> it has to be. >> and the vodka shots. >> after hearing the news this morning revealing admission from the government, health and human services had warned the trump administration that separating kids from their families would be dangerous to the children. the president did it anyway.

so he did it knowing exactly what would happen. he also continues to tell his supporters that the free press is the enemy of the people. as you can hear the results are chilling. it's getting bad out there. paul manafort also back in court after prosecutors kicked off their case for an alleged multimillion dollar fraud scheme. we will have the latest on that. >> andrea, i'll talk to you and mike who have been around a little bit through difficult times in covering difficult stories. watching whether donald trump goes to the vfw and the press, he points at the press that he whips the crowds into a frenzy to boo at the press there, whether he whips the crowd into a frenzy to attack the free press in tampa, this is what

autocrats do because they hate anybody that is fact based and that holds them to power. people that don't want their power checked do exactly what donald trump does to the free press. >> i have covered seven american presidents in all these years and none of them have liked the press. it has always been adversaryial. they welcomed it and tolerated it even through the worst of times. we have only had three white house press briefings during the entire month of july. that is extraordinary. >> the quality of those briefings are limited. >> it's not just republicans that don't like the press. as andrea said, bill clinton loathed the press. barack obama had very little use

for the press, always thought they got it wrong. that is what presidents do. like the geico commercial, the guy scores the soccer goal he is on his knees around the stadium. what presidents do is they hate the press. they can't stand the press. but they don't try to whip their audiences into a frenzy to hate the press and point fingers and do what donald trump is doing. >> i mean, he has effectively changed the culture around coverage of his presidency. you saw it last night on display in florida. we have seen it every time. it has worked for him. and the upsetting factor is that you see the pictures on tv specifically last night's pictures from florida and this is an administration and president who has presided over effectively orphaning over 700

children today who don't know who their parents are. they are here in the united states because they were separated from their parents. the crowd obviously cares less about that than they do about booing the media. >> they care less about the fact that president trump is coordinating with vladimir putin. it is a great distraction, blame the press for all the things that you are doing. >> to me that is the ultimate mistreatment. it includes most of the members of the republican party, both the house and the senate. how is it that we have had effectively war declared in the united states of america by russia, war declared on us, carried out, an act of war carried out on us and they seem not to care about that. >> you used the right word. it is a strategy. this isn't the reaction of coverage of one story. this is a long strategy to undermine the source so anything

negative you hear about him you are not to believe. some of the pictures we saw last night this does not end well. >> it does not end well. i think the publisher of the "new york times" put it right in his statement that this ends in violence as he continues to whip people into a frenzly. donald trump is doing it again because you don't look at what happened in helsinki. you don't ask if you are in this crowd what do they say behind closed doors. you don't ask why he lifted sanctions. you don't ask why he shifted so abruptly on our position towards iran. what went on in that meeting? that's what is so troubling about this. it is all a strategy. it's just like rudy giuliani bumbling around on tv. they know now more really, really bad news is coming that

shows that donald trump lied about everything involving that meeting where they were conspiring with russians, not colluding. let's not use the word colluding. they were conspiracy. no collusion, a criminal conspiracy possibly. he distracts the people in the crowd, calls it fake news and hopes he can get away with crimes. >> because of what he said about the press and bob mueller when the stories come out he will be able to say to the people consider the source. we will get to a lot of those moments from last night's tampa rally in a minute. president trump creating more confusion over whether he will try to avoid a government shutdown ahead of mid term elections over his bid to secure money for his long promised border wall. according to reports the president has privately told aides he was committed to keeping the government open telling them he recognizes the

political costs of a shutdown. yesterday president trump escalated public threats of a shutdown taking to twitter. our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades and there is no way that the democrats will allow it to be fixed. >> can i stop and look at this line? our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades. i'm sorry, call it fake news if you want, but donald trump's own administration has records on your internet google machine that show that immigration back into mexico, we had a negative net flow in the final years of the obama administration. more immigrants were going back to mexico than coming to the united states. everything is littered with lies.

