going to have more problems and issues that i'm going to need help with. and i want my mom to be there with me. >> three women are on that tv. a mother and her two daughters. women and girls. the person in the administration who has articulated over and over that they are passionate about supporting the advancement of women and girls is first daughter ivanka trump. ivanka, where are you? alejandra's words to the president as she went through airport security this morning were, "may god forgive you." that's what she said. >> we're handing it over to our friend andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports. right now on "andrea mitchell reports, red alert. in a rare show of force, the country's top national security officials vowed to defend america's elections in the face of a pervasive threat from russia. >> russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.

>> our democracy itself is in the crosshairs. >> it is real. it is continuing. and we're doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the american people can have trust in. >> parallel universe. hours later, president trump undermines that unprecedented warning by ridiculing the russian threat. >> now we're being hindered by the russian hoax. it's a hoax, okay? hey, big spender. as the first week of paul manafort's trial wraps up, late night comedians pile on for his lavish lifestyle. >> he had a coat made from an ostrich. which explains the state's first witness. >> for the man with discriminating taste and incriminating clothes. >> if you're trying to not to

seem evil, maybe don't dress up as a snake. and good day, everyone, i'm andrea mitchell in washington where president trump is undercutting his own national security cabinet on the russia threat. the president's entire intelligence team sounding an unprecedented alarm about the threat russia continues to pose to our upcoming midterm elections. there was a conflicting account only hours later by mr. trump, whipping up a crowd in pennsylvania, calling the russian hacking a hoax. joining me now, nbc correspondent kristen welker. nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian. and a former nato supreme allied commander. welcome, all. kristen, first to you. the dissonance between the president's national security team, that threat, and i should add that only today there is

another beat to this, because he was praising kim jong-un today, and both the treasury and the secretary of state are taking action against russia for evading sanctions against north korea and secretary pompeo says in fact there is still a lot of cheating. >> reporter: right, andrea. mixed messages on both fronts. let's start with those new sanctions. let me read you part of the release from the treasury department. today's action targets a russian bank for knowingly facilitating a significant transaction on behalf of an individual designated for weapons of mass destruction related activities in connection with north korea. why is that significant? as you point out, president trump, sarah huckabee sanders, touting the fact that the president had received a new letter from kim jong-un. sarah sanders, asked if there was a second meeting on the horizon, said nothing had been determined, but clearly she was leaving the door open for that possibility, andrea. and of course it comes as the secretary of state is headed to

have more high level meetings and also saying, look, this is going to be a long process moving forward. so you have mixed messaging on that key front. and then on russia more broadly, andrea. it was striking yesterday in the briefing room. you had all of those top intelligence officials, dhs secretary here saying, look, we're taking the threat of russian meddling in the u.s. election very seriously, we are on top of it. now, of course, critics pointed out we're less than a hundred days out, where was that press briefing months ago? nonetheless that was the messaging yesterday. then president trump on the trump in wilkes-barre essentially calling the russian investigation a hoax. i've been pressing administration officials about this mixed messaging. i can tell you they're digging in. mercedes schlapp says the president isn't undercutting the administration at all, she says

they're speaking from the same playbook. but this is a tough line to walk, andrea. >> ken dilanian, you had dan coats, head of national intelligence, questioned about the dissonance there. let's watch. >> in the run-up to the helsinki summit, u.s. officials, ambassadors to nato, ambassadors to russia, said that the president would raise the issue of malign activity with the president. >> i'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. >> ken, it does seem that dan coats and the rest of the team have still not been briefed on what happened during that private one on one. >> and that's remarkable, andrea. dan coats is the nation's top intelligence official. he needs to know these things, he needs to understand where the russians are coming from, and what potential negotiations took place between the president and the russian leader. this news conference was such a fascinating mixture of cynical

