>> part a good breakfast. >> sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for us on this wednesday morning. i'm richard lui alongside francis. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning. it's wednesday, august the 15th, and with us today we have donny deutsch, president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "a world in disarray" richard haass sighing already because he knows we'll be talking baseball top of the show, and host of "politics nation" and president of the national network reverend al sharpton and msnbc news reporter heidi przybyla and columnist and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene

robinson. you went to the game? didn't you richard? >> good to see you do investigative journalism, mr. scarborough. >> i love people that root for the underdog and you're a yankees' fan. >> only in new york is a team that's 31 games above .500 the underdog. >> willie, you tweeted something out last night, which is pretty astounding, about just how well the yankees are doing and what do you say? yankees would be in first place by four, five games in most divisions? >> yeah. i think four out of the other five divisions up by at least six games and in some divisions seven or eight games. yankees, 31 games over .500 and ten games out of first place because red sox after winning last night are 51 games over .500. michael kay said in the yankees broadcast only the second time in baseball history a team has been at least 35 games over .500 and trailed by ten games or more. go back to 1906 or something to find another situation like this. fact of the matter is, the red

sox of a historically great team on pace to maybe set the record for single season wins. >> and as i say, you know, if they're handing out rings for who's best in august, the red sox win it. there you go. i'm not sure what that is. >> what was that? >> i don't know. but another great game last night for the red sox. seems like every game is like a playoffs game. i do remember, though. i've got a really good friend who is is a cleveland fan. while they were rolling up 23 wins straight i think in august last year, i kept thinking, you know what? it's a five-game series, and then it's a seven-game series. don't leave it all in august and september. anyway, you know, willie, we'll get off of baseball for a second, but -- well, everybody's looking at the gaudy stats that the red sox are putting up, and looking at what's happening in the american league east, we know what the yankees and red socks, they're going to get to

the playoffs. the shocker. have you watched what's happening in, with houston? in houston's division? the as keep winning. >> yep. >> they are only one game behind houston now. >> yeah. the as, they have won four in a row. houston's lost five in a row. here come the as and seattle's good, too. a good division. the problem for the yankees, we'll end up in a one-game playoff for the wild card. you can win 102 games have a great season and it comes down to one pitching performance on one night. you don't have a good one, you're out of the playoffs. >> if you're lucky. you have to get there first. yankees could win over 100 games and not even make the wild card game. a possibility. there's something seriously wrong with that. >> let's not rule out the mets. season's not over, it's a very plucky team. you know? >> only 16.5. >> we all need to go to citi, and gene robinson just thanks god there is a team to cheer for

in washington and he doesn't have to pull for the baltimore orioles still. 49.5 games out of first place, gene? >> yeah. the orioles -- the orioles are just nothing this season. on the other hand, my washington nationals, who are usually one of the best teams in the regular season and then fizzle in the playoffs apparently have decided to do it the other way around this year. and so -- which doesn't work, because you don't get to the playoffs, get to the postseason, but, you know, what was it? last night that one of the starting pitchers, gio gonzalez gave up a two-run home run tore a pitch to a pitcher? come on. off our starting pitcher in the rotation. so -- you guys, you babies, yeah, cry about, oh, we're only

31 games over .500. >> joe, what's the latest hockey news? >> yeah. yeah. we're not talking hockey until mid-october. hey, so willie, let's -- i think we've gotten under gene's skin. let's go on with the news. >> yes. looks exhausted wondering why he came at 6:00 a.m. to talk about this. >> i always root for the underdog. so the mets are my team this time. >> there you go. >> until they go up. >> the mets. >> joe, i swear richard and i will not hyping the seize ton jinx it. we wish only the best for red sox nation. >> why you tweeted yesterday, give the rings out at -- yeah. no. it doesn't work that way. red sox fans, as you know, you know, are a little superstitious. with 161 games in a 20-game lead, i still would say 162 games played every year. >> red sox fans talk about that. >> and the playoffs.

get into the news. latest russia probe, 58% of americans believe the investigation into russian efforts is a serious matter while 37% told cnn that they think it's a way to discredit president trump. 70% believe president trump should testify under oath in robert mueller's probe. 25% say he should not. 56% feel the president attempted to interfere with the investigation and 30% say he has not done that. while a majority, 56%, think the things the president has said publicly about the investigation are mostly or completely false. 37% feel he has been mostly truthful when talking about this. so, joe, nearly 6 in 10 americans still despite the president and his administration's efforts to undermine bob mueller's investigation believe it's a serious and worthwhile matter. >> yeah. the numbers are striking in so many ways and donny deutsch, talk about the president's

attempt to brand robert mueller, to discredit robert mueller, to tarnish his brand. i do think, and greg from the "washington post" pointed this out. what i believed from the beginning. that donald trump shocked so many people in mainstream media. shocked so many people across america in november of 2016. everybody getting angry if you even suggested he had a chance of winning. he shocked them so much that now they think that -- that he can politically he's always playing the long game. he's always got a rabbit in his hat. he's always got the ace of spades up his sleeves. he's always going to win. not the case. the guy has a 39% approval rating in gallup, and time and time again you look at this poll. if this were an election between bob mueller and donald trump,

mueller has won in a landslide in every single category. >> he's won a landslide and mueller hasn't even had his day in court literally and figuratively yet. this 60% behind mueller is where trump at the only moment who the megaphone. what happens when the report comes out and we know there will be a lot of things in there. >> no, no. yeah. mueller hasn't said a thing. just gone to work. he hasn't leaked to the press. he hasn't held a press conference. he hasn't tried to brand donald trump in any way whatsoever, and yet 56% of americans say that most or all of what donald trump is saying about this investigation is a lie. about the same number say he's trying to interfere with the investigation. about the same number are saying that this is a very serious, serious investigation. this is not a close call. the majority of americans, by

almost 20%, are on mueller's side, and not trump's. >> let me give you another 20%. dotted line to a quinnipiac poll. voters that strongly approve or disapprove of trump. 38% approve. almost 50% disapprove. a 20% swing in the passion number. that two things are linked, i think. trump shows who he is, what he's worried about without hesitation pup see the omarosa thing. i'm sure we'll get into that later and now the mueller thing. he's panicked. you see it. he knows what's there. and say it's an election mueller versus trump. mueller is at 60% and has not come to the podium yet. >> yeah. hasn't come up to the plate. reverend al, when donny starts talking about that number, about intense support or intense disapproval, we all know that's

what drives elections. especially what drives an election in off years. even in an off-year special election in alabama, it was black voters across what politicians called the black belt of central alabama that turned out and helped elect a democratic senator for the first time in a quarter century. >> and i think that what we're seeing here, what's surprises some, going back to your statement about how mainstream media was shocked at his winning. so they don't want to get caught off guard again. what amazes me is that trump does not seem to have the capacity to grow at all to try to appeal to a broader base. he's sort of convinced himself that if he stays around 36%, 37% that's enough, rather than to grow and even attempt to expand his base. so when you look at the black woman turnout that you mentioned in alabama, rather than he try

to address concerns of people that are passionately against him, he calls a black woman a dog. so i mean, the biggest instrument to limit him has been him. he goes in a room with foreign leaders and looks like he doesn't belong in the room. the way he could combat a lot of these polls is by becoming what he was elected to be. he has acted in many ways like he certainly was a mistake that was made clearly i believe that's the case. >> so -- so reverend al, you bring up a great point. we had three, four people, really, here that knew donald trump pretty well for a decade before he even ran for president. you, me, donny and willie. i think the biggest surprise -- because i know -- i always knew that donald trump was, one, always just interested in, you know, winning, whatever it took to win. that he'd do whatever it took to put together a winning coalition.

and, two, i knew the guy was insecure. he craved attention and he wanted to be accepted into the community. he always felt like he was never getting the respect he deserved, almost a rodney dangerfield-type character in manhattan. rev, donny and willie, i think the big effort shock for me is that he's decided to stick with his 33% solution on this, and not try to gain that acceptance. not try to build the coalition, but just narrowing it down to the smallest, most hard-core group of supporters that cannot carry him this fall, and cannot get him re-elected. >> i think you're right. i mean, all of us have come from wherever we started, and said, if i ever can get a big platform, this is what i'm going to do, and usually try to make it bigger than ourself, if we're going to last.

he's not been able to do that, and i think that shows the real limits of this man, and maybe his insecurities were well-founded. >> donny, joe and i talked about this a lot. we've been surprised that he's not been the dealmaker he claimed he would be on the trail. i thought he would come in as a lifelong democrat, by the way, get nancy pelosi, chuck schumer in the room and say let's make some deals. i want it hang things on the wall. show people the things i've done. in fact, as joe bo burrowed in on the people that elected him. >> and big show, audience, i'm going to say, calm down. donald is all about being loved and got his 40% now. he's going to turn and be ronald reagan, have everybody. that's what he wants. clearly, he's on the opposite end. interesting anecdote somebody told me at his country club in bed minister and trump was about to walk into the room and some of the secret service guys came up, when you see the president, say positive things, pump him

up. fluffers in the room, in effect. i just said that word. didn't i. metaphorically, of course. the point, donald trump is at the point he's so fragile and cannot ever, ever be in any interaction, any exchange in any room that's just not pure lionization, canonization, and it defies any left brain logic. got those people. let me get those other people. he's built so frach gily, he ca only exist in his own universe. basically pillowed around by that 30%. >> he admits it. said about omarosa, terrible about her job, but said good things about me so i kept her around. and records show president trump struggling to gain approve until job performance with negative approval ratings in double digits in all three polls.