it's just preposterous. >> and he overstates the criminality of the people coming through. there is no way the democrats will allow it to be fixed without a government shutdown. border security is national security and national security is the long term viability of our country. a government shutdown is a very small price to pay, he says, for a safe and prosperous america. the president reiterated that threat during his rally last night in florida. >> we are going to have tremendous border security that will include the wall. [ cheers and applause ] a lot of people don't know it, but we have already started the wall. we have $1.6 billion and we have started large portions of the wall, but we will need more. we will get more. and we may have to do some pretty drastic things, but we are going to get it. >> i think you have done enough drastic things especially

separating kids from their families leaving hundreds of kids wondering when they will ever see their families again. i would define that as child abuse and i wonder about legal ramifications down the road of abusing children. >> the reports of 9 and 10-year-old kids -- >> still waiting and not knowing when they will see their families again. i don't think that is how you treat children. >> it is amazing that there is also another claim that the democrats want ms-13 to run the country. of all the people that come here, immigrant here illegally, donald trump's own government statistics show -- go on the google machine. if you don't have one go to your neighbor's house. they google machine will help you type the words in if you don't know how to spell them. that google machine will show of all people who came here illegally something like 0.03%

were gang members. you can't even round it up to one percent. who believes those lies? we have to start saying this. who is stupid enough -- who is dumb enough to believe lies that can be disproven within 30 seconds of a google search? >> people who want to believe those lies. that's the point of this. what we see are all the elements of classic strongman politics. we are seeing the attacks of the press and the appeal to the danger of minority groups that there are shadowy forces that are undermining our country, people coming from outside the country to change the culture. we see that time and time again through history. it is always ugly and always ends badly. >> kasie hunt, if you look at the poll, the numbers are showing some shifts. is there anybody in congress at

this point -- >> it is donald trump's approval rating. >> dems are looking good up 12. >> 51% democratic candidates, 39% republican candidates. that will get worse with every threat of a shutdown for republicans. >> any reflections of this on capitol hill? >> republicans were feeling a little better earlier this summer. there were a couple of weeks where they thought things seem to be moving in our direction and that has all evaporated in the most recent weeks in the polls that you are seeing. there is an increasing sense of i wouldn't go all the way to despair. the shutdown talk, he says one thing one day and one thing the next day. people i talk to say who knows what he is going to do. the path could send whatever slim chances we have of holding on to the house, potentially put

the senate which they had been pretty confident about at risk. at the end of the day the president, the way he makes decisions, a lot of times members of congressional g.o.p. don't understand he doesn't seem to understand the connection between what they do for him and what he is doing every day in office. >> so his numbers were higher. we are getting mid 40s during the middle of the summer. then you have the missing children where children were being ripped from their mother's arms. >> we call them missing because we are not allowed to see them. do we know where they all are? can we account for them all? >> that is number one. that is an ongoing crisis. number two, putin's poodle. he played putin's poodle in helsinki. it shows him to be weak. and now you have the possibility of a government shutdown. talk about three bad things lining up for republicans over the past couple of months. >> by the way, there is also

andrea's reporting about north korea. despite the grand summit and the agreement they signed together, building ballistic weapons again. we knew they were making nuclear fuel again. we have another window into it where he talked about talking to the leader of iran. maybe we will talk. it is good to talk. as far as you can tell and nobody is more dialled into the state department than you are, what is happening from the top in terms of foreign policy and how is the state department dealing with that? >> it is not only the state department. it is also the intelligence agencies. mike pompeo was about as close to this president as anybody can be as cia director briefing him every day. people at the state department were initially encouraged that mike pompeo was in the inner circle. the fact that john bolten can tell sarah huckabee sanders to tweet out -- he didn't tell

anybody else. the president is making it up as he goes. one day it is let's talk to iran. the next day they will see the worse consequences than anyone has suffered. >> he only communicates with dan coats through you on stage. >> and mike pompeo had to go out yesterday on cnbc actually within an hour of the president -- or the day before -- saying i will talk to rouhani or anyone without preconditions. mike pompeo said here are the preconditions. still ahead on "morning joe" paul manafort will be in court today without a $15,000 ostrich jacket. we'll get wrap up to yesterday's opening developments and look ahead to what is in store for day two of his criminal trial.

