>> facts develop. >> truth isn't truth. >> facts develop. >> well, i guess you have to add that one to the montage from earlier this month. rudy giuliani udders one of the -- i guess more baffling, more memorable lines in recent political memory. meanwhile, white house counsel don mcgahn reportedly opening up to bob mueller after fearing that he was being set up by the president to take the fall. we're going to be talking to the one of the reporters who broke that story and also explain who president trump is now calling a rat. plus, we're joined by three former top intel officials who accuse the white house of politicizing national security. after, of course, stripping john brennan of his security clearance. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, august the 20th. with us we have pulitzer prize winning historian and author of the best seller "the soul of

america" the battle for our better angels, jon meacham, coeditor ignatius and former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and msnbc contributor, joyce vance. jon meacham, before we get to rudy tells us that the truth is not the truth and perhaps what the meaning of is or is not, i wanted to ask you where we always talk about turning points in this trump administration and many people believe that we'll never have a turning point. trump is just going to plow through one thing after another. but you had a lot of people comparing what happened with admiral mcraven this past

weekend with what happened to the mccarthy hearings when welch finally said, sir, have you no shame. how impactful do you think admiral mcraven's comments were and the response to that? >> i think they were essential. i think they speak incredibly well of the admiral and of that broader national security community that i think signed a letter, bob gates among others, people who are, in fact, standing up and saying that as george h.w. bush said in other context, this will not stand. my fear is that to link these two themes that in a world where the tag line of the administration is there are alternative facts, truth is not truth, that the great underlining democratic, lower case d crisis is have we reached

a point where the party in power has so devalued the kind of statesmanship, the kind of articulation, the kind of principle, and i don't mean to be overly grand about it, but what the admiral was writing about was a principled view, take away mine, please. that would be the badge of honor. i want to be with the guys you are against. that says an enormous amount about where we are. how effective that is? will that penetrate the 45% or so of the trump folks who seem to be enthralled to this particular man and this particular style of politics i just don't know. i hope it does. remember it took mccarthy four years to rise and fall from lincoln's birthday in 1950 until that moment with joseph welch. that was 1954. and there are a couple of people

who will be able to say they were margaret chase smith, they were there early and there are a lot of people who are going to be trying to re-write history. >> very few, though, are going to be able to say they were margaret chase smith in the republican party. david ignatius, the intel community has proven itself time and time again to put america first. you look what donald trump's own appointees are saying, dan coats is saying, the director of national intelligence and also what people like bob gates have been saying and people like general hayden have been saying. general hayden touched on it several months ago that it's not a coincidence that donald trump is attacking the intel community, that he's attacking journalists, that he's attacking people in academia, that he's attacking science. he attacks fact-based operations. people who make their living and

who live to gather facts and to put together the reality and of course the intel community has facts about not only the last campaign but about vladimir putin that drive donald trump obviously crazy. he has his war on facts and he has his war on the intel community. >> joe, these are people who pride themselves on being the ultimate, sometimes the last professionals in government. the people who insist on speaking truth no matter what, who will tell presidents the vietnam war isn't going well, sir. who will tell presidents the afghanistan war isn't working. your strategy isn't going to work. this is an agency that celebrates that and has traditionally. it's also an agency that likes to get on with it. and so the very public comments

by former agency officials i think are awkward for people who basically like to keep their heads down and do their jobs. you said in the beginning, joe, that maybe this was a tipping point. i didn't know if with that admiral mcraven statement, the statements by george tenant, bob gates, two former cia directors, people who have tended to want to be out of this fray and have been holding back decided they couldn't do it any longer, that the situation was getting so serious that they had to speak up before it was too late. there was a little bit of that sense that we're really accelerating now toward dangerous outcomes, so people began to speak. to me in the end, this is going to come down to the american public in two ways. we have a juror of 12 americans that's in recess coming back today that's going to decide the first of special counsel bob mueller's cases. it's a crucial case.

and if they come back as a hung jury or without a decisive conviction, donald trump will be able to say, see, i told you. this is a witch hunt. and now here the jury agrees with me. and then we have the midterm elections obviously coming in november. so in some ways i think this story now moves to the country at large. how are people processing this? but you certainly do see among the elite opinion, what i thought was a tipping point with this removal of brennan's security clearances. >> very interesting you talk about bob gates. andrea mitchell, bob gates, an example of a man who really has seen more, done more than most anybody else in modern american politics. he's worked for republicans and democrats alike. and robert gates i remember before the election was a man who did not support donald trump at all but mika and i remember having a private conversation