upside-down according to quinnipiac in cnn's poll upside down 11 points and down 17 points in the gallup poll with a 39% rating in their weekly tracking poll. if the kwai the quinnipiac poll whether they liked trump as a person. 31% say yes. 59% say they dislike him. the president's twitter habits, 26% believe he should continue tweeting while 66% think he should stop. heidi, talking about this yesterday. with a strong economy, unemployment at 3.9% you would expect president trump to be up over 39%, 41% locked in almost from the beginning. >> talked about that yesterday, willie, so i took, an attempt, to look closer at these numbers and i saw a real danger zone within the numbers, which was the question about what he's doing for the middle class. remember, this was the whole premise of his campaign, was that he was going to buck the

establishment. that he ran against them to elevate the needs of the forgotten man. according to the polling by a margin of 58% to 38%, he has not done enough to help the middle class, and those white voters without college degrees among them he is now evenly split. there is no advantage for donald trump now in this quinnipiac poll along white voters without college degrees. that's notable and speaks directly to the debate you were just having about president trump as a dealmaker. so we're now a year and a half into this presidency that was premised on helping the forgotten man. and we all saw from the very beginning what happened with donald trump. he may have come in with the best of intentions in terms of helping the forgotten man was immediately co-opted by that very establishment in terms of the agenda pushed through congress. there was no infrastructure plan. the hope among schumer, why he

kind of held back initially, hoping that maybe the president would come to him and nancy pelosi and do revitalization of american infrastructure and cut a big deal with them. there was none of that. there was no compromise to bring better health care that's cheaper and that covers everyone. there was -- go back to the old playbook of tax cuts for the rich, and tax cuts for the rich that are even more skewed than those under reagan and bush. so i think that is why you're seeing these numbers move the way that they are, because a lot of these people, i just have this feeling that they are not -- their allegiances are very shallow. the reason why president trump won the midwest was not because they all loved him so much. it was because the democrats didn't turn out, and now you're starting to see those intensity numbers really move. >> well, and you're right, heidi. it's not because they love donald trump so much.

we've commented at the time that donald trump, like, only 35, 36% of americans found donald trump to be honest and trustworthy. in the 50s found him to be a liar and dishonest. he just happened to be running against somebody who actually had lower hon effort and trustworthy numbers than him. pretty remarkable. gene robinson. i want to follow-up on what the rev and willie and -- and we were all talking about, donny, talking about it. about knowing this guy for ten years. >> uh-huh. >> and this is the bizarre thing about it. he talked about fund-raisers for chuck schumer. nancy pelosi. i mean, he was a democrat. behind closed doors wasn't even posing for anybody, he gave a ton of money to the dnc. he gave money to rahm emanuel.

he did all of these things that would have allowed him to make that turn, like i think a lot of those democrats believed that he was going to make. again, he was always broodi ibr publicly, shallow, always insecure, but i think everybody assumed, and it was a pretty good calculation that those very quality would make him want to be beloved so much that he'd rather have a 50% approval rating than the 39% approval rating, but every step of the way he has chosen the narrow cast. just called a black woman a dog. he calls latinos breeders just this year. mexicans rapists during the campaign. black countries and majority black continent s-hole countries. he is done everything he can do to trap himself in the 30s. >> yeah. i mean, you said something

earlier that's absolutely right. i mean, whenever i write really anything about donald trump, some people, democrats, write me and say, you know, no. don't write that. don't say that. that's just what he wants. this is all a trap somehow. when, no, it's not. it's not. it's just he's not -- he did just, you know, take a fall down the stairs as part of some sort of evil plot, and, you know, i think the answer to the question that you guys are posing is clearly that he's not fully in control. i mean, he's not in control. >> gene, these -- i've got to say, really -- there's -- the guy's not right. >> uh-huh. you know -- >> he's not -- he's not acting logically. >> uh-huh. >> and i don't know how to say without people saying, don't act like you're a doctor. i'm not acting like i'm a

doctor, i've known the guy ten years, though. nobody rationally behaves this way, unless they want to get wiped out in elections. unless he want to have 38%, 39% approval rating. >> right. as a matter of politics, as a matter of the numbers, this is an insane way to behave and then other things. the way these sort of -- what i suspect were sort of deeply buried prejudices have come out, about latinos, about african-americans, about women, certainly, the way he treats women, but those are things that, know, an adult in control of himself manages to bury. manages to realize that they're not appropriate. certainly not appropriate to sort of trumpet the way he -- but he can't control those things. they just sort of erupt out of

him. he learned to do one extraordinary thing during the campaign, which is the sort of stream of consciousness rallies in which for a segment of the electorate, they are catnipped. they are amphetamines. they are whatever you -- some kind of drug that really pump people up. and that's really what he knows how to do. so that's what he'll continue to do, and it turns out the or 60% more and more, but this is not just all some die dol abolical . this is a man out of control. >> 39%, 40%, you lose elections. don't worry. he's not going to sneak up on you like he did before. you know, mika and willie and i and mark halperin said he had a chance to win the last two weeks. didn't think he was going to. a chance to win, and seriously,

you would have thought we said locusts were going to be descending from the heavens and eating the flesh other every human being in america. i'm here to tell you now a 40% president loses midterms and 40% president doesn't get re-elected. ain't going to happen. but reserved al, let's wrap this up. we have quite a few people on here who have known donald trump for ten years. so interesting to me. gene had said, talking about the guy's not well. gene had said before that people keep their prejudices buried when they talk. certainly in public. i'm sure he never said anything inappropriate to you racially, but i can tell you while donald trump said inappropriate things behind closed doors and certainly was not a feminist behind closed doors for the decade i was with him, i can tell you and mika would tell you the same thing. he never once said anything

remotely insensitive behind closed doors regarding race. never once. the first time i ever heard him say anything about it was in 2011 when he -- when he held on to this birther conspiracy and it was like this lifelong democrat figured out that if he played a racist and a bigot, he could win the republican nomination. which, of course, offended me at the time, because i was a republican, but i'll be damaged if he didn't do it. this makes it worse. >> i had a similar experience. >> go ahead. >> because, you know, i met him in the '80s with don king and tyson and then i marched on around the central park five case which he was adamantly opposed to. as i got to know him he never was offensive. actually came on national convention's twice, cut the

ribbon with geraldine ferraro. the birther thing i started saying this guy is not genuine and always sensed he was playing me, but i didn't know that he was on the other team until birther and then he had michael cohen call me and sit down and say, why are you saying what i'm saying is racist? i said, bra ecause it is, and is trying to gauge whether he was just insensitive or really racial? as time has gone on and at the limits of what he's able to do, you do what people do. you reach inside to who you really are. these feelings are really coming out. no one could wall african nations s-holes or mexicans rippists or call a black woman a dogs in that's really in them. that's who he is and i think many of us gave him a benefit of a doubt that he never lived up to. we knew he wasn't genuine but we didn't know who genuinely he was. >> that's a great way of putting it. >> one time he called, screaming early during the campaign, and

said stuff calling me a bigot on tv. you know i'm not a bigot. and i said, well, donald, if you're not a bigot you're playing one on tv to get elected, which actually is even worse. so -- it doesn't really matter -- ike always said you don't -- you don't guess what somebody believes. you don't try to imagine what they believe. look at their actions, and that will tell you. well, donald trump by his actions, he has shown us, regardless of what he believes inside his head, he's a bigot. he's acting like a bigot. he's ruling like a bigot, and that bigot will be defeated at the polls this fall and in two years. still ahead on "morning joe." >> amen. >> we're going to run through last night's primary results including one which seems to show president trump's tightening grip on his party. see how that works out for you, republicans in a couple of years. plus, paul manafort's trial heads to closing arguments. we're going to have a live

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simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. the white house is defending president trump's reercht comments about former aide omarosa. on twitter he lashed out calling omarosa a dog among other things. here's what the press secretary had to say when asked about it yesterday. >> the president has said similar things about a number of individuals certainly that are not african-american or any other minority. i can simply talk to you about the policies and the person that the president is. i think if, again, the person that a lot of his critics say he is certainly wouldn't have been in business with him for decades. certainly he wouldn't have had bill and hillary clinton, they

attended his wedding. i think he's made a number of comments about plenty of people and to try to single that out to onely silly. if you did a comparison probably has a lot more nasty things about some other people. >> joe, the president has, in fact, called many people dog, african-american and white people. mitt romney, steve bannon among many others, but the defense from the white house press secretary is that he says this stuff about everybody. he calls everybody a dog, and that's supposed to be a helpful way of explaining what he said about omarosa. >> of course, feeds into, again, what the article that we read from yesterday, from 2011, where you try to dehumanize your political opponents, and that's the first step and many steps to autocracies, toetarianism and horror. nobody is suggesting donald trump is going to succeed in

america, but we were talking during the break, willie. one of those things during the break. i wish we had, it was on the air, but we were talking about the rev was talking about how donald trump hung out with a lot of boxers, with a lot of hip-hop artists, that would hang out with him, in atlantic city, and we noticed early in the campaign, jay-z and even late in the campaign. if a hip-hop artist decided they were going to support donald trump they were always -- or hillary clinton, they always seemed careful to say, hey, i got nothing against donald trump. nothing against donald trump, and -- it was sort of a head scratcher. but that was the case. >> yeah. i mean, rev, you know better than anybody, the circle he ran with don king and tyson and those guys? >> first of all, let's not act like he just wanted to because of social reasons. he was in that business. in the casino business. he could not appeal to a large

consumer base in atlantic city without boxing. so he needed don king. he needed tyson. he needed hip-hoppers, that's who fill the casinos. so he would socialize with them. i knew a lot, grew up with spike and that crowd, i would always see him at the events. he was at tyson's housewarming when i got there. i mean, this was the crowd he hung out with. so they were comfortable with him. never realizing that he had these real inside kind of biases that we knew coming from brooklyn, we knew the queens white guys and howard beach didn't like us, but you everyone inner associated him with that, because of the hangout factor, unless you dated his sister and he started saying, wait a minute. started using the n word behind your back. that's the kind of guy trump reminds me of. we can go to school together but wait a minute. i saw you look the at my sister. now we start understanding who we really are.