first, bill karins. >> we are watching two concerns. we are continuing severe weather threat in the east. heavier down pours in the poconos. as we go throughout the day the heavy rain will continue to develop. about 23 million people at risk from the gulf coast through atlanta, charlotte into areas of central pennsylvania. we could get stronger thunderstorms producing wind damage including areas of central p.a. it does not include the i-95 corridor. the wind damage will be greatest interior sections where we may get a little bit of isolated tornado or two out of those storms. let's talk about the west. we finished up one of the hottest julys ever. death valley is reporting the hottest month recorded by them but they are claiming the hottest recorded on earth.

they had 120 degree average high temperature. the warmest day 127. much of the country was well above average including northern new england. no wonder why the fires have been so bad. warmest ever on record reno. unfortunately, the august outlook doesn't look better for our friends in the west. it looks above average temperatures and dry. expect to hear more about the horrendous fire season. new york city times square we are soggy once again. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. it's the ford summer sales event and now is the best time to buy. man: (on tablet) preparing classic campfire trout. say what? trout. trout. alright. you don't think i need both? why does he have that axe? make summer go right with ford, america's best-selling brand. now get 0% financing for 72 months

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opening statements and the cross examination of the first witness. the jury consists of six men, six women and four alternates. they painted paul manafort as a shrewd liar who felt he was above the law as he hid money to evade taxes while living a lavish lifestyle. manafort denies 18 counts including bank fraud. meanwhile, the defense zeroed in on manafort's former business partner and deputy in the trump campaign rick gates who was manafort's co defendant until he decided to flip. >> they are pinning it on gates who didn't have money for a lawyer. manafort does. you look at the pictures of manafort. it's gates who is carrying around a backpack and all of manafort's stuff in all the pictures. >> it's like his bagman. he is like his boy.

and they are trying to pin it all on him. he took all the money. >> so the claim is that manafort is on trial because of one man, rick gates. joining us now law professor at george washington university and msnbc legal analyst danny savel s. >> it is safe to say that paul manafort's lawyers don't have a whole lot to work with from everything that we have seen in public. so i guess trying to distract the jury and point to rick gates and saying this is all because of this guy, i guess that's one of the only strategies they have, right? >> just not very convincing. he was not responsible for the creation of 30 bank accounts. he was not responsible for moving tens of millions of dollars around the world. this is i think going to be a

very dubious type of defense. even if you were to convince the jury that rick gates is dirty, he was still your aid. he was still the guy you picked. but the government is piling on. most of these jurors have maybe one bank account. when you have 30 around the world it's very hard to tell a jury that that was not there for serptitious purposes. i think the government is overplaying the class war fare card and really bringing in witnesses to go into details about manafort's lifestyle including an ostrich jackets. >> gei >> if that is a crime lock us away. >> throw away the key. >> i got mine at burlington coat

factory for $150. it was a faux jacket. >> who does that? >> jonathan tirly, you write this about paul manafort in your latest piece for the hill. >> hunter thompson once described the fleeting fortunes of gamblers of tomorrow's blinking toads. paul manafort is about to discover if he is one of the blinking toads. manafort has taken the gamble of a trial and the lingering chance of a pardon. manafort is the worst possible legal position of having to run the tables by not only beating 18 counts in virginia but then beating 7 counts in a separate trial in washington. while he needs to beat all the charges special counsel robert mueller needs only one conviction on one count to put

manafort away for as much as a decade. that is what it means to play the house. the house usually wins. right now las vegas would give manafort the same odds of acquittal as the orioles to win the world series. why hasn't manafort sought a deal with mueller? >> that is a good question. i think what he is doing is he has always been holding out for the possibility that he might get a pardon. also, sometimes you get defendants and clients who just don't see the case the way the prosecutors do. that can be a really, really dangerous thing. i think ultimately a safe prediction here manafort will be convicted. he is charged with tax perjury and not tax evasion which is a much easier burden for the government to prove. this case shows me that the government needs a win, wants a win and probably will get a win based on the charges. tax perjury very light burden to meet. it's something the government will have very little difficulty

showing based on the exhibits we know they will introduce and the witnesses we know they are going to call. >> stick around. coming up, we want to talk about rudy giuliani's strategy in defending the president. is he saying way too much for his client's own good? the answer is yes. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪

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let's take a look at your piece entitled how rudy giuliani's media strategy could hurt donald trump. he introduced this idea in a premeeting. over the course of the day shoots down his own story and then said the meeting never happened. i don't know what you are talking about. how could his strategy hurt donald trump? let us count the ways. >> three major ways that rudy is violating the criminal defense attorney 101. there are probably more, but three is a good place to start. don't adopt wholesale what your client tells you after the first meeting. we have seen this with rudy. he goes out there armed with what he is probably being told by his client. clients will always earn their

lawyers because they tell them the version that they want the world to be, not necessarily the version that coincides with what the prosecution thinks the facts are. that's a common mistake for defense attorneys. don't insult the prosecutors. you can maybe criticize the facts or complain about the burden of proof but don't insult prosecutors. don't call them corrupt. one of the things rudy really i think is blowing here is that he goes on the shows and he thinks it is just a -- he thinks he is just hanging out. he doesn't stay on message. i watch his body language. when anchors ask him questions he leans back and twiddles his thumbs and hands. >> like he is shooting it at a bar. >> he thinks they are truly just hanging out on set. he doesn't consider the fact that there are other people watching. you watch some other attorneys when they come on air.

the guy stays relentlessly on message. every answer is scripted. rudy it is as if he is thinking about the answer for the question for the very first time when he is asked it. that is not the way to be if you are going to go on air. >> isn't it true the rules don't apply to rudy giuliani because he is sort of an attorney in this case in name only. he is more of a publicist creating diversions and blowing fog so people can't find where the truth is? >> from the beginning the notion that rudy is going to a warehouse and going through bankers boxes worth of government documents doesn't work. some other attorneys on the case, those i can see doing this. rudy, i don't see when he comes out and says things that are later inconsistent if he was really familiar with the discovery i just don't think that would be happening. >> jonathan tirly, just curious where you are right now as we

have gone through this process i just ask you to give us a 30,000 foot snapshot of where you think the mueller investigation is right now. i'm curious, as the manafort trial starts after 20 plus russians have been indicted, after the u.s. government has provided forensic evidence that shows exactly what vladimir putin's g.r.u. did, where they did it, when they did it, how they did it, what key strokes they used, what buildings they were in in russia when they did it, where are you right now on mueller's investigation and what do you see as the bigger risks if not to donald trump then at least to those associates around him that were talking, if not coordinating, with russian agents like roger stone may have been coordinating with?

>> i think we have to be honest, a victory in the manafort trial is not necessarily a victory to the investigation. it is not connected to the campaign. it doesn't mean he is innocent or shouldn't have been prosecuted. it doesn't say that much about the investigation. in terms of obstruction and collusion i don't think the ball is moved materially closer to trump. i think the greatest dangers remain as i said before on the margins, on the borders coming from controversies and from the risk that donald trump jr. could be in if anyone supports any of these accounts. those have always in my view been the threats. so i think what i am looking at primarily is not a direct hit on obstruction or collusion but whether -- >> when you say collusion,

conspiracy, right? you are talking about a conspiracy. >> what they really need to show for collusion and maybe mueller has something like this, any type of wink, wink nod, nod agreement with the russians that, for example, there might be some change on sanctions if they help on the elections. that is the type of evidence that would materially change the situation. >> right now your biggest concerns if you were in the trump orbit would be with dawn jr. when you put roger stone in that group. who else would you put in the group of who you think might be in greatest legal danger? >> i think there are two dangers. one is that the collateral investigations could come very close to the white house. the other great danger is trump's response to something like an investigation or indictment of his son. that creates a great unpredictability for the trump

team as to how he might respond. he could very well respond as a parent instead of as a president. he could issue a bunch of firings and pardons. so this thing could really change and turn on a dime. and i think everyone is watching that closely. i think that where i would be looking as a criminal defense attorney is on the edges. coming up, another disturbing development in the government's separation of children from their parents. how the trump administration was warned in advance about the dangers of the policy. that is next on "morning joe".

