watching she's like them too. >> actually all of you guys, phil rucker, reverend al, jess, john, you guys are all goats of a way and my goat we mean the greatest of all time. that does it for this hour. i was in for nicolle wallace. she will be back next week and you all will be glad. speaking of g.o.a.t.s, "mtp daily" starts now. >> heilemann, you got me to quickly google the men who stare at goats. do you remember that movie? i thought it was going to be extraordinarily funny and, well, i can't quote a single line from it other than the title. >> i can't believe you actually -- that is what this made you think of but i'm glad that it did and that's the kind of movie that you are the ultimate netflix customer. >> john heilemann, i think of you as one of the men who stare at goats. >> have a great weekend, chuck. >> thank you, sir. if it's friday, is the president feeling the heat?

tonight, president trump's theater of the absurd of the. >> now we're being hindered by the russian hoax. it's a hoax, okay? >> is manafort's trial motivating the president's escalating attacks on everything from mueller to the media? plus, for your consideration -- >> i'm not waiting, i'm running against donald trump today, every single day, okay? >> progressives seeking the national spotlight in 2020 take center stage in the big easy. and president trump versus the map. >> people call it britain, they call it great britain, they call it -- they used to call it england, different parts. >> they don't. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." we begin tonight with the hunt for a motive.

why did the president just blatantly undermine his intelligence chiefs? why did he escalate his attacks on the press? why did he just recently call again for his attorney general to shut down the mueller probe? why did he insist it's perfectly legal to collude with russia? why has he done all of this just in the last three days? and why is he misleading us at a greater pace now than ever before? folks, right now it feels as if the president is operating in a parallel universe compared to his own administration. for example, yesterday the white house dispatched its top intel chiefs and security officials to publicly insist that the threat from russia was very real. then hours later, as many of us predicted, the president did this. >> i had a great meeting with putin. we discussed everything. i had a great meeting. i had a great meeting. now, we're being hindered by the russian hoax. it's a hoax, okay. i'll tell you what, russia is very unhappy that trump won,

that i can tell you. >> just hours after his national security team said it was trying to protect our democracy from disinformation campaigns, the president spent a good chunk of his rally turning his supporters against credible news organizations. >> they can make anything bad, because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. >> obviously somebody is not happy and that comes as the president is making false or misleading claims at an unprecedented pace even for him. what began as five false or misleading claims per day during the first 100 days of his presidency as calculated by friends of "the washington post," it has now ballooned into a whopping 16 false or misleading claims per day over the past two months. and many of those misleading claims are animated by what the president maligns as the russia hoax. again, we ask why? is it because the president's feeling increasingly threatened

by the frenzied pace of developments tied to the russia investigation, like his long-time personal attorney turning against him, or his campaign chief on criminal trial? is the president worried that paul manafort's trial is a prelude to something much bigger? yesterday manafort's bookkeeper testified that manafort was basically broke when he went to work for free as trump's campaign chief in 2016. this is an important detail. and he was broke because money from his pro-russian associates was drying up. well, as the saying goes, follow the money. joined by heidi przybyla, eugene robinson, and matthew continetti. welcome. i feel like this is a good friday crew. i feel like you guys have done this friday thing for me together. you guys are my happy hour folks. heidi, i've got to -- it is, again, what i've been trying to say to anybody that's asked me

about this trump versus the press, always look for the motive. why is he increasing these attacks? what is behind it? rather than trying to make the story of us the story, what's behind it? he seems rattled. >> the simple answer is that the day of reckoning of when he may have to do his interview and when this investigation may come to its conclusion is becoming near. but i think the big question, chuck, is actually why did his security personnel do what they did? what trump is doing is entirely in keeping with what he's been doing since he was elected, bashing the press, bashing the investigation. >> that's not new. >> but why did his advisers feel that they needed to come out with this show of unity when they came out and actually didn't have anything in particular new to share with the public. they weren't announcing some new cyber plan. but what they did want to do is tell the public, look, we understand. we see what you see. we see the president meeting for two hours with president putin and then coming home and only

meeting for a half hour with his cybersecurity team. we see the president's increasing attacks on the media and, yes, public, we want you to know that we are on this and we are going to try to do something about it. >> seriously or literally, matthew? >> you know, it's funny. seriously or literally threatened, i think he's liberated. >> he's totally detached from his own administration now? >> yeah. you look at the pace of his travel to these states. he's listening to his outside advisers now. >> corey lewandowski, david b s bossi on the trips. >> the original campaign crew now have his ear. i think he feels that he is going to go back to basics, back to the original program, which got him to where he was in the white house. so, sure, he's feeling the heat legally. he's thinking about mueller. but he's also feeling liberated and that's why he wants to maintain that connection with his devoted base. >> you've got me.