spin and also earnest good government. you have john bolton stating that from the day he took office the president has been combatting russian interference. we know that's not true, officials have told us that's not true. but it is true that dan coats, chris wray, paul nakasone, are traditionally concerned about what russians are doing to interfere in our politics. they're doing things about it, in some cases, they're just not seeing leadership from the oval offi office. paul nakasone was asked whether the nsa and cyber command had been given authorization to take action and he didn't really answer. he said the guidance i've gotten from the president and the secretary of defense is not clear, we will not tolerate

meddling. that's not saying whether the president has given authorization for cyber operations. as of a few months ago, i'm told, cyber command did not have that authorization from president trump. >> that's terribly important, obviously, for us to be going on offense. admiral stavridis, general nakasone had this to say, let's play exactly what ken is referring to. >> general, have you been ordered at all or authorized to conduct any offensive cyber operations in response to this? >> so my guidance and direction from the president and secretary of defense is very clear. we're not going to accept meddling in the elections. it's very unambiguous. >> again, that answer is ambiguous. but there were some hints from secretary of defense jim mattis that we might be ready to undertake offensive cyber responses. >> let me start by pointing out that surreal disconnect between the president and his four

intelligence professionals. this is kind of like pearl harbor in terms of an attack on the country, andrea. and this would be as though after the pearl harbor attack you didn't get the president coming out, instead you got the chiefs of the army, the navy, the marine corps, saying we're going to prosecute, we're going to go forward, we're going to defend the nation. this is a time when you really expect the president of the united states to be speaking to the american public. so let's really underline the strange aspects of this historically. in terms of offensive cyber, i know general nakasone well, he's a straight shooter. he's trying to keep on the inside highly classified information there. we have a great deal of offensive cyber capability. to date, we have chosen not to deploy it. i think that's a mistake. i think it's time we started to look quite seriously at a range of offensive cyber actions in order to retaliate for this ongoing russian activity. look, the thing with russians,

andrea, they have an old proverb which is that when you are probing with a bayonet and you encounter pu countecounter mush. when you hit steel, withdraw. we'll have to show some steel in the cyber world. i hope general nakasone is prepared to do that. i would like to hear more, at least to the congress on a classified level, about what options are on the table. let's time we took this more seriously than we have to date. >> and russia also misbehaving according to treasury sanctions today on north korea. that's something you know very well, what we're doing at sea, even, there's a talk that there's a multilateral naval force. i want to talk more about this dissonance factor. this is the president talking about kim jong-un and north korea at that rally last night. >> what i did with north korea was great. i got along great with chairman kim. i got along great.

i got the hostages back. didn't have to pay anything. they're not testing any more nuclear. they haven't had a test in nine months. and you know what else? they're not sending rockets over japan and they're not sending missiles over japan and they're not launching missiles anymore. they haven't launched one in nine months. >> at almost that exact moment, the secretary of state, admiral, was in the air, heading to singapore for a meeting of asian nations where he's going to talk about north korea and about compliance with sanctions. and he was telling the press on the record that they are cheating and that their neighbors are cheating. russia, china, others are cheating, breaking u.n. sanctions, which we now see the treasury acting on today. >> indeed. another remarkable disconnect. and, a, it tells you that the political season is really unfolding, and clearly the president is just throwing red

meat, red ribeye steaks to his base. but that is not doing our nation much good in terms of our security. and secretary pompeo is in exactly the right place, which is to evince frustration, to take action. and i think that if we are going to be serious about choking off north korea, it's going to require an international naval task force so that we can avoid the kind of sanction busting that we know russia and china are doing right now. here's the good news, andrea. at least we're still on a diplomatic track. and i will give the president credit ca credit, there have not been any further nuke tesclear tests or launches, but that program is continuing to build. we have to stop it. i think secretary pompeo is our best bet. >> thanks so much for that, admiral stavridis, ken dilanian, and kristen walker at the white house. breaking news, houston

police department announcing the man suspected of killing a local cardiologist, a well-known cardiologist, has now been found dead. police say that the apparent murderer committed suicide. dr. mark hausknecht was killed bicycling to work. he formerly had treated president george h.w. bush. he was celebrated in his field and he was tracked on a bicycle by this alleged killer who has now been found apparently a suicide. coming up, alternate reality. president trump declaring russia was not happy about his presidential victory. really? despite vladimir putin saying the exact opposite at that summit in helsinki? time for our reality economic. stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. and i'm stillt even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin, i'm up for that. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both.