with him and he said the same thing that general hayden said privately, which was we only have one president at a time. >> exactly. >> and we have to do everything we can do to make donald trump a successful president. we have no other choice. and so that's why when you see bob gates finally speaking out, it carries the tremendous impact that it does. >> it does. and just to re-enforce what that letter said, that had the signatures of bob gates and judge william webster. these are not political people. these are career people. judge webster went from the federal judiciary to the fbi and then the cia, held in such high regard a man in his 90s who has never spoken out like this, ever, and i've known him for more than three decades. these are the people so unusual on that list, to re-enforce the point that it was a breaking point. these are people who usually

keep their heads down and do not enter the spray. and they said in that letter that they are not entirely comfortable with everything that has been said, with everything that john brennan said, but they felt that the plitization of the security clearance process and the threat that that could potentially pose for current officials, which would be career ending for any of them including bruce orr, the mid-level justice official who is now under threat rhetorically from the president. that is what caused them to sign this letter. >> yeah. and we're going to be talking at 7:00 to three of the original signees of that letter. we're looking forward to that. but for now, let's talk about president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani pushing falsehoods and the new position of the trump legal team about the president's top campaign aides meeting with russians in june of 2016. so, here is rudy on "meet the press" yesterday. >> the meeting was originally

for the purpose of getting information about clinton. the meeting turned into a meeting -- >> which in itself is attempted collusion. >> no, it's not. >> you just said. it was intended to get dirt on hillary clinton from a kremlin lawyer. >> no, it wasn't. >> that was the intention of the meeting. you just said it. >> that was the original intention of the meeting. it turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all. and of course any meeting with regard to getting any information on your opponent is something any candidates staff would take. if someone said i have information about your opponent, you would take that meeting. if it happens to be -- >> from the russian government? >> she didn't represent the russian government. she's a private citizen. i don't even know if they knew she was russian at the time. >> okay. so, sometimes it's a close call. sometimes you can just say he was lying. rudy was lying. those claims are blatantly false

given the e-mails that donald trump jr. posted more than a year ago which he was told the woman offering dirt on clinton was, quote, the crown prosecutor of russia. the russian attorney the russian government attorney and, quote, part of russia and its government support for mr. trump. joyce vance, i'm not exactly sure what it gains the president of the united states to continue having his attorney go out telling one lie after another after another. of course, after trump jr. learned that this top prosecutor, this member of the russian government was coming to meet him and manafort and kushner and the entire gang, of course he was thrilled. so they knew this coming in. i'm not exactly sure how it helps donald trump to have rudy giuliani lying a year later. >> increasingly giuliani and the

president are playing to the court of public opinion because they know that they'll lose in a court of law. we'll watch that happen this week in alexandria where this jury, if they base their decision in the law and the evidence will return verdicts of guilty against paul manafort. so, giuliani is, i think, at this point simply trying to feed a false narrative to the american public. truth is not truth. don't trust what your eyes and your ears tell you. instead, trust the cult of personality that's become trump because they know bad news will come in the form of a report from mueller sooner or later whether it's before or after the election. they won't be able to survive the content of that report if it's anything like what we're hearing publicly. and they're only hope is to lie to the american people. and i think what we all have to do at this point is hope that the american people will demonstrate the backbone that they have over time that jon meacham talks about so many times and find the courage to go

with the truth and not with the cult of personality here. >> yeah, but michael schmidt, though, it seems that there's been the law of diminishing returns has applied to rudy giuliani's performances on these sunday shows because there was a month or two where you could see mueller's approval numbers with the american people going down and donald trump's going up. but basically they've reversed and they're exactly where they were six, nine months ago. so robert mueller has become a more trusted figure, donald trump has become a less trusted figure and donald trump wins -- or robert mueller wins in a landslide basically just about every question you ask the american people on polls. so i'm wondering whether rudy's obvious lies are actually backfiring even with trump supporters. >> i'm not sure if it's changing things with trump supporters.

their calculations several months ago was the legal issues essentially don't matter because they don't think the president is going to be charged. so what can duo to try to impact the house of representatives? that's the only exposure the president has of vote on impeachment. how can we make this confusing? how can we muddy the waters? that's what they were trying to do when they brought giuliani on. and the president apparently is still happy with him because the president believes he needs advocates out there, giuliani is willing to do several shows a day and go out and push this message. and the president believes he actually does it better than anyone else in his team. at the same time, there's people around the president who say, look, this is not good that we have all these falsehoods coming out from the president's lawyer. like, this is going to backfire in the end. but they still haven't changed their strategy. the president had two strategies so far on the investigation.