i think there's probably some truth in both what heidi said and matthew said. is liberated another word for unhinged? >> is that a polite word? >> you say tomato, i say to-mah-to. >> he clearly does feel unchained to go out and be trump on the campaign trail who was outrageous by design. that was his brand was outrageousness. now, he is president of the united states. that's a bad brand for the president of the united states, but he's -- but that's what he is. >> look, the anger. there's definitely anger here. >> there's anger, yeah. >> gabe sherman of "vanity fair" who always seems to be well sourced with some of people personally close to the president, here's what he writes. trump is acting increasingly besieged. advisers i spoke with said the president is furious, frustrated

and flustered, that the mueller probe is grinding on and he's personally hurt by cohen's betrayal. last week sources tell gabe sherman that trump told deputy chief of staff bill shine to ban kaitlin collins from a white house event because he was angry she asked questions about cohen. trump has been sending messages to cohen on twitter that he won't pardon him. he's just letting him know that you're done. when we ended last week's episode, the cliff hanger last week was michael cohen could testify to the trump tower meeting. then of course rudy giuliani said there's another trump tower meeting. >> that's a whole other thing. you've got trump doing his thing and you've got giuliani out there and there was a time, especially at the end of last week, when they were both acting as if they seemed to think some huge story was coming, was about to drop about a second trump tower meeting. >> look, giuliani was acting squirrely. >> trump knows if this is true or not.

these stories come out, he knows. if michael cohen says i was sitting there when don junior came into donald trump's office and told him, hey, we're about to meet with the russians. donald trump knows whether that's true or not. >> that's probably one of his best memories. >> when we see a reaction, we can dedeuce from it what we w l will. guess what, we don't even need michael cohen because some people don't think he's a credible witness to confirm some of these things because rick gates has been cooperating with manafort and now the news came out that rick gates might have been in that preplanning meeting too. >> i want to go back to, a lot of people -- there's some people that i think intentionally wanted to make -- although the manafort trial has nothing to do with russia, but i think we're starting to see how this fits into the mueller -- manafort is broke and he magically decides, matthew, that he will work for free in the trump campaign. it's tom barrett that writes that letter of recommendation. boy, that now -- you know, i'm sure that goes back to the follow the money, follow the

money. but that now seems to be -- that's going to be, okay, that's the cliff hanger in this trial and does that apply to another part of this investigation? >> we really don't know. manafort could have thought i'll work for free on the trump campaign and that will allow me to get all the clients -- >> that's possible. like michael cohen, i'm selling access. >> and that has been manafort's m.o. even in the reagan years and being one of the first lobbyists. it just strikes me that here we had the day of very good economic news, right? and trump has been trying to claim credit for this good economic news and these great job numbers and the good gdp number from last week. and yet try as he might, he keeps stepping on his own message. it almost makes me think he recognizes that the country has not really internalized the good economic news. in terms of the voters, they're more concerned about trump than the actual economic conditions. and so he has to play to his

advantages, which are for his base bashing the media. >> one other possibility, they do internal polling. he may be seeing some bad numbers. he may be seeing some bad numbers about his base, bad numbers about -- >> the ohio 12 thing has rattled a lot of republicans. it's like again? this one they had everything they thought, they had the right candidate, it was not that kind of district, john kasich was on it. if trump and kasich are supporting the same republican you're not going to have a problem. but capital republicans are more rattled. >> chuck, you raise a really important question. can you connect a to b, the manafort trial to russia collusion. this is where we're going to see if there's any there, there, if there is a motive, if there was a financial motive and if there was a connection between -- you just look at the timeline. when manafort came onto the campaign was when you saw the weird fishy things like the platform being changed. you saw president trump calling for wikileaks, opening calling

for the russians to hack hillary clinton. if you look at the timeline, many of those things happened after manafort came onto the campaign. so that's the question, can you connect those things to some kind of motive because he was under financial distress. >> there are people that were sort of let go or pushed out when manafort came in who have joked, thank god i was fired. thank god i was pushed out. matthew, i want you to respond to something. quinn hillyer wrote this. someone still trump supporters two wrongs don't make a right. without saying a word against the vile behavior by trump fans against press covering a rally in tampa, one conservative activist belittled the complaints of one of the abused reporters by tweeting that it would have been really traumatizing to have been shot at like rep steve scalise was last year. how much of a problem is that in the conservative movement? >> i think it's a problem.