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who thinks that the family separation policy has been a success? raise your hand. did anyone, any member of this panel say to anyone maybe this isn't such a good idea? commander? >> during the deliberative

process over the previous year we raised a number of concerns in the program about any policy which would result in family separati separation due to concerns we had about the best interest to the child. >> what went wrong? >> what went wrong was children were separated from their parents and referred to as unaccompanied alien children when they were accompanied. >> the last response, he said, was the only honest answer he got from the five officials testifying on family reunification. the fact that the administration appears to have been warned repeatedly makes this horrific policy even more damming on this white house. did you get any answers in terms of how the problem can be rectified, how the remaining

children whose parents potentially were deported can be reunified with their families? >> no. there was very little clarity about that in the whole hearing. i think that will be up to the judge to keep holding the agencies' feet to the fire and try to get them to perform competently in managing this problem. as questioning showed, they were warned about this. there was an initial deliberate cruelty knowing this was going to happen. since then we have seen a cruelty of incompetence as they have not been able to solve the problem. we found out in the hearing about none of those agencies was given prior notice of attorney sessions decision. >> you said the term deliberate cruelty. would you consider this policy to be child abuse?

abusive to children? >> i am a former prosecutor. child abuse is a prosecutable offense. i don't want to throw words around like that lightly. i think it shames the government in front of the people of america and the people of the world. anytime you are putting children in cages and separating very little ones from mothers and fathers it is a very disturbing thing and a very lasting memory for them when you have the american academy of pediatrics saying this is the equivalent of child abuse we ought to take this very seriously. when commander white warns them that it is not consistent with the best interest of children that is a pretty stark warning to overlook. >> the head of enforcement for i.c.e. sat before you all and compared these detention centers to summer camps. you talked about soccer fields and said for many of the kids the first time they have seen a dentist emphasizing the positives, what is your reaction

to that? >> i'm sure there are positives in all of this. i'm sure there are a lot of good hearted and well meaning people who obliged to work in this terrible mess that the trump policy has created. but that doesn't make the sounds recorded of children crying go away. that doesn't make the allegations of child abuse in these facilities go away. that certainly doesn't make the image of children in cages go away. >> senator, yesterday you repeatedly asked the panel in front of you what went wrong. you failed to get any real answers, honest answers from anyone other than commander white. is part of the problem we are told is that the parents, 711 children scattered across the united states being held in these facilities and their parents have disappeared into central america where they have been thrown out of this country and transported back to

guatemala and places like that. how do we go about finding people in environment wheres it is both dangerous and hard to locate people? >> there are two problems, i think, that explain those really bad answers that i got. one is that i think that this issue is still so politically charged within the trump white house that it is very, very difficult for the officials to give a straight answer. they want to stick to the party line at all costs no matter how foolish they look because they might get whacked by somebody for stepping out of line and therefore you end up with ridiculous answers. that's really a bad sign when government officials aren't telling the truth because all they want to do is follow the party line. that is not the american way. the second thing is when the families were deported the party line is that they all

voluntarily abandoned their children and knew what they were doing and were perfectly happy to abandon their children. we need to look much more closely at what took place as the parents were being deported to see what kind of choices and information they were given and releases they formed and advice they got because it could very well be that a lot of these parents got basically stampeded across the border with various threats and things and the government was at least complicit in separating them from their children and deporting them leaving their children abandoned in the u.s. we need to dig harder into that. >> when this policy was first announced it was openly advertised as a deterrent. it was meant to keep people from coming to the border. what we are seeing now it seems like it was a deliberate part of the policy. i wonder if you feel seeing what you have seen if this policy was designed to do what it is doing

right now? >> the very use of the word deterrent implies of something very bad or unpleasant is going to happen. sure enough tearing little children away from their moms and dads is very bad and very unpleasant. and they spoke right from the very beginning about the deliberate nature of this and about their intention to send a signal don't come here because here is what we will do to you. we will take your kids away from you. this is our deterrent. they have conceded that point. that is an admission. >> thank you so much for being on this morning. >> thank you so much. >> good to be with you. >> we have been talking this morning about the arc of donald trump and the republican party's support throughout 2018. it rose a little bit, a lot of stories about how republicans were closing the generic ballot

test -- donald trump getting into the mid 40s. as he got into the mid 40s we started to see him aggressively enforce the ripping of children from their and now what's turned out to be just be a nice mare scenario. some reports which we haven't confirmed yet, but immigration law you're reporting that a child actually has died in a detention center. but you have that policy. you have donald trump acting in the words of european papers as putin's poodle. >> right. >> showing extraordinary weakness and actually adopting the ex-kgb agent's foreign policy toward nato in front of putin and the world. and now the possibility of a government shutdown. and you look at the numbers, the quinnipiac poll showing donald trump down in the 30s. the generic ballot test not so close anymore.