>> i'm a queens guy. don't put knee that. >> i wasn't -- >> let's not mistake the fact trump was cozying up to various prominent -- it was a transaction. not a man who was colorless. >> never was on a march for freedom and justice. >> and joe, yes, you say which is worse? truly a bigot or playing a bigot? both are reprehensible, but i just remember in my conversation about the birthing, when we were on the phone, there was a chip missing that he could not -- beyond the fact that that could come out of him, he could not comprehend the race piece of that. it was just not in his -- there was no empathetic piece of dna gene in there, even if he didn't intend it what it could seem like, and i -- whether that was the beginning showing who he truly was, and i agree with the reverend, he certainly hasn't not walked back one step

forward, one step at least. >> it wasn't boxers and hip-hop artists that he socialized with. he dated black women. >> yeah. >> he -- as you were saying before, rev, and gene, i've got to say, the most troubling part of all of this, about his racism and his bigotry is that just like when his friendships with hip-hop artists and boxers were transactional, now he's friends and apologizes for white nationalists and neo-nazis and that's just as transactional. nobody giving donald trump is pass. this is me saying, i believe he is a depraved human being who will do anything to get ahead that day. because he is nothing more than a day trader. >> well, he is that. i mean, he's a complicated person. you know? i think -- sure sounds sincere

to me. especially one thing he sounds really, really sincere about. you know, more than the racism against african-americans, frankly, is the racism against latinos, particularly dark-skinned latinos from central america from mexico. he has a thing about the browning of america. that is, i think, quite genuine. and i think he's totally in line with jeff sessions and others on that, but one other thing i will point out, which is, you know, from my youth. i always keep it in mind that strom thurmond was a genuine racist, yet he has a black daughter. he had a black daughter. so it's not -- >> that's true. >> this is not unheard of. >> slave owners. i mean, slave owners had children with their slaves. >> it's gone, though, al, the opposite direction.

donald trump was a democrat his entire life. he gave money to the dnc. he gave money to nancy pelosi. he gave money to chuck schumer. he gave money to hillary clinton. he went to hillary clinton's wedding and then suddenly in 2011, i mean, i know -- the -- he ran ads against the central park five, but -- but -- behind closed doors, he became that way in 2011 when he decided he wanted to win the republican national committee's endorsement. >> no. that's why i think you and donny are correct when you say he's transactional. he didn't believe it when he was democrat or was coming around many of us like convinced with the national network, i believe he believes in donald trump but i believe that donald trump has certain biases that he cannot get over. because if any of those

relationships were not transactional, he'd be talking to people saying, why are blacks offended by me? why are women offended? he doesn't have those kind of relationships, because he doesn't have that kind of sensitivity. it's all day trading, like you said, and tomorrow's another day and i'll trade with somebody else and you cannot do that as president and leader of the free world and really bring the country forward. >> joe, the birther issue for president trump, then donald trump, may have started as a way in to politics, but let's be clear, i think everyone at the table would vouch for it, he meant it on the birther issue. when you talk to him privately he would not let you get off the phone for 30, 45 minutes as he explained obscure details of an advertisement in the hawaii's advertiser. why would you do that? >> obsessed with it. >> he was and whether or not he believed it at the beginning he certainly believed it by the end. >> you know who he's obsessed with then and now? he was obsessed with barack

obama. barack obama drove him crazy then. barack obama drives him crazy now. barack obama, the mention of the name, gets him out of his game, and what he told me and what he told -- he later, basically, admitted it publicly, that he believed that barack obama lied on his application to harvard and said that he was born in kenya, and he wanted to out barack obama and embarrass him. think of -- we've got to go to break. think of all the ways that a retired president has still caused donald trump to make one mistake after another mistake after another mistake that's leading to his downfall. it's really pretty remarkable. >> it happened again yesterday, joe. happened again in the briefing room when they misstated president obama's african-american employment numbers.

we'll get into that in a minute because the staff is screaming in our ears. and coming up, claiming its common for white house staffers to have non-disclosure agreements but she wouldn't say whether or not she signed one herself. that's ahead. and of course, much more. we'll just say what we want to say, go where we want to go when "morning joe" returns.

relations between nato allies and the united states and turkey just keep on dissolving. turkey's president erdogan is now calling for turks to boycott american electronics. yeah, okay. including calling out apple significantly. yes, yes, dear leader, they will do that for you. it comes amit an ongoing standoff regarding turkey's detainment of an american pastor andrew brunson. the u.s. is sanctioned two top turkish officials over the situation. last week increased sanctions on turkish metals. yesterday turkey responded by raising tariffs on a host of u.s. goods, including tobacco, to 60%. u.s. cars to 120% and u.s.

alcohol. all of this, of course, comes as a turkish economy continues to be in a free fall. with the turkish lira falling to record lows. accelerating inflation and an investor selling spree of turkish debt. so richard haass, talk about irds ju erdogan not. not a would-be autocrat but an autocrat himself. he liked to talk about forsythia and begonia. we'll talk about what he's talking about now. seems to me that actually what donald trump has done over the past couple weeks obviously is a threat to nato, but at the sam timsame time, donald trump has become the first person to actually gain leverage over an autocrat

consolidating power the past decade. >> taken on erdogan, no friend of the west or democracy. bad news, done it on the wrong issue and the wrong way. focused on the unfair detention of the american pastor and done it with the, these tariffs. the problem is, two. one is, you know, erdogan -- the issue erdogan embraced to give us heartburn, destroyed turkish democracy. helped jihadish in the middle east, close to iran and now close to russia. an ally in naught to closer to a than ourselves. and nen the case of tariffs with brunson. going down the tubes not because of us but because of they're own behavior. among other things put his son in charge of the finance ministry. weakening the central bank and wouldn't let them raise interest

rates. >> it certainly accelerates that, doesn't it. it accelerates but allows erdogan to blame us rather than many blamed for it by his own people. he was basically committing economic suicide by himself. i would have let him do it and not now give him this argument somehow it's the united states to blame. >> richard, it's heidi. to follow-up on that, though. unlike tariffs of traditional allies like canada and western europe, do you think you might see more support for this in congress where we've already seen legislation to try to squeeze the turks? secondly, what do you think the implications are for the potential for broiling other emerging markets? what is the risk that this could spread? >> congress, we saw it the other day with passage of the defense act named for john mccain. there was a provision in it essentially putting on hold the american transfer or sale of the f 35 aircraft to turkey. basically, the idea that turkey

would be able to get our most advanced aircraft at the same time they get a russian defense system to shoot down those aircraft is obviously unacceptable. the fact congress stepped in here to me was a welcome sign they are still willing to at least accept some of their foreign policy responsibilities. i hope these aircraft never go to turkey. quite honestly. and i know several governments in the region including israel agree with me. i think this issue of contagion, though, it's not just turkey. it's emerging markets around the world. what's happened, a lot of these countries essentially borrowed an awful lot of money and borrowed it in dollars. now that the dollar is strengthened against their own currency, their ability to pay back debt in many cases not just turkey is suspect. seeing it in the philippines and elsewhere. the question, given the nature of modern economies whether con tampen takes hold, whether this begins to spread. so far markets largely shrugged it off.

markets shrug it off until the day they stop shrugging it off. >> a lot more to get to this morning. a new book reveal what's it calls the untold story of donald trump and the russian mafia. looking at president trump's tangled tangled history with russia with dozens of people with ties to both trump and russia. that's coming up on "morning joe." welcome to at&t innovations where we give you more for you thing. and here's where we shrink the biggest names in entertainment so we can fit them into our unlimited wireless plan. who's first? no.

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so, willie, a lot of fierce debates going on right now. we could continue talking about baseball. we could talk about donald trump and his use of racially-insensitive words, but one was raging around your house and you write this "dateline" upper west side, big debate on whether we have to make bed with clean sheets, ugh, exhausting, or just sleep on the bare mattress and old flat pillows with no cases. a great time saver. it seems that christina geist

was churchilian in her retort. >> sometimes the most concise argument is the best one. she told me, quote, shut up. and so what happened was, you get home. we went to dinner. you get home. the sheets come out of the dryer, but they're still sitting on top of the bed. the idea of going through process of putting those on before getting in is so daunting and overwhelming. i'm happy to sleep on that bare mattress, which is fine with a guy. when she's not around, i do it all the time. she thought that was absolutely abhorrent. so we went through the exhausting three-minute process of putting the sheets on. >> oh my gosh. >> i know. that's what i live with. >> unbelievable. >> there was not a noun after shutup. >> just shutup and threw me half the sheet across the bed and said start making it. >> tight corners. >> true trump style you tweeted about it.

you couldn't let it go. >> i did. >> exactly. you could not let it go. man, that's worst than three a days under sabean in tuscaloosa, having to make your bed for three minutes at that time of night. >> most of the response is that i'm gross for even considering sleeping on that bare mattress. >> please. yeah. i sleep on the floor. usually the clothes i wear the next day it's still fine. still ahead, it was a historic night for women and minorities following yesterday's primaries across america. axios's mike allen will break down the results just for you. and what they may signal for president trump heading into the midterms. "morning joe" is going to come right back. ♪ 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

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the first survivor of alzis out there.ase and the alzheimer's association is going to make it happen. but we won't get there without you. join the fight with the alzheimer's association. ♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, august the 15th. still with us we have donny deutsche author of the book "a world in disarray, richard haass and heidi przybyla and associate editor of the washington post and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. joining the conversation we have the co-founder of axios, mike allen and law professor at george washington university jonathan turley. willie, every time -- i wonder

if you have the same memories i do, august 15th, every time i see that i flinch because august 15th was when two-a-days started in pensacola, florida, at pensacola high school. you would go out at 9:00 a.m. in the morning, it was 99 degrees, humidity was 98 degrees and three or four players would pass -- the first august 15th that went by, man, i'm getting away with something today. >> that was pensacola, florida. i thought it was bad in northern, new jersey. yeah, those two-a-days lot of people after a long summer of doing whatever they're doing, puking on the sideline, those were tough days, but it was part of the deal, man. >> joe, i'm surprised. i know you played high school football. i assumed you as a lanky backup wide receiver but you were a qb, is that correct? >> it was a bad sign. i was the tallest guy on the team, the biggest guy on the

team. i was bigger than my line men. it led to quite a few sacks. but while we're talking baseball and sports and football, you brought up a great point, donny, which is everybody is talking about the red sox, but you look at the las vegas line right now, it's not a landslide. a lot of smart fun still on the yankees. >> yeah. you follow the money. we can talk all you want. vegas has the red sox 28% chance winning the series and yankees 22. yes, the red sox are 50 games over, but as we all know a short series is a short series. >> yeah. >> i share your trepidation about the red sox. i'm a yankees fan. it's going all too wonderful right now. you know where that ends. >> i talked about cleveland last year, they had this long winning streak. everybody is freaking out in cleveland about it. they left it on the field july and august or august and

september. we all can go back to that seattle mariners team, greatest team of all time maybe. that's what people were saying until, of course, they got to the playoffs. >> 2001, seattle mariners won 116 games. debate about whether they were the best team of all time. yankees beat them in the divisional series and season was over. more baseball coverage coming up in just a moment. let's start with the latest polling about the russia probe. 58% of americans believe the investigation into russian efforts is a serious matter, 58%. while 37% told cnn poll they think it's a way to discredit president trump. 70% of americans believe president trump should testify under oath in robert mueller's probe. 25% say he should not. 56% feel the president attempted to interfere with the investigation. 38% say he has not done that. while a majority of americans, 56% think the things the president has said publicly

about the investigation are either mostly or completely false, 37% feel he has been mostly truthful, joe. so again, despite all the attacks, despite all the calls from the trump administration to wrap it up, despite the fact that rudy giuliani has said time and again on tv, bob mueller doesn't have a damn thing, try to bring this to an end. despite the president calling it a russian hoax, nearly 60% of americans believe it's a worthwhile exercise. >> well, just too many russians that have been indicted. too much evidence out there. jonathan turley, i've always said that donald trump at the end of the day always said after he got elected and after about two or three months in i said at the end of the day, donald trump would go down in history as a warning to future wanna be autocrats. you just can't do that in this country. those numbers, though, in that poll actually are just made for defense attorneys in this

situation in the future where you can hand almost that to your client. oh, you think attacking the prosecutor is going to help you out? look at these poll numbers. robert mueller who didn't say a word has the confidence of the american people over a guy who talks about it and obsesses about it everyday. >> there's no question it's been a universal position among attorneys that the tweets, the attacks are not helpful to donald trump's team. but what's also fascinating about these polls are how baked in these numbers are. that number 37% comes up all the time on popularity, mueller, all these issues, you have 37% that is not moving. that create assort of weird, political and legal dynamic. clearly trump is appealing to that position. and it does seem to be hardened. now, does that give him anything politically? probably. does it help him legally?