i think it's a problem in our politics generally, chuck. i think both sides now believe that the rules only apply to the other side. >> and they love being a victim. >> right. >> sarah sanders yesterday was more concerned about people saw her as a victim rather than talking -- saying what's my leader -- what leadership role can i play here. >> sure. and i mean you also see controversies hiring in media. there's the sense that, oh, well what's good for the other side and fireable offense for the other side is not necessarily a fireable offense if it's someone who shares my politics, right? >> you see that on the left as well as the right. >> so this just fits into the overall narrative of our tribalist politics. >> this what aboutism is bad. i can't stand it. literally, what happened to two wrongs don't make a right? >> exactly. >> be better. what does the first lady call it? be best? >> be best, right.

the problem with what aboutism is you never get anywhere. you never get anything done. you never decide that this was a bad thing that happened. maybe it happened over here too, but this individually by itself was a bad thing. >> i think we now have some strong arguments to potentially change the way we do business with this administration because you have a security issue with the way that the mob is being turned onto journalists and then you have the question of journalistically why are we there? we're not the story. so if you are going to make us the story, i think this discussion about how we cover this white house is relevant in terms of when there is not big news at these rallies other than trump trashes media, do we send just a pool reporter and a pool camera and take ourselves out -- we are not the story. >> i totally agree. we are not the story and he wants us to be the story. >> it's enabling. at a certain point it becomes enabling. >> i get it, it's a tactic. it can work in a primary

campaign. fair enough? >> i think that's true. i think there are some incentives among some news organizations and some opinion organizations to also portray themselves in opposition to president trump too, so the incentives work in both ways. >> and that is my concern. there are some that view it is an opportunity to become a star. >> a celebrity. and fight the good fight. >> look -- >> i'm shocked, shocked that this sort of thing happens in washington. i'm shocked. no. i mean yeah, that is a problem. you know, when i see this craziness, and it's -- it's horrifying, you know, to see it at a rally, the president of the united states speaking that way of the reporters who are just trying to do their jobs. i frankly in terms of actual safety, i worry less about what happens at the rallies than pizzagate. i worry about the not balanced guy who's sitting there stewing

in this conspiracy all day and decides to do something. >> those are the violent ones. they're usually a little bit off, they're alone, they have gotten themselves stewed up. that's the annapolis capital murder in some ways. that is what you have to worry about and that's where this -- you don't know who you're inciting when you -- >> no, you don't. >> that's a problem. all right, guys, let's take a break. up ahead, we're going to go inside the manafort trial. today's developments, including an admittance of falsifying tax returns, and of course back to the question that we started in this one, why was manafort broke, and why was he willing to work for free? we'll be right back. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost.

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welcome back to political court tv. it's day four of the paul manafort trial, and we've said it before but it bears repeating. the man who ran the president's campaign in the most important two-month period of that campaign is on trial. today the special counsel's team is diving into how they say president trump's former campaign chairman committed tax and bank fraud. manafort accountant just admitted on the stand to falsifying tax and loan documents on behalf of manafort. this is all part of the prosecutor's argument that a man accustomed to a lavish lifestyle got desperate when his pro-russia patrons in ukraine stopped paying him. yet he agreed to work for donald trump's campaign for free. it can't help but make us wonder, if he was working for free, what was in it for him? and was he working for somebody else not for free? nbc news national security and justice reporter julia ainsley joins me now from outside of the courthouse. julia, let me ask this first.

are we done for the week? >> reporter: we're done for the week. we're actually done until 1:00 p.m. monday. that's a long recess for a judge that kept pressuring the defense to go as quickly as possible. i mean we've really been breezing through this and actually expect the prosecution to rest my next week, chuck. >> and that means rick gates, the former partner/now prosecution star witness, there was some rumors he could get on the stand today, but it looks like we've got to wait until monday for that one. >> reporter: just walking behind me now, we did see the lawyers walk across. i didn't want you to miss that. >> while you were talking, don't worry, we caught manafort walking and we just caught gates walking, so go. >> reporter: thank you so much for catching that. that could mean something in terms of when rick gates might testify. lawyers i spoke to today said they expect him to come sometime between the middle of the lineup. what we got today was a lot of the tax side. it's not the fashion side that we had at the beginning of the week where we laid out and heard