>> right. >> and donald trump looks like he's still willing to drive this party over the cliff. who stands up? in congress, to protect republicans in congress from this nonsense? >> to be honest with you, i don't anyone does. i think they're so afraid of donald trump. and at this point, the shadow of the base that protects the president, that there is no inclination to self-preservation to the point where you go and say, wait a minute, this is a line too far. putting on the table that you're willing to shut down the government. certainly, yesterday's testimony, when members of the administration are going hubba hubba, hubba, were asked would you put your child in this detention facility, is the reflection not just on the policy of this administration, but a broader reflection of the republican party as a whole. because we're tabacking these things we're sustaining these

thinking. joe, the president is in his la la land of his own identification, being the sun in his own universe, that everything else is colliding into itself. there is no coherency here. and no competency. it makes it really hard for republicans to stand before the american people this november, north let us hold control, but enhance our control over the federal government, in the face of all that we now know and have seen. >> i think we also need to define this accurately. is this child abuse? yes. also, i said these kids were missing, they're actually kidnapped. someone define it any other way, let me know. they're kidnapped. up next, china accuses the u.s. of blackmail after reports that the trump administration is weighing higher tariffs. we'll dig into that next on "morning joe."

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and i heard that my cousin's so, wife's sister's husband was a lawyer, so i called him. but he never called me back! if your cousin's wife's sister's husband isn't a lawyer, call legalzoom and we'll connect you with an attorney. legalzoom. where life meets legal. so, we're checking the story about a child who an immigration lawyer said i think, a news outlet retweeted that a child may have died in custody. there is no confirmation of that story yet. so, if we get confirmation, we'll let you know. >> along with conflicting reports about how they're being treated in custody which is abuse we're reading about. >> which, of course, the problem is the lack of transparency you're hearing from immigration lawyers and you're hearing from

local news reporters that are following this story. but we hear nothing from the golf about -- >> and you can't see the children. >> just like yesterday, we heard that these children are, you know, scrubbing toilets with their bare hands and being treated terribly. but we get no information, no transparency from the government. so, for the life of me, i can't figure out why congress can't do more to get that -- they fund all of these agencies. they have the checkbook. i would stop all appropriations where it hurts the president, the administration the most. unless we get transparency and know the state of these children, who they are, where their parents are and how to help this. >> exactly. and as the president reportedly mulls raising the stakes of his trade war with china, trump said last night that america's farmers may be in pain over his tariffs but he says they're telling him they can handle it.

let's bring in cnbc's sara eisen. sara, what action has the white house reined today. >> more escalation. word is reporting that the trump administration is now looking at putting a 25% tariff on $200 billion worth of chinese goods that come into this country. that's different than the original plan which was said to be 10% tariff on those $200 billion. why is this important? because this is a list that contains all consumer products that come in from china. food, baseball gloves, bicycles, furniture. it's an extensive list that can could be announced today and then goes through a public comment period that could be enacted through the end of the month. there are also reports, guys that u.s. and chinese officials have been talking behind the scenes to try to avert a worsening trade war. though, it's very unclear what actually is going on there. what is clear, this is starting

to have an impact on u.s. consumers, our economy. and we're in earning season. warning that tariffs could have unintended consequences. >> sara, thank you so much. michael steele, those tariffs are attacks, conservatives will tell you on working class americans, once called a soviet-style economics? >> yeah, but a soviet-style economics that republicans have embraced full throatedly. now, you're going to have to eat this crow and stand in town halls in the second and third quarters of next year to explain why the jobs are lost. >> mike. final note. >> the chief phrase about children, they're in custody. in custody to such an extent in our culture, where's the out rage with this?

>> and saying farmers are saying it's okay, we can take these tariff, the hitter that getting, i haven't heard a farmer say that. >> says the guy with a 757 jet. >> and it can be revoked by congress they have a voice to play here if they want to play it. if they hate this trade policies so much, they can do something about it. >> and every day, we see people cowering in the corner, we see someone like the commander who told the truth in front of the senate committee and in front of america. and as long as we have one person telling the truth, every day, getting that news out, we have a chance. >> that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> thanks, mika, joe. hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle. facebook says it has found dozens of fake accounts, all part of a covert campaign to attack the american democratic process. surprise, surprise, just before the 2018 midterms.