probably not. because you have a special counsel who is going to take this thing to the end. and the view of the public is that there really is a there there. i don't know how anyone can seriously they the russian investigation is meritless or that it should be terminated. >> donny, let's just go ahead and stick a long needle into that balloon and pop it right now. you've had one analyst after another analyst saying, yes, rudy giuliani may be lying everyday and may be contradicting himself everyday and he may be bringing shame to himself everyday as a former prosecutor, but look at the numbers. they're moving. no, they're not. the numbers haven't moved at all. as jonathan said, the numbers are where they were six months ago before rudy went out and started debasing himself for a man who will throw him under a bus in a second.

>> yeah. let's do an interesting analogy and make trump and mueller coke and pepsi and they're two products. interestingly enough, let's say trump is pepsi. if you take the amount of messaging that's been out there as far as the anti-mueller, as far as the hoax, they probably spent a billion dollars of free media news to get that message out. coke on the other side hasn't come forward with their message and still ahead by 20 points. so that will tell you really where the american sentiment is. one has been basically bombarding the air way with ads and the other has not spent a dollar on ads if you take the messaging for ads if nothing else. probably not 20%, it's 40% if the other message was out there. i want to go back to professor turley, is there any way, in any way, shape or form that this kind of thing to let's say a future judge in any case or any -- that works against because they're still human

beings and they've been listening to this and they've been predisposed to this, shut up with this already. we know it doesn't help, but does it backfire in any way? >> well, i think it does backfire and it already has in many ways if you look at the immigration cases. all these tweets, all these attacks ultimately became a factor for the lower courts. i disagreed. i thought the courts relied too much on the tweets. ultimately trump did prevail in the supreme court but it did cost him. it cost him dramatically in terps of the legal team from the justice department. what you have to keep in mind, though, the most likely jury if things go really badly for trump would be the united states congress. the united states senate is the jury of any impeachment case. i was the lead counsel on the last impeachment. i can tell you, that is a different jury i'll ever go before. half of them would have been struck for cause in a normal

jury. so you have these 100 senators. now, of those two figures, the figure that many of those senators will weigh the heaviest is the 37% because those 37% of people will not accept the evidence against trump. and i think that this jury pool is very susceptible to that number. >> joe, you know, yes. joe, one footnote to donny's pepsi challenge, that 70% cohort that thinks the president should testify, that include the president of the united states. we're told that his advisers think that just like he was advised not to take the omarosa bait, the first lady advised him not to engage with omarosa, he can't help himself. that's why they think he will ultimately do an interview with mueller, he just can't help himself. >> you look at those numbers, 70% of americans say that if

subpoenaed donald trump needs to testify under oath in front of bob mueller. one more question for you, jonathan. just quickly before we get into election results. i'm curious what your take was on the manafort trial and where we are in the manafort trial right now. >> quite frankly it was a surprising move for them not to present a defense case. he just elected not to testify, which was very predictable. but that comes at a cost. just ask martha stewart. the jurors are told not to take anything from a defendant not testifying. down deep they never understand why an innocent person would not get on the stand and explain these things. in my view, the defense really didn't succeed in the government's case. you know, you can prove that gates is a really bad person, but as long as manafort looks worse, the case is still a good one for the prosecution. and manafort looked a hell of a lot worse. and they really didn't move the

ball. they have a mountain of documentary evidence showing accounts that were not claimed, accounts that clearly manafort had. so this is a surprising decision. i think it magnified the odds against manafort of conviction on at least some of these counts. >> let's turn to some elections last night. a surprise in minnesota's republican governor, jeff johnson easily defeated team polenti, the former two-term governor of that state, trying to win back his job. president trump played a role in the primary. johnson highlighted how pawlenty withdrew his support of trump. they sparred who had insulted president trump more. >> i supported him and you told

people not to elect him. >> i voted for president trump. >> but you thought he was unfit to be president. >> i reacted to the "access hollywood" tapes. you calling him a jackass is better than me calling him unhinged. >> i have a question for you. >> come on, jeff. >> you said he was unfit to be president and you were withdrawing your support a few weeks before election. who did you want to win on election night when you were watching the coverage? >> i voted for president trump in early voting, but again i support president trump's policies. i don't like his -- >> who did you want to win? >> i absolutely wanted president trump to beat hillary clinton. >> even though you said he was unfit to -- >> i voted for him. >> you should have told people that after you told them not to vote for him. >> watching that, shows the line everyone is walking. scott walker is doing it in wisconsin as well, tiptoeing between not crossing the republican president of their party but also not going along with some of the rhetoric coming out of the white house. >> poor t. paw, he was not

looking like someone with a strong, clear message. we saw pawlenty said this is the year to be the establishment candidate and be the, quote, clear favorite. it's a tough place to be. >> that was a great saturday night live clip. pete davidson was brilliant as pawlenty in that clip. >> joe, what did you see when you watched that? >> it was pathetic. i saw two guys, you know, did you vote for him? would you lick him in the face if it was three inches from you? because i was three inches from him and i tried to lick him in the face. it was pathetic. one guy called him a jack ass. the other guy, oh my god, was offended by the "access hollywood" tape. can you imagine that? yeah, i think most americans were offended by the "access hollywood" tape. gene robinson, it is possible

the republican primary contests are becoming even more stupid by the day. i mean, down in florida i get -- my god, you've got a guy that is reading bedtime stories to his children about building the wall, has a baby in a make america great again onesie and we laugh about it today, but there will be a category 4 or category 5 storm that comes across the i-4 corridor and guess what, we'll have a governor that will not know what to do if he gets elected based on cute 30-second commercials and being the guy that proves that he's the biggest suckup to donald trump. >> really, what profiles and courage we're seeing from republican candidates out there this season. and it is -- look, it shows the

hold that these candidates perceive donald trump having on the republican party, on the republicans who are going to come out and vote, who are coming out to vote in these primaries. who anticipate will come out and vote in the fall. and, what they're not, of course, calculating in is all the democrats who are going to come out, all the independents who are going to come out on the other side, but this is a pure base play and trump i's got the base, the support of 90% of republicans which are the self-identified republicans which is a shrinking cohort, nonetheless, he has 90% of them and that's who they're going after. >> heidi, if you're a republican candidate in a primary you look back to mark sanford. here is a guy who got caught in his appalachian trail escapade

while he was governor about as big of a scandal you could have while you were governor, went back to the south carolina voters, sat down with them in diners across his district, asked for their forgiveness and they gave it to him. and he got elected to congress. but say one or two bad things about donald trump and you're out of there. what a bizarre, bizarre turn of events and set of values. >> and i think the impression right now among the public about the potency of that coalition and of trump's blessing is a little overblown because at the same time you see this happening within the small primary community because remember i looked at the latest gallop numbers on how many self-identified republicans there are, the number is shrinking. we're down to 26% nationwide.

so that is a shrinking number and it's an even smaller number when you consider the number of people who vote in primaries. on the other side of the ledger, what you see happening is red states, ruby red states where democrats actually have a chance. why is the senate race in tennessee where corker won by a huge margin now considered a cliff hanger? why do you have possibly the first african-american woman positioned to win in georgia? it's because when you have a broader voting electorate the other side of the ledger is more motivated. and since this may be my last chance to talk today before i see y'all tomorrow, i just wanted to note that fellas, my mike was turned off during that extended sports discussion at the top of the 6:00 and the 7:00 hours, but i will be on set tomorrow. so hope you enjoyed it. >> what? >> you just can't leave it out there like that.

get involved. are you a yankees fan? are you a red sox fan? >> i'm agnostic. >> you can't be agnostic. >> i'm like no sports. >> aren't you tigers, heidi? >> my husband makes me go to ore yol ga ol games. what does that make me? >> oh my god. i like the orioles. feel sorry for them. just very briefly, buck showalter, by the way, pensacola native. good on buck. buck has been through a lot this year, but he's a really good manager. he just doesn't have any players. but i have to give it to the organization, they've kept him there. >> oh my god, i'm so sorry. >> heidi, you're not going anywhere. you said that was the last time talking. you just brought yourself another hour on the show. you just sit tight. let's talk about more politics. a few more highlights in wisconsin, tony evers won 41% of

the vote in a crowded eight h way primary for governor. the state's school superintendent now up against republican governor scott walker. in connecticut, ned lamont claimed the democratic nomination for governor, this as republicans nominated a former ge executive who was a registered democrat shortly before announcing his bid as a republican. and history was made last night as democratic candidate for vermont governor christine hailquist became the first transgender nominee for a party. minnesota democrat omar won the democratic primary for minneapolis house seat which means the first two muslim women now likely to join congress this fall. so mike, what was your big take away last night? big picture. >> our big take away is the blue wave is a rainbow wave.

we've seen an unbelievely consistent story through the primaries. a cat 4 is building there, too, for the democrats that again and again we see strong candidates winning these primaries. so, start with women. 199 women are now nominees just for house. and something that axios points out is we now know that at least five women are going to replace men, regardless of what happens in the general election we'll have five women taking men's sheets so washington is going to look a lot different. and the story that we just saw there, the rainbow wave, four lgbt candidates nominees for governor. lgbt is one of each of those who now is a nominee, so another place that this blue wave is becoming a very diverse one as

well. >> you know, and we heard about the year of the woman for so many years, seems every two years somebody else claims this is the year of the woman. well, i really -- you look at all of the results and you've got to believe just like 1974, richard nixon and watergate led to a class of democrats that controlled american politics for the next 20 years. you got to look at this class that may be coming in if it continues the way it does and 2018 does become the bona fide year of the woman, you can actually have donald trump's election in 2016 leading to a huge win for women across america and reshaping american politics for years to come. mike allen, thank you so much. we appreciate it. jonathan turley, thank you as well. we'll read your latest column in "the hill". still ahead on "morning

joe," our next guest calls it the untold story of donald trump and the russian mafia. best-selling author craig unger is here with his new book. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. so, how's it going? well... we had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. go someplace exotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermuda. i hear it's nice. yeah, i'd like to see it. no judgment. just guidance. td ameritrade.