how incredibly luxurious his lifestyle was. today we got the meat and potatoes. we found out there are tax preparers or one tax preparer that was given immunity to share her testimony that she did falsify, knowingly so, this tax records to the tune of $900,000, changing what would have been a much lower income because she was knowingly using some information that she knew to be false. now we're waiting to hear from rick gates. we hope that will be sometime next week. maybe the powwow we saw behind us is going to tell us what's coming forward next week, chuck. but rick gates will be key not only to the prosecution but to the defense who wants to use rick gates and discredit him to try to throw away this whole case and show that it was rick gates who really was the bad actor here. >> i want you to tell me about another piece of testimony today. philip aliff, a tax preparer,

who i guess was put on the stand to walk us through all of his cyprus accounts. suddenly paul manafort's wife left the courtroom. describe what happened there. >> reporter: she did. it was right at the point -- so philip aliff takes the stand. he's dry, pretty monotonous, but he gets to one point in his testimony that made mrs. manafort, kathleen manafort, lower her head, dab a tear and eventually leave the room for about five minutes. that is when he said they did not tell me that there were foreign bank accounts. yes, i knew there were foreign ejt t entities, but i had no idea these foreign bank accounts in cyprus existed. when i compiled their tax returns, i did so without knowing all of their income. that was a definite piece where miss manafort realized there's some trouble here in what he's saying. >> we learned a little bit, i guess did the word "trump" get

uttered today because manafort's trump tower condo and rent on that was some part of some falsified documents. where did that come up today? >> reporter: i did not hear the word "trump" but definitely what they referred to was the howard street property was under big question today. that was really a business property. they used it as a rental. they rented it out to make more income. but paul manafort asked his tax preparer, phil aliff, to say that this was a private residence for him and his wife in new york and that they were there many days of the year when they came to new york to do business. philip aliff refused to do that. he said if you are trying to get a loan and you want me to falsify this information, i won't. i won't do that. he very clearly in an e-mail that we saw pointed out to mr. manafort that he was incorrect the way he was describing that residence. sydney la porta was different. she came around when the manaforts were really in crunch time, 2014, 2015, the bottom was

falling out. they were taking extreme measures to falsify what their income really was, what their loans really were, and she did let them blur the lines between what's a loan and what's income. so we saw two very different characters from different points in the manafort life. >> how is the manafort attorneys explained away this testimony? how are they countering? how are they cross examining these witnesses who basically are corroborating a paper trail? >> reporter: so i can't wait to hear the cross examination of sydney la porta, that will come monday. we did hear a brief cross examination of aliff. the whole defense theory here i think can kind of be boiled down to the term bread crumbs. they want to say that paul manafort left plenty of bread crumbs for philip aliff and anyone else keeping the books to understand exactly where this information was coming from, that they would have known that foreign names might have led to foreign accounts and that really

he wasn't trying to obfuscate anything. one of their arguments is that only a fool would give all of this information and not expect to be audited. we may see later when they make their final arguments that they'll say why is the government pursuing a criminal case now when they never audited him and took civil measures for years. >> well, that will be interesting to hear those answers when we return monday at 1:00. julia ainsley in front of the courthouse, busy day. >> reporter: hope we have better weather. >> yeah, i know. knock on this fiberglass. thanks very much. up ahead, the showdown in the big easy. democrats swarm new orleans for a massive gathering of progressives. it's not hard to look at the net roots nation gathering as an audition for 2020. so guess what, we will. and that's next. -we're in a small room. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance? -oh. -well, what if i showed you this?

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wait until you hear this one, folks. tonight i'm obsessed with the trump administration's argument for freezing anti-pollution and fuel efficiency standards. we're not taking a position, but check out the logic here. here's the logic, if you can call it that. it works something like this, so bear with me. one, if cars are more fuel efficient, more people will drive so more people will die on the highways. okay. second, making cars more fuel efficient also makes them more expensive. hence, fewer people will buy new

cars with those safety features, so more people will die on the highways. three, fuel efficient cars are lighter, making them less safe, so more people will die on the highways. so to sum up, fuel efficient cars, which of course would get cleaner air, mean more people will die on the highways. admittedly there is an itty bitty bit of truth to each claim if utility your head, squint really hard. you're like, okay, i guess you could draw that conclusion. i've got a modest proposal for you here, though. there's also the argument if you charge $1,000 a gallon for gas, very few people could afford to drive and basically nobody could afford to drive on the highways. do you get the feeling someone is flowing smog in our eyes? we'll be right back.