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i'll tell you what. russia's very unhappy that trump won, that i can tell you. but i got along great with putin. and everybody said, wow, that was a great -- that was great. a couple of hours later i started hearing these reports that, you know, they wanted me to walk up, here's a podium here, they wanted me to walk up and go like this. [ bleep ]. they wanted me to go up and have a boxing match. i said, whatever happened to diplomacy? >> president trump last night

directly contradicting what vladimir putin told the world in helsinki, that putin did want donald trump to win the 2016 election. also contradicting of course his own national security cabinet only hours earlier in that unprecedented white house briefing. joining me now, charlie sykes, contributing editor at the weekly standard, and michael steele, former gop chairman, both msnbc contributors. charlie, you're in wisconsin, in the heartland. what are people there saying about what we're seeing as dissonance, but perhaps it's working? >> well, this is the definition of cognitive dissonance. it was truly remarkable listening to that briefing yesterday and realizing that what they were saying contradicts what the president was saying, then watch them go out at that rally and once again undermine and undercut that entire message. if the point was to rally the

nation behind confronting the russian attack on our democracy, the president clearly cut them off at the knees. now, is it in fact working? i'm not sure. obviously the president's base is still behind him. but i think at this point in the midterm campaigns, we have to ask whether or not these rallies and sort of the bizarre dark forces that he's unleashing at these rallies is actually going to work with those swing voters or those soft republican voters who are going to be determining who controls congress. >> the other thing about this, though, was that he was actually doing something for lou barletta, one of his favorite republican congressmembers. but barletta is running against a very popular democratic senator, bob casey, and casey has a long, the, his family roots are in that district. but you have to win the suburbs of philadelphia in that state. michael steele, as a former

republican chair, you know that's not the way to reach out to the people in the suburbs. >> it is not. and i think that's one of the -- pennsylvania is a bellwether for a number of important races coming up this fall. and the fact that the president is so narrowly playing to a base, he feels good in that setting, he's having fun, he's riffing and cussing and doing this and the folks are loving it. to charlie's point, the rest of the country, the independent voters, center/right democrats and republicans, are looking at this and going, what is this all about? there is nonan inclination right now, i think, andrea, to empower that kind of mindset in washington any longer. and that's why you see the numbers for the president dropping. that's why you see the generic ballot for republicans holding on to the congress moving away from them. it's because of moments like we saw last night. >> you also see the tariff wars.

out where you live, charlie, wisconsin is being so hard-hit in dairy, in all kinds of ways. the farmers are being hit. and also the auto industry is potentially going to be hit hard by aluminum and steel. again, china today saying that $60 billion in retaliatory tariffs are heading our way. >> well, yes. i mean, you think about the jobs numbers we had earlier today. you would think donald trump and the republicans would be cruising with these economic numbers. but you have this cloud of the tariff wars over the economic numbers. we're the home of harley-davidson, iconic american company that's been attacked and vilified by the president. the larger point that michael is also making is that donald trump is this huge gravitational force distracting republicans from being able to talk about the things they want to talk about. they want to talk about the economy. and yet donald trump keeps

throwing out this chaff, keeps stepping on their own message. i can't help but think these attacks on the media, the rise of unhinged conspiracy theories, won't play well in the suburbs and swing area of states like pennsylvania and wisconsin. >> this stuff that works with the base, the polling is hard to figure. >> yes. >> we don't know what the mueller probe is going to be, and he's played that well in terms of demonizing mueller and any result of the investigation that comes. and at the same time, talking about a government shutdown, against the advice of every republican leader in the house and senate. >> you actually are raising a very important underlying point, i think, andrea, about, okay, so how does this really play out, given all these other variables that are still yet to fall into place, from mueller to whether