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with free 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. like these for only a 25 cents at office depot officemax. this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops.

oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. joining us now new york times best selling author craig unger, his new book titled "house of trump/house of putin." he paints donald trump as a russian asset unraveling ties spending four decades, including relationships with dozens of people who have alleged connections to the russian mafia. also with us former assistant united states attorney in the southern district of new york, mimi roka. an msnbc legal analyst. congratulations on the book, craig. let's set the time frame where

we're talking about here. how far back do you go with donald trump and his business ties. >> i go back nearly 40 years and i see essentially the greatest intelligence operation of our times. it started off in 1984 with a man who has ties to the russian mafia and he meets with donald trump in the trump tower, the supreme moment of donald trump becoming a master of real estate in the united states. and what we end up seeing is trump tower become sort of a cathedral of money laundering. david meets with donald trump. he has no apparent job. and he says he's going to buy five condos. he has $6 million in cash, that's the equivalent of about $15 million today. and that sets off a pattern that goes on for the next 30 years or so in which over 1,300 condos are sold in what appears to be money laundering.

by that i mean it triggers -- they have two characteristics. one, they are all cash purchase, two, they are shell purchases, they're anonymous purchases. the records don't show who the true owners are. >> is this a with itting or unwhiting thing for donald trump in terms of having people come through trump tower? >> i call him an asset because we don't definitively know the answer to that question. i can't get inside donald trump's mind, but he's meeting with this guy. we know there are about 1,300 other operations in which he's profiting heavily from that. if he can go through that and doesn't figure that out. he's either inexplicably stupid or there is a legal concept of willful blindness and perhaps that's what's going on. >> when you called donald trump a russian asset, that's a serious charge to suggest that the russians buying condos were doing it not only to launder but

perhaps to get something out of the deal for themselves. what was their objective and why did they identify donald trump? >> well, he was -- he was simply business person initially. and i think it started out just to launder money, but it grew into more than that. i interviewed general head of kgb, the russian mafia, that's another part of the kgb. it's a state actor, that's why this is so important. it's very different. americans grow up watching "the godfather" and think of the italian mafia. this is quite different. it's an arm of the russian government as surely as the united states was to use the cia to use a covert action, the russians can use the russian mafia. and they are based -- they've been based in trump tower on and off for more than 30 years in the home of the president of the united states. >> craig, two more questions.

first off, you say that trump for 40 years has been the subject of russian intelligence somehow his sexual misconduct they would use against him obviously we heard about these tapes. secondly also what is so damning and i said this all along is trump was $4 billion in debt and the russians showed up. first question, what do you know, what did you find out what they possibly might have as far as some type of sexual eye candy of what trump has done? >> the general was talk about -- again, he was head of counterintelligence for the kgb. he was referring to trump's first trip in 1987 to russia and said that trump probably saw dozens of women in the kbg. i regard that as very similar to the allegations that we saw in the steele dossier.

and trump went back and forth many times to russia. he started negotiating for trying to build something in moscow and never came to fruition. i have to think one of the reasons for that has been so much of his prosperity is due to people buying properties to launder money. and if you want to launder money you don't want to do it in russia. you want to get your money out of russia, not leave it there. >> one of the hallmarks of the italian mafia is allegiance to a boss. there's always someone in charge, in control, sort of at the center directing things. who would that be here in this case with the russian mafia? >> his name would be vladimir putin. and i obtained transcripts of ukrainian intelligence conversations in which the head of ukrainian intelligence op is talking about putin's meeting with a man name who is the brai

behind the russian mafia. he is not the most powerful person there but he is worth $10 billion. he helped elevate it to massive white collar crimes. he's still there in russia and he was on the fbi's most wanted list for many years. oddly enough, his lawyer later on down the road was director of the fbi. >> how much of this do you think is known to either the congressional investigators or more importantly to bob mueller? is it possible for a journalist to come in and publish a book like this and someone like mueller given all his capacities and powers, is it imagine thabl he doesn't have this and more? >> no, it's not imaginable. i'm going to pronounce his name wrong, whose name i heard before. he was on the fbi's most wanted list. a lot of these players i think

have come up in cases, public cases, fraud cases. so it might even be a matter of going back and looking at old source information. i'm sure they've done that. the fbi is very good at that harnessing what information it has historically to look back at people who might not have seemed so important ten years ago but are now key players. >> craig, one of the men that you interview, ex-kgb officers, russian mobsters think now as they watch a guy they invested in the '80s as a businessmen think who raised to the white house? >> a lot have contempt for him. i did get close to the russian mafia. there was one of these moments where you realize i said what's your problem with trump? he's been laundering money for you guys for years. and they just made fun of him. they thought he was sort of

pathetic. they referred to possible come promont they had on him and didn't think of him. >> are they ready to act? >> sometimes it's best with held to use pressure, but i think it's interesting to look at the case of the prime minister of hungary who did a complete 180, complete about face became very much a putin puppet. this is in the book, i talk how the russian mafia appears to use come proemt on him and he did a 180. >> we only scratched the surface here. it is out now. craig unger, thank you splump for being with us. appreciate having you. >> thanks very having me. paul manafort's fraud trial. we'll go live to the courthouse when "morning joe" comes right back. fidelity is redefining value for investors.

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closing arguments set to begin this morning in the trial of paul manafort after his defense team rested its case without calling a single

witness. attorneys for president trump's former campaign trail did make arguments for acquittal which the judge denied. manafort spoke for the first time during the trial yesterday. the judge called him to the podium to make sure he understood he had the right to testify if he wanted to. when asked if he did want to testify, manafort simply replied, no sir. speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, manafort's lead lawyer said his team did not call any witnesses because they did not believe the government has offered sufficient evidence to prove its case. the case expected to go to the jury later today. joining us from outside the courthouse in alexandria, virginia, daniel goldman, former assistant u.s. attorneys office for the southern district of new york. daniel, good morning. good to see you. were you surprised that manafort's team didn't call any witnesses? >> no, i'm actually not as surprised as jonathan because

their case really the way they laid it out rises and falls on attacking the government's witness rick gates. they were quite effective in making him look bad on the stand. if they then called their own case, that detracts a little bit from that argument. if you're a defense attorney, you have to have a theory of the case one way or another. their's is rick gates is the fall guy, the culprit, the one that did everything. if you start to bring your own case and make an affirmative defense, you sort of try to have it both ways. effective defense attorneys realize it's not good to try to have it both ways. i'm not actually that surprised. >> and mimi, there were some defense attorneys i spoke with yesterday that said that manafort's team put up no defense, had no defense, of the case because they have no defense, no rebuttal witnesses because it's hard to rebut what's in black and white before

them in bank documents and that manafort would have made a horrific witness and would have been torn to shreds. it seems the defense had little choice but to just punt. >> well, i think that's right. if he had testified, manafort had testified, there would have been documents put in front of him that would have destroyed him. i mean, their e-mails. as you say, it's hard to rebut documents and paper which is the bulk of the case. dan is right obviously that gates was a central witness and the defense did a good job cross-examining him. the case really rises and falls on the documents which was why it was a dry case, it's all going to come down o the arguments. and it's not uncommon for defense attorneys to rely that the government hasn't met its burden. they'll try to poke holes in it and make gates look like a liar, but the government, i expect, will come back and say, okay, you don't need to believe gates.

you don't need to rely on him alone. look at all the other evidence. and that should carry the day here. >> dan, gene robinson has a question for you. >> yeah, dan, do we know anything yet about the instruction that judge ellis will give to the jury as they retire? i'm especially curious about -- they heard days and days of him sort of hectoring prosecution lawyers. they didn't get to hear him hector defense lawyers, which i understand he also does. that potentially could weigh on the jurors, i don't know. but do we know about the instructions and will he instruct them to disregard that? >> you raise a good point and may have been a factor why manafort didn't call any witnesses because the judge put his finger on the scale particularly during rick gates' testimony.

yesterday during the conference the only issue that was in dispute and that the prosecutors raised was this issue of the importance of the judge's comments during the trial. and the lead prosecutor actually stood up and made the point to the judge when the judge intervened and said during rick gates' testimony and undermined gates that manafort wasn't paying that much attention because rick gate was stealing from him that the prosecutors wanted a stronger instruction from the judge to tell the jury they can disregard his statements. so it absolutely is an issue. the judge seemed open to beefing up what his standard instruction is on that issue. he did not push the prosecution hard. i got the sense that he realized he may have gone a little too far. >> a little too far? yeah. yeah. donald trump once in a while uses words he shouldn't use on

twitter. i mean, yeah, this judge went way too far. it's stunning, just the hectoring the prosecution we saw time and time again. daniel goldman, thank you so much. we appreciate you being with us. we will be waiting to see how the jury comes back. still ahead, the trump campaign takes legal action against a former top white house adviser, thereby assuring her a best-selling book. i'm sure she will thank them for that. we'll talk about it next on "morning joe." i like chillaxin.

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this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. the trump campaign is now taking legal action against omarosa in the form of an arbitration complaint claiming she violated the 2016 confidentiality agreement. the former reality tv star turned white house official admits to signing the contract

for the campaign and she tells our katy tur that she doesn't believe it's been breached. there's also the issue of those white house secrecy agreements. omarosa said she didn't sign that particular contract but not every white house official was as forthcoming. >> did you sign an nda? >> i'm not going to get into the back and forth on who has signed an nda here at the white house. i can tell you it's common in a lot of places for employees to sign ndas, including in government particularly anyone with a security clearance. >> let me ask you what it says about the expressions of loyalty or lack thereof, people who work behind that wall. why do people need to be contractually obligated to forever after never say anything negative about the president, any member of his family, any product they should produce, why is that necessary? >> it's common in a lot of -- >> corporations, to protect corporate interests.