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welcome back. just because we haven't had the 2018 elections yet doesn't mean that lots of folks aren't already thinking about 2020.

while the democratic party's identity crisis may not be front and center in this election, the divide between the establishment and the progressive wings of the party will be a big part of the next election. right now progressives are gathered in new orleans, site of this year's net roots nation, the country's annual gathering of progressives. this year the usual 2020 suspects that you've seen a lot of, senators elizabeth warren, kamala harris and cory booker have all shown up. >> it's time for us to let people know that what we're seeing in this country doesn't reflect our spirit. what we're seeing in this country doesn't reflect our potential. what we're seeing in this country is not as mighty as the love that we have together. >> we cannot afford to waste our time arguing about whose fight matters the most. it is one fight, and we have to stand with one another for one

another. >> and these past 18 months have demonstrated that the people in power are no match for the power of the people. >> and of course there's been some less familiar potential candidates also courting progressives, including washington governor jay inslee. >> i'm not waiting, i'm running against donald trump today, every single day, okay? >> notably absent from this year's conference, the i guess you could call him the front-runner for now, former vice president joe biden and senator bernie sanders, who was confronted by black lives matter protesters during his uncomfortable net roots presentation back in 2015. with me now is the founder and publisher of "the daily coast" the daily blog that organized the conference that became net roots nation. so i guess whether you like it or not, you're the godfather of this conference. welcome. >> pleasure to be on, chuck. pleasure to be on. >> let's start with what are

progressives looking for this year? when you started this blog in 0 '07, i feel like you were looking for a progressive that would make promises you want to hear. this year you're looking for progressives that have a progressive record rather than rhetoric. is that fair to say? >> yeah, i think that's fair to say. right now we're pretty heavily focused on 2018. the country has a real choice at stake, whether you're going to support a president who is a traitor to our country and a party who backs up that treason or do you want a party that actually puts americans an america first. so there's that. but that said, i think it's also important to note that we are watching our potential 2020 field very carefully. we're going to judge them in large part on how strongly they were with the resistance from day one through the 2018 election. >> so what does that mean? what does that mean for a guy like joe biden, okay, former

vice president. we know he's got a reservoir, i would assume, of sort of some support because of his connection to barack obama. what does that mean for a guy like him with the progressive crowd? >> well, i don't quite know, to be honest. i think a lot of the energy right now is with elizabeth warren and kamala harris. those are the people that are getting a lot of attention. joe biden has kind of been out of the game for the last several years and, yes, you're right. he has name recognition and a lot of good will for his service in the last administration. but that doesn't mean that he's first and foremost on the mind of the kind of activists that go to netroots nation, the kind of people that are the influencers as democrats start deciding who they're going to support in 2020. >> there's been some interesting reactions to different issues that are popping up in this debate inside the democratic party. it was interesting, our reporters picked up that tom steyer who had been pushing

impeachment, that his impeachment message wasn't as well received as other poarts o his message. what do you make of that? why doesn't the impeachment message resonate as much as maybe tom steyer wishes it did? >> i'm glad it's not resonating, to be honest, but i don't think it's a salient or very helpful argument heading into 2018. we don't want to put donald trump on the ballot. we don't want to make 2018 a presidential year. we want it to be a midterm election year in the first term of a president which historically is already difficult for the incumbent president. and we want to focus really on how the republican party really is bought and paid for by russia at this point. how they're trying to take away your insurance and all those things that are part of the modern republican party. once -- hopefully democrats win big in 2018 in, my estimation obviously, then we can decide how to deal with donald trump. always remembering that there's

always mike pence right behind him, so it's not like -- >> so you believe this should be done at the ballot -- it sounds like you believe this is better at the ballot box than in a committee hearing? >> i actually think that donald trump needs to be held accountable and i look forward to democrats taking control and holding hearings and really getting to the root of what this white house is and what it is doing. but beyond that, 2020 is going to be the year we're going to decide which direction we really wanting the country to go. >> i want to ask you about this debate about democratic socialism and i'm going to do so by playing you a clip today from cynthia nixon, who is the progressive that's challenging andrew cuomo for governor in new york. here's what she said. >> the establishment is terrified of that word, socialism. but if we learned one thing from the obama years, it's that republicans are going to call us socialists no matter what we do. so we might as well give them