the first one through the first several months was cooperate, eventually got sick of it. it's now going to be antagonistic. it's hard to believe he'll move off of that and that's where he is for now. >> but jon meacham, everybody knows, everybody knows that rudy giuliani is lying, even trump. the most hard core trump supporter knows that he's lying. and when rudy giuliani says something like the truth isn't the truth, then republicans immediately go back to bill clinton saying it depends on what the meaning of is. i just -- again, i don't understand even if you're a day trader how this helping donald trump. >> it's just -- we're through the looking glass. giuliani seems to be that giuliani is not doing anything that he doesn't think trump wants him to do. you can hear donald trump saying it. particularly with all this john dean stuff this weekend, i have

this image of where you have the old image of nixon talking to the portraits. i see trump talking to mirrors and rudy. you know, he's just wandering around talking to himself and creating this. and i think michael is right. i think insofar as anything is strategic about this operation, which may be a gran diezing it a good bit, it has the effect is exactly this, that they've created an atmosphere of kind of political equivalent of climate change. it's extreme weather. the press broadly put, director mueller, the facts say x. they are going to say y. and take their chances that the right number of folks and the right number of electoral states agree with them. and to me in many ways it's the most pernicious part of the

entire era is the enemy of the people stuff about the media and the attempt -- really it's not even an attempt at this point, but the assumption that you simply can fool enough of the people enough of the time to maintain this temporal hold on power. and it's a cynical exercise from the very top. it starts with trump. it eradiates to a couple of these other, forgive me, new york tabloid figures. and because of an underlying anxiety in the country, it has worked nationally. or at least deeply enough sectionally that we're going to have to deal with it. it's why the midterms tell us so much. and you know, you get a certain number -- history is not going to reward mayor rudy giuliani for the way he spent his sundays in 2017 and 2018. >> no.

it will be quite harsh. >> we are so far beyond -- remember we used to get a couple of these, like the definition of is you used a minute ago. a third-rate burglary. we're getting these now with such repetitive that it will hard to keep up when you put these things on coffee mugs. >> can't wait to look at the coffee mug cases to see all of the quotes. maybe they can -- >> some will be in russian. the russian ones will be great. >> yeah, of course. as you always say, they read best in their original russian. but the thing is that i just can't understand is it doesn't -- it's not helping with the american people anymore. donald trump's approval ratings have dropped. he's down at about 40%. carol lee, this has to be hurting trump's case with robert mueller. it's not like mueller is being persuaded by this. so if the public is not being

persuaded by it and mueller is not being moved by it at all, then you basically have one of donald trump's lawyers lying repeatedly in public, which again has to hurt him whether it's on obstruction or in some other areas. >> yeah. you know, you can see that even in this instance the president is just zeroing in on that narrow base that he has, his supporters. and that's where he's kind of targeting. and those folks, you know, don't mind this. and if you look at how rudy giuliani kind of tied himself into knots yesterday in answering todd's questions, he was making the latest argument for why the president shouldn't have to sit for an interview with robert mueller. and he's saying, james comey will have his facts or his truth. and he'll tell one story and the president has another. and that was part of the argument that this would be a potential perjury trap for the

president. and then you saw him argue that robert mueller has had interviews for 30-plus hours as michael schmidt and maggie haberman reported with don mcgahn so why would he need to talk to the president. and we've seen him say he's -- there's bias in the investigation and so that's the reason why he doesn't need to sit and talk to the president. and so you've seen them -- it's almost like throwing spaghetti on the wall strategy and seeing what sticks. so far at least it's managed to work with again the president's narrow base of supporters. >> right, very narrow base of supporters. and of course the president was tweeting all weekend about this as well. and i have so many people asking me what i think about what's going on and is this working, are people believing it? again, you just look at political history. he's a 40% president. presidents with 40% approval ratings, my gosh, with re-elects

in the low 30s and the very states that put him over the top in 2016, their party's don't win midterm elections and they don't get re-elected. there is no happy ending for the trump administration, especially as they pile one lie on top of another lie on top of another lie. but listen, we'll be talking about a lot more on "morning joe" about all of this. president trump is saying he's not going to discuss potential pardons for paul manafort, but manafort's lawyer says he likes what he's hearing from the president. we're going to talk about those smoke signals coming up. plus, we have michael schmidt here. we're going to be talking about his block buster report from over the weekend regarding white house counsel don mcgahn, according to "the new york times," trump's lawyers just suddenly realize they have no idea what don mcgahn has told the special counsel. and you have donald trump saying he doesn't think mcgahn will be a, quote, rat. we'll explain that.