>> it's also despite contrary opinion it's actually very normal in every administration prior to the trump administration has had ndas, particularly specific for anyone that specific for anyone that had a security clearance in this white house. >> so, a quick fact check on the claim you just heard no, ndas are fought standard in white houses. but, willie, like i said before, i just got to believe omarosa, her book publishers, her pr team, they have to be thrilled that the white house is, that donald trump, is suing omarosa and trying to stop the book that the president of the united states doesn't want you to read. >> well, mike allen was here a couple minutes ago with axios reporting that trump's advisers and his wife, the first lady of the united states went to him

and said, do not engage with omarosa. it only elevates her and it will engage her book sales. he called her a low life dog. under george w. bush on the nda issue, it's simple, white house aids sign a form in which they commit not to disclose classified information to unauthorized people. beyond that, there were no ndas when i was pressing is. that's ari fleischer, you worked for four presidents, did you ever sign an fda? >> as ari said, if have you classified information, you agree not to disclose it. that's permanent. when you write a book, you gotive manuscript and people go through it. they basically say they either approve it as is or redact certain parts. that's what you have to go through. that's the only thing you agree to. it's not after your political judgments, it's simply whether

you are using or disclosing classified material some it's very narrow. >> i was reading your interror, you do this live 15 hours a week, it's easy to kind of get numb to thing. your intro was the trump white house is suing omarosa. can you imagine few read that ten years ago? i mean you could not -- it's unfathomable. we're in this, anesthetized to the complete insanity of all this. >> it is complete insanity, you know what's so ironic of what richard just said, willie, that he was in four administrations, he never had to sign an nda. but any time you go out golfing with richard, he makes you sign an nda on the first team. . >> about the squirrels? self-conscious about your scoreing? >> joe, what makes golf unique, it's an honor system. >> yeah. >> i need to hold you to that. you can't just count the good

shots. >> so richard claims that his scoring and his handicap is a closely guarded national security secret, willie. >> hey, golf aside, you want to talk about your golf game? >> i'm not a golfer. my husband is a big golfer. >> does the white house have a case from what you know about it as you can omarosa here? >> no. here's why. this is to the point that richard made. there is this thing called the first amendment. the reason can you restrict former white house employees for example about talking about classified information it's because there is a state interest. a compelling state interest that outweighs a citizen's right to free speech. that's not gentleman to be true with respect to gains about the white house or criminal acts or what i ever you want to call it. i would say, are there perhaps individual things that might fall into the category of a compelling state interest that you know could be suppressed? maybe. but this nda is written in this

broad over reaching way. it's just not going to hold muster. >> so, joe to recap the white house is engaged if a pointless lawsuit amens begins omarosa that's out in public and will only elevate the book. >> we heard this, away, three weeks from a disgruntled employe employee. jean, maybe this is another thing that donald trump doesn't get i. he was ill prepared to be president of the united states, almost every company in america when you leave they have you sign an nda. i know nbc has ndas, the washington post has ndas, citi bank, you name it. most of them do. but a government service fought when are you in the government or for government service, when you are working at the white house. >> yeah, of course not. and it's ridiculous. you know, this is, it's

interesting, the worry in the "post" is that it was only the president who wanted to do this, who wanted to file this arbitration complaint and take it forward and so it was done as kind of a way of trying to at least partly chill him out about the omarosa thing, lest he continue to foam over her. and again, as donny said, at the beginning, we do become anesthetized to the fact that you know the president of the united states has to be placated with useless activities and hess aced actively try to figure ways to, you know to occupy his time and to improve his moves lest he do something really toll lip

insai totally insaint. that's where we are. still ahead, new polling shows most americans disagree the president calling the investigation a hoax. we'll bring in house intelligence committee, congressman jim himes when "morning joe" comes back with a packed 8:00 a.m. hour.

good morning, it's wednesday, august the 15th. with us today we have donny deutsche, president of the council former relations, author of the book, "a world in disarray," richard haase. home of msnbc and the national network al sharpton, reporter heidi pryzbilla, columnist and associate editor of the washington post at msnbc political analyst you jean robinson. >> let's get into the news here, joe, let's get into the polling of the russia probe, 50% of americans think it's a serious matter, 37% told cnn they think it's a way to discredit president trump. 70% believe president trump should testify under oath in robert mueller's probe. 25% say he should not. 56% feel he attempted to interfere with the investigation

and 30% say he has not done that, while a majority, 56% think things the president said publicly about the investigation are either mostly or completely false. 37% feel he has been mostly truthful when talking about this. so, joe, nearly six in ten americans still despite the president and his administration's efforts to undermine bob mueller's investigation believe this is a serious and worthwhile matter. >> yeah. the numbers are striking in so many ways. donny deutsche, let's talk about the president's attempt to brand robert mueller, to diskrez it robert mueller to tarnish his brand. you know, i do think and it starts with the washington post pointed this out, this is what i believe from the beginning, that donald trump shocked so many people in the main stream media. so many people across america in november of 2016, everybody

getting angry four even suggesting he had a chance of winning. he shocked them so much, that now they think that he can politically he's always playing the long game. he's always got a rabbit in his hat. he's always got the ace of spades of his sleeves. he's always going to win. not the case. the guy has a 39% approval rating in gallop and time and time again, you look at this poll. if this were an election between bob mueller and donald trump, mueller has won in a landslide in every single category. >> he's won a landslide and mueller hasn't had his day in court. mueller is the only one with a megaphone. what happens when the report comes out? we know there will be a lot of this i think so in there.

>> go ahead. >> yeah, mueller hasn't said a thing. mueller has just gone to work. he hasn't leaked to the press. he hasn't held a press conference. he hasn't tried to brand donald trump in anyway whatsoever. yet, 56% of americans say that most or all of what donald trump is saying about this investigation is a lie. about that same number say he's trying to interfere with the investigation about this same number saying that this is a very serious serious investigation. this is not a close call the majority of americans, by almost 20% are on mueller's side, not trump's. >> let me give you another 20% to a quinnipiac pom, as far as voters who strongly approve or strongly disapprove of trump. 30% strongly approve. 58 -- 40%, almost 50% strongly disapprove. that's a strong category, i think those two things are

linked. when you see trump react. trump shows who he is and what he's worried about without any hesitation. you see the omarosa thing, we will get into that later. the mueller thing, he is panicked. he sees it. mueller, you say this is an election. museumer is at 60%. he is not -- has not come to the podium yet. >> hasn't come up to the plate. reverend, when donny starts talking about the numbers about intense support, or intense disapproval, we all know that's what drives elections, especially what drives an election in off years. even in an off year special election in alabama, it was black voters across what politicians called the black belt of central alabama that turned out and helped elect a democratic senator for the first time in a quarter century. >> and i think that what we are seeing here. what surprises us sornlgs going

back to your statement about how main stream media was shocked at his winning, so they don't want to get caught off guard again. what amazing me is that trump does not seem to have the capacity to grow at all to try and appeal to a broader base. he's sort of convinced himself that if he stays around 36, 37%, that's enough, rather than to grow and attempt to expand his base. so when you look at the plaque woman turnout you mentioned in alabama. rather than he tried to address concerns of people that are passionately against him, he calls the black woman a dog. >> yeah. >> so the biggest instrument to limit him has been him. he goes in a room with foreign leaders and looks like he doesn't belong in the room. the way he can combat a lot of these poms is by becoming what he was elected to be. he has acted in many ways like

he certainly was a mistake that was made. clearly, i believe that's the case. >> so reverend al, you bring up a great point. we had three, four people really here that knew donald trump pretty well for a decade before, even ran for president. you, me, donny and willie. i think the biggest surprise, because i always knew that donald trump was one always just interested in, you know, winning, whatever it took to win. >> that he'd do whatever it took to put together a winning coalition and, two, i knew the guy was insecure. he craved attention and he craved, he wanted to be accepted into the community. he always felt like he was never getting the respect he deserved, almost a rodney dangerfield type clarkner manhattan. rev, donny, willie, i think the biggest shock for seems to me he

has decided to stick with his 33% solution on this and not try to gain that acceptance, not try to build the coalition, but he's just narrowing it down to the smallest most hard core group of supporters that cannot carry him this fall and cannot get him re-elected. >> i think you're right. i mean, all of us have come from wherever we started and said if i ever can get a big platform, this is what i'm going to do. and usually try to make it bigger than ourselves, if we're going to last. he's not been able to do that. and i think that shows the real limits of this man and maybe his insecurities were well-founded. >> donny, joe and i have talked about this a lot. we have been surprised he wasn't, he has not been the deal maker he claimed he would be on the trail. i thought he would come in as a life long democrat, by the way, get nancy pelosi and chuck schumer in the room, i want to

hang things on the wall, show people what i've done. in fact, he's burrowed in from the people that supported him on the outside. >> i remember the day after the election, you did a big show, i was saying, calm down, donald is all about being loved. he got his 40%. now he will turn and have everybody. because that's what he wants. clearly, he's done the option. an interesting anecdote somebody told me when they were at his country club in bedminster, trump was about to walk in the room. some of the secret service guys, said, hey, say positive things, pump him up. they were fluffers in the room. i said that? they were metaphorically, of course. donald trump is at the point that she so fragile and cannot ever be in any interaction, any exchange in any room that's not pure lionization, kwan nonization. it defies any left wing logic.

i got these people. let me get these other peep. he is so faraj i'm, he can only exist in an alternative yuvgs regardless of whether it's a dark thing. >> he admits it. he said on twitter two days ago, omarosa, she was terrible at her job, she's a low life. she said good things about me so i kept her around. new records show president trump is struggling to gain approval with his job performance. with the negative approval ratings in the negative digits. he is upsidedown in the points. asked by the quinnipiac poll whether they like trump as a person -- 31% of voters say yes, while 59% say they dislike him.