or not the president actually pursues a policy of shutting down the government sometime between september and october. for donald trump, that's his ace card. that's what he keeps up his sleeve, the idea that we're guessing, we don't know how these things play out. some of this is defense and offense at the same time for him, where he goes out here to sort of encapsulate himself in the love of crowds like this that sort of protect him from whatever may come from a mueller probe, for example. but it also gives him that leverage to push back if he wants to and threaten the party, ostensibly, with shutting down the government, and to, quote, say to them, you guys go deal with that, i'm having fun over here, you go deal with the mess that's created over there. it's a different form of throwing a bright shiny object and people following it down a rabbit hole. he's throwing many bright shiny objects in the air at the same time. and the question for the party is, are the voters paying attention to any of those, are there really focused on, okay, what is my situation right now

going into this november election? job numbers and all that notwithstanding, how does this play for me? and i think, back to your point about swing voters, i think those swing voters are moving away from the trump circus and focusing more on the fact that they want something a little bit different and this ain't it. >> i wonder how many evangelicals and family value folks, however we define that, are worried about the children and are also worried about the fact that we had to bleep the president of the united states at a public rally because of profanity today. maybe we didn't have to. let's talk about that later. turning now of course to the effort to reunify migrant families, with our thanks to michael and charlie, the trump administration is today trying to shirk the responsibility to reunite more than 500 children still in government custody. msnbc's jacob soboroff who has been on top of this border crisis from the very beginning has the latest from a court filing, jacob. >> reporter: that's right, andrea, we have a court filing

that came in from the aclu and the trump administration, the parties in this case. first, an update on the numbers. remember, 2,551 children overall were separated from their parents by the trump administration in a systematic way that had never been done before. as of yesterday during this filing, 572 of them still remain in government custody. they have been calling this category "ineligible for reunification." that word does not appear in the latest court filing, but essentially it's the same group of kids we were talking about before. 410 parents from that group were deported before they were able to be reunified with their children. what is most extraordinary, andrea, but what we learned in this latest filing late last night is that the administration is essentially suggesting that the aclu now go take responsibility for tracking down and reuniting these children with their families. to say this as clearly as i can, the party that separated these children from their parents is

now saying, look, we got sued, if you guys want to reunite these kids, you go find them yourself and we'll do our best to help you do that. it's pretty extraordinary. >> the last time i looked, we did not vote for the aclu to be running the government, or dhs, or anything else in this country. i think we voted for donald trump and his cabinet. >> that >> reporter: that's exactly right, andrea. the aclu is essentially defending themselves from this proposal, proposition, that will be talked about in court later today, by saying that the government essentially has endless resources. they have as much money, as much personnel as they possibly can. i talked to an administration official today who basically said, look, the aclu is on the air all the time talking about this issue, people are raising money to find these children. it's a preposterous theory, quite frankly. >> jacob soboroff, thank you so much for taking the time to bring that to us. coming up, lifestyles of the rich and infamous.

did paul manafort cook the books to support his very expensive tastes? we'll get the latest from the courthouse and from the world of fashion. stay with us, right here on andrea andrea on msnbc. oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (vo) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. oh! under seven? (vo) and you may lose weight. in the same one-year study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. oh! up to 12 pounds? (vo) a two-year study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. oh! no increased risk? ♪ ozempic®! ♪ ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes,