the real thing. >> look, this is going -- >> i love it. >> this is going to be, though, a big debate point on that democratic primary stage in 2020, isn't it? >> i don't even think it's going to be a debate point. you either embrace the label and own it and be a player or be like andrew cuomo and off on the sidelines and irrelevant. that's where this is going. when you really look at what that so-called socialist platform is, and nixon is right, they're going to accuse us of being communists before all is said and done. basically it's access to health care and access to education. these are things people actually like. if you go down item by item, people actually wanting these things. donald trump may not, he doesn't want his taxes to go up, but everybody else kind of does. i want to have that debate. let them talk about what it means to be a socialist. we're not the party being bought and paid for by russia. we are the party that is looking out for americans and america. >> i'm curious messagingwise

this fall, there's been this debate that you talk to any democratic campaign and they will tell you, boy, the two issues that resonate the most are actually health care and health care. in some ways that is what's resonating on the campaign trail. and yet the national conversation is not health care, as you know, it's a bit of russia or it's just trump in some form or another. is that a problem you think or at the end of the day do you think that that doesn't matter, that trump will be the story, so embrace it? >> so health care absolutely is probably the item that resonates the most. that doesn't mean that russia is irrelevant, that the right to choose is irrelevant, because it's midterm election and generally these are base turnout elections so you want to make sure that our core democratic voters turn out and vote. historically they're very difficult to turn out. talking about african-americans, latinos, single women, young people. some of the hardest performing demographics. so talk about the things that they care about and they

hopefully, and i believe they will, respond. health care, absolutely. it's almost front and center. but all these other issues also matter on the periphery. guns. talk about guns. these are issues that are actually going to matter and are going to make a difference when the votes are tallied up. >> before i let you go, is there enough room in the progressive movement, enough support for both elizabeth warren and bernie sanders in a presidential primary or would they cannabalize each other? >> good question, chuck. i actually think that elizabeth warren takes a great number of bernie supporters. i think she probably does the best job in bridging sort of the divide between establishment and the resistance, better than anybody else. she's my favorite, so i'll just disclose that. i also love kamala harris and i love kirsten gillibrand. i think we'll have a wealth of candidates. bernie sanders will have a role in that conversation and i think he wants to be a part of that

conversation, but i think his moment is past. there's sort of a future generation of democrats that are going to be front and center. >> all right. >> and i'm going to be in trouble for that one. >> yes, you are. markos who will now go hide and get yelled at by a bunch of bernie bros in a minute. thanks for coming on and sharing your views. >> always a pleasure. primary season sinks another republican member of congress trying to seek statewide office. this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪

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welcome back. today "meet the midterms," if it's friday, it's election result day. more evidence this is a bad year for your first name to be congressman or congresswoman. there was another bad primary night. diane black finished in third place for tennessee governor behind two businessmen despite being tied to president trump. that makes black the fifth house republican to lose a bid for statewide office following luke messer, evan jenkins and raul labrador in idaho. that's not to say every house republican has failed. you have barletta in pennsylvania, ohio and north dakota, they made it through senate primaries as did marcia blackburn in tennessee last night so what's made all the difference? nearly all of the difference of congress who won their primaries

for statewide office got endorsements from president trump or ran unopposed. in this environment it's pretty clear when a republican candidate for office does not get an endorsement for trump. we're going to talk about what that means for the november midterms when we come back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ let your perfect drive come together at the lincoln summer invitation sales event. get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus $1,000 bonus cash. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist relieves your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. it helps block six key inflammatory substances. most pills block one. flonase sensimist.

new laptop with 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes start them off right. with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. save $200 on this dell laptop at office depot officemax. time for "the lid." the panel is back. i haddy pr -- heidi przybyla, e washington, matthew continetti. we see a pattern here. if you have a trump endorsement, it is gold. if you don't, it doesn't always work. >> the trump seal of approval, right? >> yes. >> in a republican party where the president enjoys some 88% support among republicans, that's what you want. and i think it's interesting that you see some of these house members who are just not able to make the jump to another office. >> it's almost as if you try too hard, you get punished for it. i remember the two indiana guys,

i can't remember which one of them. he wanted to put on his red hat and that was his entire ad. it's like, yeah, but the trump voter knows if trump actually endorses. >> exactly. they know exactly. they know the sort of authentic trump candidate in the race. if you're not it, you know, you've got problems. >> and so the real question now is how does this play out in an actual general election? because marshall blackburn got trump's seal of approval, and we're here in a senate race that should not be competitive and yet it is. do those candidates wind up helping the party or hurting the party in a general election? >> this is the riddle of the midterms, the one thing that's different about a normal midterms is the fact that the sitting president, while unpopular overall, as that base, matthew. obama had a similar base. and they didn't turn out for the midterms.