heidi, we were talking about this yesterday, with the strong economy at 3.9%, you'd expect president trump to be up over 39, 41% where he's been locked in almost from the beginning. >> we talked about that yesterday, willie. so i took an attempt to look a little closer at these numbers. i saw a real danger zone within the numbers, which it was question about what he's doing for the middle class. remember this was the whole premise of his campaign was that he was going to buck the establishment that he ran ago ens to elevate the needs of the forgotten man. according to polling by a margin of vague ', to 38%, he is not doing enough to help the middle class and those white voters, without college degrees among them, he is now evenly split. so there is no advantage for donald trump now in this queen pack poll among white voters

without college degrees. i think that is really notable. it speaks directly to the debate you were having about president trump as a deal maker. so we're now a year-and-a-half into this presidency premised on helping the forgotten man, we all saw from the very beginning what happened with donald trump. he may have come in with the best of intentions, in helps of helping the forgotten man. he wasco opted by that very -- co-opted by the very establishment with the agenda put through congress. the hope among schumer. that's why he kind of held back initially, hoping that maybe the president would come to him and nancy pelosi and do a revitalization of american infrastructure. there was none of that, no compromise to bring better health care that's cheaper and covers everyone. there was a go back to the old

playbook of tax cuts for the rich that even more skewed than those under reagan and bush. so i think that is why you are seeing these numbers move the way that they are. a lot of these people, i have this feeling that they are not, their allegiances are very shallow. the reason why president trump won the mid-west was not because they all loved him so much. it was because the democrats didn't turn out. now you are starting to see those intensity numbers really move. >> still ahead on "morning joe," the white house tries to justify president trump referring to omarosa as a dog, by claiming he makes those other remarks about a lot of other people, too. we will talk about that strange defense, first, here's bill kierans. he has a check on the forecast. >> good morning to you, joe, continuing to watch the flood threat. this time today, we're headed to the middle of the country. yesterday it was in the east. up to six inches knell fell,

near lodi, seneca lake. numerous water rescues were required. there were areas washed out. there was a little pooch rescued and saved. let's take a step back on the maps, year-to-date. in the west, below average. it's been hot, all the fire weather. in the east, we have been well above areas. some of these red spots on the map for the season. in the mid-atlantic, where it's been extremely late, new york city has had 4 inches of rain, richmond at 42. these are well above average. some areas are a foot-and-a-half above where we should be this time of year. if you think it has been wet, yes, it has been. new york city we're at 7th wettest on record. the rain is over for now in the east. we return friday night with thunderstorms. heat advisories are up in the fivebo bo boroughs. now also the heat index will jump into the 90s. the worst morning commute this

morning, unfortunately, that's you, st. louis, showers, heavy rain and thunderstorms over the top of you. i'm concerned with a flooding threat in ports mouth, arkansas, the northern portionles. it's going to pour all morning long, you got nailed yesterday with heavy rain. this is mountainous terrain. that's a concern. here's the map that shows this, this is our risk of flash flooding today. this is a mad rot risk, fayetteville, little rock. south of toulouse, watch out in southern illinois into indianapolis, around evansville in indiana, too. the forecast. at least there is good weather, nice, new york, baltimore to d.c. florida not bad either. dallas, you will take 95, considering it could be much hotter this time of year. our friends to the west are very warm. they're burning, the air quality is very poor in many areas. wednesday, we stay warm, boise, seattle finally returning back to normal. we are shifting from an extreme summer weather pattern, with a

lot of heat and humidity and occasional down pours. we will take that over the flooding and fires we've had. new york city is a spot that's been soggy, so humid, the last month. today, enjoy the sunshine, you are watching "morning joe." 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. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? all your school get supplies today...

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oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. the white house is defending president trump's recent comments about former aid rom rosa newman -- omarosa newman. the president called her a dog. >> the president has said similar things about a number of individuals, certainly, that are not african-american or any

other minority. i can simply talk to you about the policies and the person that the president is. i think if again the person that a lot of his critics say he is certainly wouldn't have been in business with him for decades, certainly, you wouldn't have had bill and hillary clinton, they attended his wedding. i think he has made a number of comments about plenty of people and to try to single that out to one group is frankly silly. i think if you did a comparison, he's probably got a lot more nasty things out there about some other people. >> so, joe, the president has, in fact, called many people dogs, african-american and white people, mitt romney, steve bannon among many others. the defense from the white house press secretary, he says this stuff about everybody. he calls everybody a dog. that's supposed to be a helpful way of explaining what he said about omarosa. >> which, of course, feeds into again the article that we read

from yesterday from 2011, where you try to dehumanize some political opponents. that's the first step and many steps to autocracys to totalitarianism and horror. nobody is suggesting donald trump is going to succeed in america. we were talking during the break, willie, one of the things during the break, i wish it was on the air, but we are talking about the rev was talking about how donald trump hung out with a lot of boxers, with a lot of hip-hop artists, that would hang out with him in atlantic city and we noticed early in the campaign jay zee and late in the campaign, if a hip-hop artist were going to support donald trump, they seemed careful to say, hey, i got nothing against donald trump. it was sort of a head scratcher.

but that was the case. >> rev, you know better, certainly, he ran with don king and mike sighson and those guys. >> first of all, let's not act like he wanted to because of social reasons, he was in. that he was in the casino business. he could not appeal to a large consumer base in atlantic city without boxing. so he needed don king. he needed tyson. he needed the hip-hop, that's who filled the casinos for him. he would socialize with them. i grew up with spike and that crowd, i would see himt a events, he was at mike tyson's house warming. they were comfortable with him. never realizing he had these real inside kind of biases we knew coming from brooklyn, we knew they did like this, you

never associate with him because of the hangout factor, until you dated his sister, until he started using the n-word behind your back. that's the kind of guy trump reminds me of, wait a minute. now i see you looking at my sister, now we understand who you are. >> i'm a queens guy. >> i was pointing alt at trump the picture hands you. >> you always use the metaphor, these a day trade. he was cozying up to prominent african-americans, it was a transaction. >> a transaction. >> this is not a man, he's colorless. >> he was never on the march for freedom and injustice. >> joe, you say which is worse? if he is truly a bigot and they will be both reprehensible. i remember my conversation about the birther, we were on the phone, there was a chip missing, that he could not beyond the fact that could not come out of him. he could not comprehend the race piece of. that it was just not in his -- there was no empathetic piece of

dna gene in there even if he didn't intend it, what it could seem like. i -- whether that was the beginning, i truly begin with the reverend, he has not walked back one step forward, or one step. >> it wasn't just boxers and hip-hop artists that he socialized with, he dated black women. he as you were saying before, rev, and gene, i got to say the most troubling part of all of this about his racism and bigotry is, just like when his friendships with hip-hop artists and problemsers are transactional, now he's friends and apologizes for white nationalists and neo-nazis and that's just as transactional. nobody, nobody is giving donald trump a pass.

this is me saying i believe he is a depraved human being who will do anything to get ahead that day. because he is nothing more than a day trader. >> well, he is that. i mean, he's a complicated person. you know, i think he sure sounds sincere to me, especially one thing he sounds really, really sincere about, you know, more than the racism against african-americans, frankly, is the racism against latinos, particularly dark skinned latino from central america, mexico, he has a thing about the browning of america that is i think quite genuine. still ahead, relations between the united states and turkey continue to fall apart amid new economic penalties over a detained american pastor. we'll have richard haase weigh

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relations between nato allies and the united states and turkey just keep on dissolving. turkey's president erdogan is calling for turks to boycott american electronics, including calling out apple significantly. yes, dear leader, they will do that for you. it comes amid an ongoing standoff regarding turk yes's detainment of an american pastor andrew brunson. the u.s. has sanctioned two top turkish officials over the situation and last week increased sanctions on turkish iish medals. yesterday they responded hosting tariffs on a host of u.s. goods, including tobacco to 60%. u.s. cars to 120% and u.s. alcohol. all of this of course, comes as a turkish economy continues to be in a free fall. with the turkish lira falling to record lows, accelerating inflation and an investor

selling free of turkish debt. so, richard haase, let's talk about erdogan now, not a would be autocrat but an autocrat, himself, we want to talk about when you knew him before, he'd like to talk about forsyhthias and begoneias, it seems to me what donald trump has done is obviously a threat to nato. at the same time, donald trump has become the first person to actually gain leverage over an autocrat who has been consolidating power for the past decade. >> the good news is he's taken on erdogan, no friend to the west. no friend of democracy the bad news is he's done it and focused on the unfair detention of the

american pastor. he's done it with these tariffs. the problem is, too one is erdogan, he's destroyed turkish this is an allie of nato close in many ways to ourselves, the president does it with tariffs. this is at a time the turkish xi was going down the tubes, fought balls of us, because of their own behavior. he put his son-in-law in charge of the finance ministry. he was weakening the central bank. he wouldn't let them raise interest rates. >> it certainly accelerates that doesn't it? >> well, it accelerates. it allows erdogan to blame us rather than be blamed for it by his own people.

i would have let him do it. not now given this argue somehow it's the united states to blame. of all the recent claims by omarosa, what the president knew about the hacked e-mails from wikileaks. that's ahead on "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." the white house is poised to spends another day responding claims to former staffer omarosa. one of the accusations if true can be of interest to special counsel robert mueller. >> so you were instructed according to your book to bring up the e-mails at every point you could at the end of 2016?

>> yes. >> that was our talker. >> did donald trump know about them? >> yes. >> he knew before wikileaks released them? >> yes. >> you are saying donald trump had a back channel. >> i didn't say that, you did. i will say i will disclose the corruption that went on in the campaign and the white house. ly continue to blow the whistle on all of this. >> it's not true. he didn't know. i know he didn't know. >> and if he did. >> i know it beyond being his lawyer. >> if he knew, is it a problem? >> no and but, he didn't know. >> no? >> i hear you. >> i'm not going to get into the hypothetical. he did not know. >> omarosa didn't offer any evidence to back up her claim and a reminder that there may be more tapes from inside the white house floating around. a junior aid was found to be tang meetings with mr. trump and

playing them to impress friends. according to several people, who were familiar with that episode of trump the reality president. joining us now, a member of the house intelligence committee congressman jim himes of connecticut. also on set former federal prosecutor glen kirshner. i know that actually, jim, you want to talk about omarosa for the next 20 minutes or so but before we do that, let me ask you about the connecticut primary last fight and you had a former democrat who switched the last minute to the republican party nomination for governor and ned lamont on the democratic side. how is that race going to shape up? >> we both know. we talked about the privately.