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the first week of the bank and tax fraud case against paul manafort wraps up later today, as prosecutors describe the defendant's financial accounts and years of extravagant spending, especially on closets-ful of custom tailored suits including examples that are so fashion forward, we had to bring in an expert to help the legal eagles out. joining me now, justice reporter julia ainsley. harry litman, former assistant attorney general. and our expert "washington post" fashion critic. robin, first to you. pictures are not permitted to be shown of much of this in the courthouse to the jury. but we've seen the pictures. can you tell us who spends $15,000 on an ostrich jacket and what's the difference between python and ostrich? what does this tell you, if you

were doing a psychological profile of the person wearing these clothes? >> the choice of something like that ostrich or python, these are exotic leathers. they are, one, not that readily available, and they are also extremely expensive, and they are quite distinctive. someone who decides that's the way they want to go is someone who wants people to notice their clothing and who wants people to sort of see how expensive it is. i think it's also interesting that a lot of the suits, we're talking about custom made suits. but you can't really distinguish them from something that might have been purchased off the rack. they don't have any sort of particular personal flair to them. it's more about the cost. and certainly it's about the volume. and i think a lot of that suggests to me that this is someone who is not so much

interested in style as they are interested in quantity and price tag. >> conspicuous consumption. at the same time, according to the evidence, julia, that has been produced, especially the bookkeeper the other day, this was a man who was dead broke by the time of 2016 when he was volunteering to work for donald trump for nothing. >> that's right, andrea. the bookkeeper testified yesterday that around 2015 to 2016, the bottom really fell out for the manaforts. and today we've been able to get more into the finances as we've heard from the person who put together the tax returns for both mr. and mrs. manafort as well as the partnership, the company that manafort ran with rick gates. he said an interesting thing just now as i was leaving the courtroom, not only did manafort obscure some of the sources of his income, he did tell him about the foreign bank accounts

in cyprus, but he asked him to lie. he said, will you please say this is a private presence where my wife and i stay in new york so we don't have to pay taxes on it. and he wrote back and said, it's never been my understanding that it's your private residence, in fact it's a rental, a business expense, and you need to pay taxes on it. we're seeing that it's not just that manafort didn't keep track. he willfully, knowingly obscured these data points in his finances. that's exactly what the prosecution needs to prove in this case, that it was knowing and willful. >> harry, as the former prosecutor, how damaging is it that the judge here, who is apparently very well-respected by his colleagues, with his taking a very forceful role in arguing and directing both prosecutors and defense on how they should frame questions, even, and in keeping pictures of all of this extravagant closets

full of clothes, in keeping those pictures out of evidence so the jury doesn't see them, how damaging is that to the prosecutors' attempt to put some, you know, visual elements together as well as just these data points? >> he's tough. i've tried in front of judge ellis, and he seems to get a special flair out of really pushing on the prosecution. i don't think it's the case, however, andrea, that they'll see none of these. many of them were admitted. he refused to have them published, which is to say, passed along to the jury. but the jury in the eastern district of virginia will see them when they're deliberating. but how damaging? you know, a little bit. a little bit of flavor. but look, i think overall, prosecution is a storyteller's art. and they are definitely being able to pursue their story in broad strokes this week. and in particular, i think

heather washkuhn has emerged for nominee for best supporting actress yesterday, not that she's acting, but she was a devastating witness, i think. credible, position of trust, sees everything, and really buried him with the bookkeeping details. so we've had to date, setting the stage of the ukraine, then the ostrich jacket, and now all the bookkeeping stuff. even without the pictures, it's all going in very well. they'll see many of the pictures anyway later. and i think the stage is now set for rick gates to come forward and tie things up, probably no later than early next week. >> and robin givhan, from your article in "the post," you wrote, a man should not be prosecuted for his fashion choices. although maybe in some cases they should. those choices show who the man believes himself to be. manafort wasn't interested in bespoke fashion.

he wasn't buying designer brands as proof of tribal membership. he wasn't hunting down elusive products as testament to his cultural cache. for him, it's about accumulation of monopoly money, having the most expensive stuff. on top of his landscaping and everything else, what's so remarkable, after the bookkeeper testified the bottom had dropped out, he was still living at that level. >> when people are buying this kind of merchandise, as the fashion industry well knows, it's not just about, you know, buying a jacket or a suit or an overcoat. it's really about creating a sort of personal public identity. that's whatwe we're really seei