>> the president is the issue in the 2018 election in a way that, say, obamacare, the health care bill. >> it wasn't obama the person. >> it was obama the policy, the president as a person, his style, his tweets, various scandals, those are the issues that i think we're going to be litigating about. and how that plays out is hard to say because there's such loyalty to the president as a person among the republican party. >> i find this special in ohio in columbus the most fascinating, eugene. this district is -- it's one of those, damned if you do and damned if you don't. you need the moderates. republicans are -- >> it should be a cake walk. >> but it's not. >> exactly. and, look, the public has got to figure this out if they're going to do even respectably well, i

think, in november. i mean, they've got to figure out what's left of their party, it's trump's party now. what is the shape of that? who are the republicans now? how do you speak to them if you're not actually donald trump? you know, that's a big question. >> there's only a handful of issues that do unite them. immigration is one, and that's a big one. even the taxes, you don't always feel like it fully unites them. >> that's why you're seeing a retreat to these cultural issues of immigration and the advertising and the stump speeches. the president himself. but to the ohio election, this is why i think this is so important, because in pennsylvania with the special there, when conor lamb won, republicans said we had a bum candidate, and that was why we lost. in this case, if the republican loses, i do think there will be a panic. they're starting to see that we're getting closer to the

election here. smart prognosticators like amy walter are saying we see all of the signs of another 2006, another 2010. what happened in those cycles? more seats became more competitive, not the other way around. >> we can't ignore the fact that trump has had a bad month, between the family separations. if you -- if you just look at the pattern of events, john yang did a recent poll too where he found between family separations, the helsinki summit, the fairs news-related -- >> the manafort trial. >> those three things alone, when trump is the issue in these negative news headlines attached to him, then that's going to probably depress the republican turnout. we have to ask ourselves, what will the headlines be like in the days before the election? >> that's fair. that's a fair point. >> we have no idea what the headlines will be next tuesday. i mean, we really don't. it could be something that wouldn't cross any of our minds. those are the questions.

do republicans turn out, or is that vote depressed? >> trump is doing a rally for this district on saturday. so he's putting himself on the line. this is one of those things -- and he did it in pennsylvania '18. i never understood it. it basically -- if you win, you're supposed to, heidi. if you lose -- >> putting himself in a bad position. but, you know, do republicans turn out in november, or is that vote apathetic and depressed? and is all this passion and energy on the democratic side allowed to sort of organically turn itself into a big vote? you know. >> we see the intensity. you know this, chuck, as a scholar of politics, is that we look not just at the numbers and not just at the headlines, but we look at the intensity. and what we see is, among those who support the president, a lower intensity than those who disapprove of him.

>> especially, though, the skeptical trumpers versus the love trumpers, i guess. guys, thank you very much. happy friday. up ahead, president trump is all over the map.

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are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi.? a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. well, in case you missed it, the world is a complicated place. just ask president trump. >> i have great respect for the uk, united kingdom, great

respect. people call it britain, used to call it england, different parts. >> there's a lot to unpack here. england, great britain and the united kingdom. let's clear things up. this is great britain, it is an island with three separate countries, scotland, waels and england. if you take all the countries and add in ireland, you have the united kingdom. nothing here is called britain. we hope that clears things up, mr. president. while we're at it, clear up a few more. >> so belgium is a beautiful city. n nambia's health system is increasing increasingly self-sufficient.

the tallahassee trail, must be a beautiful place, he didn't go there. >> we work very hard in puerto rico, it's tough because an island sitting in the middle of an ocean, a big ocean, a very big ocean. >> actually, we had a long debate about that. you know, it's the atlantic ocean north of puerto rico in the caribbean sea. know your geography can make a world of difference. one to grow on. that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back monday with "mtp daily." "the beat" starts with ari melber. thank you, chuck. we have a lot of news right now this friday, democrats with a new line of attack against trump's supreme court pick and one of the party's leading strategists is here for his first appearance on "the beat." sam nunberg joins me to talk about the civil war brewing inside