as the tough job. it's like with the challenges that state is facing, it's a political graveyard, if you do what's right. i guess we can all just hope whoever wins this thing will make the tough choices that have to be made? >> yeah, that's right. joe, as of last night, of course, there is no possibility of governor scarborough of connecticut, which i think causes a lot of tears to be shed. >> by the way that collective sigh you heard was from across an entire state. so, go ahead. a sigh of relief. >> yes, you know, we got a real race for a tough job, ted lamont, like stephanowski a famous guy for beating joe lieberman, largely over the iraq war. joe, one of the stories out of connecticut is yet another chapter in the story of what we are seeing nationally, which is just unbelievable democratic

enthusiasm. you know, we saw ned lamont get something like 30,000 more votes than all five republican candidates combined. so the enthusiasm here is very strong. stefanowski, playing the game, giving the guy an a for mirms as president. frud a republican and you are not a trump-publican, you are in a lot of trouble. >> a lot of trouble. womanly, i think we will see this. everybody is looking at congress and whether republicans will lose those 23 or 24 seats. but 2018 is a critical year because it's going to determine redistricting for the next decade and how the district lines are drawn. you take a state like connecticut the republicans were the minority. just over the past two election cycles, they had this

extraordinary recovery, now all that most likely you got to believe in a state like connecticut in the age of trump, a republican candidate embracing trump as much as he can. >> that all gets wiped occupy in one election because of trump. >> a guy in there 18 months. congressman, i know every race is different, every district is different, every state is different. have you been able drill in to a democratic message that you think will be a thread to what the party is telling its voters, going into 2018 and into the presidential election in 2020? >> yeah, you know, i think i know what it is. but remember also that 2018 the exercise if 2018 in november is of picking up seats in places like connecticut and california but also picking up seats in the mid-west in places like ohio, west virginia, those messages will be a little different. but can you sort of put the headlines on it.

it's not sufficient, but it is important that we say we are rejecting the bigotry, the divisiveness, the just sheer insanity omarosa white house reality tv show that has become our national leadership. but we want to shift the conversation and i think this is to some extent what we may have gotten wrong in 2016. shift the conversation to the message of economic hope and economic possibility for people who have been left behind. you know, an awful lot of those people left behind took a flyer on donald trump because he promised to bring the coal mines back and shame on us democrats for not saying, hey, that's flimflam. but we've got better plans economically for you. >> so, glen, let's go ahead and move at least into the area that omarosa was talking about and that has to do with the donald trump knew what was going on, if there was coordination. we have seen from donald trump and his supporters and even

people like vice president mike pence, we've seen this progression. and it is nobody talked to the russians. then it was, well, sure, some of us talked to the russians. then it was, well, yes, we talked about the russians, but it was about adoption. then it was like, okay, we were lying about. that we were talking about it and it's dirt and there's nothing wrong with that. but the president didn't know. i suspect, knowing how the operation runs, the president knew everything. he was there from the very beginning. he understood about the contacts, because nothing moved in that campaign without donald trump in the corner office knowing. if that is the case, forget about collusion, is that conspiracy? is that a crime? >> well, we certainly seem to be moving forward in this slow march towards being able conclude that there was collusion/conspiracy and you know there is not a lot of definitional daylight between those two things.

so, omarosa has now made herself a player in bob mueller's investigation. i can tell you as a career prosecutor, we have to actually drill down on all of these claims that in high profile cases, you know, it sends our criminal investigators running in circles sometimes because now we have to either corroborate or debunk what omarosa said and see how it plays into, you know, this further morask that is russian clue, but i do think this is a really troubling claim and, if true, we have now taken yet another step on the road to conspiracy. >> will and mimi, omarosa doesn't have evidence. she hasn't provided evidence, maybe there is a tape out there. but again, all that aside, just again, see work this is moving, i personally suspect the evidence is going to be out there. the question is, assuming the worst for the president, that

the president knew, that the president coordinated this. >> that the president and his people were coordinating to get this dirt on hillary clinton. answer the trump campaign's question, answer rudy guiliani's question. even if he did it, guiliani says, it's not a crime. is it a crime if he conspired with the russians to get this dirt on hillary clinton? >> absolutely, it's a crime. nothing is further from the truth to say if those facts as you laid them out or some close version of them is true, and mueller can prove it that that's not a crime. it would be conspiracy, the conspiracy that mueller has already charged with russians with, it would be that conspiracy and would include americans, that they've conspired to defraud the united states by interfering in our fair election. it could also be conspiracy with respect to hacking the e-mails

if they actually knew that was how the e-mails were obtained. you know, look, omarosa has not yet provided proof. there is lots of reasons to be skeptical of her. mueller would never take her word for it alone. i don't think he would need to. but as she says what you i think are pointing to it rings true that donald trump knew ahead of time, if nothing else because we know he was out there on tv saying, hey, russia, finds those e-mails. so there's lots of things in the public record that make what she is saying sound correct and you know, but i'm sure mueller is not going to rely on her alone if at all. >> counsellor, isn't this all academic unless somehow the democrats pick up 17 senate seats and get to a super majority of 67, they're not going to impeach him. it will not go if front of a jury, everyone out there imagines the day if court the day in court is in front of congress. even if the democrats got congress, basically the senate

even if it's by some chance the democrats peck up two seats, they will not be able to impeach. you can't indict a sitting president. so how do we give our viewers hope out there even if their dreams come true and the worst case scenarios for laying it out, how does this unfold badly for the president? >> i don't think it's academic. first of all, i think there is a narrow pathway to indicting the sittingpot president yes, the office of legal counsel memo as a policy matter says we can't do it. however the code of federal regulation allows for the special counsel to apply to in this case the deputy attorney general, for an exception to normal doj policy. i don't know if bob mueller will pursue. that on the one hand, it sounds like a nuclear option. on the ought hand, having worked for bob mueller, if anybody is going to take on this task, if the evidence supports indicting the president, bob mueller is the man for the job. now, he may not go there. he may simply name the mr. president as an unindicted

co-conspirator ala richard nixon in 1974. maybe that will have a sufficient impact to begin to change the calculus with respect to how everybody is viewing this. >> well, you know, womanly, first of all jackson you to do what i have to do -- owe first of all, just to do what i have to do, damming evidence for donald trump, you look at our demo, you don't have 87 million viewers world wide in our armed forces radio across the world every morning, without having not only liberals but conservatives. of course, young americans for freedom, they scanned it every morning. across the country. we have a big tent here on the morning show, we're you fighters, not dividers. >> that said, this argument that donny made that we hear repeated in the media often, that a sitting president cannot be

indicted. brett caf fkavanaugh believes t. but that is not the established law of the land. jonathan turly who actually is quite defensive of the president's power, not this president's power, all president's power, has also said that's just not power. has often said that's not just settled law. yes, it's a justice department guideline. but if i were a sitting president like donald trump, i wouldn't want to take that to the court and see how it went. it also suggests that a president can shoot somebody in cold blood and you couldn't indict him. that's not -- that's -- it's just not the case. in this country. no man or woman, even the president, is above the law. >> well, that's one of the thing, mimi, that the president's legal team has tried to get out in the political bloodstream. out into the country. not only that collusion is not a crime, although as you say, conspiracy is a crime and there's not much daylight between those two, but that a sitting president cannot be indicted. what's your understanding of that, of a president being indicted? >> yeah, i think it's not

settled law. it's not been tested so it can't be settled pip i think glenn is absolutely right that robert mueller is a prosecutor's prosecutor. if he thinks the evidence is there, he might be the one who's willing to test it. but naming the president as an unindicted co-conspirator, that should be huge in and of itself. and if that happens, you would hope that wakes up republican congress people everywhere to say, wait a minute, maybe we need to stop putting politics before our country. >> yeah, speaking of putting politics before your country, jim, devin nunes, i had talked to you since that tape leaked out where he was talking about conspiring plotting, whatever y word you want to use, to impeach rod rosenstein, in talking about

the guy who is overseeing an investigation that all of our intel agents, agencies, the leaders of which, have said, because of this investigation, we now know, american democracy is in the crosshairs and under attack. the threat is imminent. the red lights are blinking. and even the director of national intelligence said this reminded him of the day leading up to 9/11. how does devin nunes, the chairman of your committee, actually plot to try to impeach the man who's running the investigation, warning us of this ongoing threat to american democracy from vladimir putin? >> well, joe, the answer is simple and it's been clear for well over a year now, which is chairman nunez and a very significant number of republicans i'm thinking of jim jordan and mark meadows have

decided that their job is not to be a branch of government with oversight and a check and a balance on the white house. their job is to be attack dogs for president trump. and this started well over a years ago when devin nunes went to the white house to get information that he thought was compromising of the obama administration, then he said, i've got to go back to the white house to brief the white house on this stuff. and the whole investigation and his recusal of that investigation has been an exercise in defending the president of the united states. which points to a point that didn't come up in sort of the legalistic discussion you had. look, whether a president can be indicted as mimi said is untested. if there say test, trump wins that test because you have these allies, these dead-earnnders ine congress who will defend him because of the cost. is that because they're bad people? we can have that discussion later. but if it's you don't defend

president trump, your career is over. see mark sanford. >> congressman, jim hines, democrat of new jersey. thank you. glenn kirschner, thank you as well. he was elected twice, it seems tim pawlenty no longer has a place in president trump's republican party. keep it on "morning joe." 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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i supported him. you told people not to vote for him. >> you called me --

>> and i appreciate and respect what he's doing as well. to put the full record on, i voted for president trump, but you thought he was unfit to be president. >> yeah, reacted to the "access hollywood" tapes, you calling him a jack said ass is better than me calling him unhinged. >> come on, you said he was unfit to be president. a few weeks before the election. on election night, who did you want to win? >> i voted for president trump before early voting. but again i support president trump's policies. >> who did you want to win on election night? >> absolutely, i wanted president trump to beat hillary clinton. >> you should have voted for him. >> you should have told them that after you told the map not to vote for him. >> my god, what country is this, i cannot believe people debating about the future of a state instead, stuck on failing to

pledge their loyalty to donald trump. it is a personality cult. you know, willie, i just wonder when will somebody in the republican party realize an 81 side to putting country first. john mccain did it. he crossed his own party time and time again on big money and politics. howard baker asking the question that framed weightgate. when did the president know? when did the president know it? and ronald reagan, a sitting president in his own party, it inspired a movement that changed the government and the world. yet, these guys just want to salute a tv host. >> congressman hines said they're running scared in their district and scared of their state of donald trump because he remains popular in those districts. scott walker twisted himself in saying i don't like the tariffs, i don't like what he might do to harl davidson, but i like this

president, we'll get through this. it's a tough line eventually going forward, you fall off of it. >> that does it for us this morning. thanks so much for watching. we greatly appreciate it. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, joe. good morning, everyone, i'm stephanie ruhle starting with "the apprentice" being the master. omarosa's rollout of recordings leaves the trump administration wondering what will come next. >> do you think the american will never hear donald trump utter the n word. >> i can't guarantee it. i can tell you i've never heard it. >> real quick, i can guarantee there's no recording of me saying that word ever. in closing, minutes from now, the prosecution and the defense are set to make their final arguments after manafort's team rests without calling a single witness. >> mr. manafort just