here. it's not just about labels and brands. it's about identity. >> finally, harry, when we talk about this trial, we have to also remember there is an undercurrent here, as we've been talking about it all week. it's not about russia, it's not about the campaign, but it's showing how much he was in hock to the russian oligarchs, even though the judge said you can't use the term "oligarch" in the courtroom, that is in the back of the jurors' minds. >> it certainly could be. the bookkeeper testified while he is the campaign manager, they're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. they can't pay health insurance. he's got over $1 million in credit card bills. it paints an absolute portrait of financial desperation. and, you know, you've got a financially desperate guy running the campaign of a major political party. it's a recipe for political disaster. >> thanks so much, robin, thank

you for your fashion turn and your great analysis today. and julia of course, and harry litman, great weekend all, thanks. coming up, full court press. the president intensifying his attacks on the media. has he gone too far? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. introducing zero account fees for self-directed brokerage accounts. and zero minimums to open an account. we have fidelity mutual funds with zero minimum investment. and now fidelity has two index funds with a zero expense ratio. because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. ♪ so maybe i'll win ♪ saved by zero

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people. and they are. they are the enemy of the people. the press honestly is out of control. the level of dishonesty is out of control. >> particular with us. don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. they can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. >> the fake, fake, disgusting news. that was the president of the united states last night to a crowd in pennsylvania, using the press again as a foil to whip up the crowd at that campaign rally in wilkes-barre. on the same day his own daughter ivanka said she disagrees with her father, calling the press the enemy of the people. she said she would not do that herself. let's get the inside scoop from a pair of reporters who are well-experienced in those attacks and rallies during the campaign and ever since. ashley parker, white house property at "the washington post" and a pulitzer prize winner. and jeremy peters, reporter for "the new york times" and msnbc contributor.

ashley, watching that last night, it really does come to mind that this is his main foil in the midterm elections. >> it sure is. and this has been his foil since really the very beginning when he started his campaign. what's interesting to someone who has traveled and been at a lot of those rallies, the mood can kind of differ. there are some rallies where he attacks the media as a foil with a hard edge of menace and it can feel dangerous, uneasy, or unsafe. last night he was clearly agitated, kept returning to the media more frequently than he has in recent weeks, especially at a rally. he did it in a way that was a little bit shticky, part of the trump show, the audience played their part, they booed and jeered us but didn't seem particularly angry. they were sort of smiling as they booed us. there's some element where it's part of the show and some element when he's really angry

and it seems like he's really trying to incite the crowd against the media. >> the anger levels are hard to predict. it raises the question, first of all, how safe it is for the media. sarah sanders yesterday under intensive questioning from jim acosta, a frequent target and antagonist back and forth with the president, raising the question about the "enemy of the people" quote after ivanka trump said she disagreed with that, sarah sanders wouldn't say she disagrees. she said she works for the president. mike murphy, a republican strategist, last night had a modest proposal as to what the media should do going forward. >> cover it with a pool reporter. i don't think there's any need to put on the show that frankly the president uses for his base supporters. it's good box office for trump. the question is the journalistic

realities which is that they're being used and abused. >> i'm not saying don't cover him, the rallies aren't newsworthy, certainly on north korea and russia and other things they certainly reinforce many themes that we have to cover, but ashley and jeremy, should we be there in force so that he looks out, as he said, it could be the academy awards looking at all these cameras, why not pool it, treat it like an oval office event? >> i think that the level of hostility with which he's treated the media, as ashley pointed out, certainly escalated in recent weeks. and this phrase, "enemy of the people," while he's been using it for about a year and a half now, is especially insidious, because let's just go over the history of where that phrase comes from. leaders like stalin have used this phrase. >> it comes from joseph 12stali. >> exactly. don't you dare question my authority. trump is doing something

slightly different, basically says those people who dare to criticize me are criticizing you. they aren't just our political opponents, they are enemies, they are bad people, they are exercising bad faith. and that includes not just the media but anybody who dares to question or really investigate what donald trump is doing, whether that's bob mueller or whether that's the media. >> ashley, it does undercut not only our core values and our constitution and the first amendment, but a longstanding tradition of secretaries of state and presidents speaking out for a free press even when they have been angry for the press, certainly bill clinton was in my own experience, jimmy carter at times, certainly w. bush as well as with perhaps better reason, bush the father, angry. and ronald reagan, angry at us. but they always had news conferences, had organized interactions with the press, not just off-the-cuff interactions

when they chose to. and they never barred reporters from publicly covered events as this president has. >> that's right. relationships with other presidents, other politicians, have certainly gotten antagonistic but we haven't seen anything like this. the president is not someone, even when he goes abroad, he doesn't go abroad to export democratic or american values there. the irony, as you point out, of the president really going after the media and really not standing up for them or even the first amendment is that he more than any modern politician is a creation of the media. in a lot of ways, president trump doesn't exist without the media. so as much as he attacks us and, you know, recently barred a reporter from attending an event, he also looks back in the crowd and he is desperate to see all those cameras pointing at him and all those red lights on and all of those headlines. and a lot of his behavior in office is reflective of the

media coverage. >> not such a bad idea from mike murphy, at least worth pursuing. thank you so much, ashley, thanks for being out there for us, and jeremy of course as well. coming up, controversial praise. an african-american pastor calling president trump, quote, the most pro-black president in his lifetime. really? we'll get reaction from the head of the national urban league, coming up next. stay with us. your digestive system has billions of bacteria but life can throw them off balance. re-align yourself with align probiotic.

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this is probably the most proactive administration we got in america and the community in my lifetime. i will be 60 years old in december. to be honest, this is going to be -- i am going to say this on this table of the most pro-black president we had in our lifetime. >> he's saying donald trump is more pro-black in his policies. jonesing me now is the president and the ceo national urban league in ohio. >> it is great to see you again. >> great to be with you.

>> tell me what policy that you are signaling out of this administration that's been so pro-black. >> first of all, happy 40 years on msnbc. >> thanks a lot. >> when i heard the pastor, i wonder if the pastor have been living on saturn or uranus or neptune. that deserves the fake, fake news academy award. it is such a misstatement of fact and reality. h bill clinton appointments and his important work in helping to vitalize urban america or barack obama putting the first african-american in the attorney's chair and george w. bush, you had two black secretaries of state.

it is not the kind of statement that deserves any response because it is a fake, fake news narrative. >> i also want to point out what george w. bush trying to combat the aids in africa. it was george bush working with several other advocacy groups. it is astounding given the impact on healthcare with proposals tripping down affordable healthcare and eliminating preexisting conditions, who is that going to hurt? the least empowered among us and clean water and clean air. if you look at all the deregulation, who's most impacted? the people of urban communities, many of whom are minorities. >> many of these whether education or justice or arena really would serve to reverse gains that were made under the obama years.

the affordable care act narrow health disparities and we had stronger enforcements of civil rights lost. any on that that's not good public policies for urban communities and communities of color. loud ascertations and the real facts of what we are facing today and the tremendous contributions of the prior presidents. >> i want to point out one quick thing, the propaganda efforts on facebook and others to create more divisions which started with black lives matter and charlottesville and others and ferguson even before 2016. >> let me say this, those

efforts by russia are despicable and they are hateful and those involved and aided should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. i expect law enforcement shut russia interference down. it could be russia today or another set tomorrow. get your happennds off american democracy. stop trying to manipulate the way we think. stop trying to undermine the system that gives people the chance to elect their own leaders. >> thank you so much mark morial, we'll be right back. >> thank you. it is time now for your business of the week. chances are you have an e-mail in your inbox right now. how did the two founders turned into a half billion dollars business without taking a dime

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and thanks for being with us, eamon takes over the coverage from new york. >> thank you very much. good afternoon, i am in for my friend craig melvin. mixed messages when it comes to the trump administration. it depends on who you ask. so who do you believe? the president or his people? if there is no clear message, how do you stop russia from doing it again? plus, you fix it, the trump administration created a policy that separated participaents at border. now, they want to put the work of reit