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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. we have a good sense, obviously, of what mr. mcgahn testified to. i can figure it out -- >> how do you say that good sense? have you debriefed him? >> no, no, but mr. dowd has a good sense of it. he talked to them at the time. >> i can figure it out he says. maybe with a ouija board, you never know with rudy. that's the president's current attorney, of course, rudy giuliani talking about what white house counsel don mcgahn might have talked about to bob mueller. 30 hours of interviews, but two people that are close to the president have told "the new york times" that mcgahn's lawyer offered only a limited accounting of what the white house counsel told the special counsel investigators.

michael schmidt, what a report you and maggie haberman had this weekend. tell us about it. >> basically it's unusual for lawyers in an on going investigation who have been advising a client to go in and meet so openly with investigators, but there's a lot of different factors that led to this happening. and don mcgahn has cooperated extensively with the mueller investigation. now, the president's lawyers say, like giuliani did there, that they have a full accounting of what they said and they fully understand that. that's not true. they don't know the extent of mcgahn's cooperation. we still don't know the extent of mcgahn's cooperation. but, it was not simply i'm going to go in and answer these questions truthfully. mcgahn realized he was in a

precarious spot and needed to lean as hard as he could into mueller. there was a chance he could be indicted for conspireing to obstruct justice. there was a chance the president could try to pin this on him, and he needed to show mueller that he was going to be an open book and a cooperator in the sense of being as helpful as possible. now, he was the person in the room for all of the key moments that are under investigation for obstruction, whether it's the firing of comey or the efforts to get sessions to recuse himself and unrecuse himself or get rid of sessions. these are things that mcgahn is directly there with the president for. and mueller has had that extraordinary witness to help his investigation. and that's what we reported. >> and on twitter yesterday, president trump responded to that story and insisted that

white house counsel don mcgahn won't turn on him like richard nixon's did. he tweeted, quote, failing new york times wrote a fake piece today implying that because white house counsel don mcgahn was giving hours of testimony to the special counsel he must be a john dean-type rat. john dean of course was the white house counsel for richard nixon and became a key witness in the watergate scandal and served a prison term for obstruction of justice. trump wrote about mcgahn, quote, i allowed him and all others to testify. i didn't have to. i have nothing to hide. and demanded transparency so that this rigged and disgusting witch hunt can come to a close. so many lives have been ruined. blah blah blah. so, michael schmidt, what is it about "the new york times" article that you think from your sources after it was printed shook up donald trump and the white house so much? >> well, it was the fact that they didn't totally appreciate

this issue. they didn't totally appreciate what the by-products of cooperation would be. last year the president's lawyers john dowd and ty cobb sold him on a strategy to cooperate. they took the president at his word that he had done nothing wrong. look, we can bring an end to this, the sooner we cooperate, the sooner this will be over and the cloud will be lifted from your administration. obviously that has not worked out. the investigation is still going, if not bigger than it was a year ago. and the president has readed th realized that. he has changed his legal strategy and antagonistic to mueller when he wants to interview white house officials. but what happened was that the earlier strategy of cooperation unleashed mcgahn to cooperate with mueller and tell him everything that he knew. so people around the president,

people who were close to the president are now saying, look, this strategy of cooperation may not have been such a great idea. did we simply give mueller the keys to understanding all of these issues. >> and just think, andrea mitchell, you have actually donald trump calling a rat the figure that actually did more to bring down the greatest criminal conspiracy inside of a white house in a century, a century and a half and donald trump considers that person, that whistle blower a rat. >> well, the ironies abound. the fact is that he's bringing up mccarthy as part of his witch hunt mantra now and bringing up mccarthy when his lawyer was such an adviser and lawyer and mentor to donald trump, the real estate investor in new york city. it's pretty remarkable.

he is not aware of history. jon meacham i think could attest to that. i don't think you need a pulitzer prize winni inning hisn to attest to that. he seems to be flailing around. as michael schmidt and maggie haberman have written don't seem to really understand the implications of the white house counsel, first of all, being the counsel for the presidency, not the counsel for the president. and whether he was involved in every meeting or not, he certainly was aware of the details and of the president's mindset going into the comey firing and going into the threats against mueller and the threats to get rid of sessions or to protest against the recusal of sessions. so there's a lot of information and the middle state of the president that he is very well aware of and truly in 30 hours must have been questioned about. >> and david ignatius, again, andrea touched on it, but the

rich, rich irony of donald trump protege of roy cone and without a doubt the most mccarthy-like figure on the american stage since joseph mccarthy himself accusing robert mueller of mccarthyism when, in fact, mueller is fact-based and gets all of his facts lined up, doesn't shoot from the hip like mccarthy or roy cone did and yet trump is now moved on to that when, in fact, he idolized the man who helped make joseph mccarthy joseph mccarthy. >> it's hard to think two men in american history more different than robert mueller and joe mccarthy, but donald trump is managing to conflate them. i just think, joe, these tweets over the past weekend, like so

many others, show a president in a real state of anxiety. capitalizing rat, applying my white house counsel was a capital r.a.t., sort of mafia talk. but at the bottom of it is this sense that trump has that he may not be in control of the situation. what he wanted to say in those tweets, he's not a rat. i told him he could go testify. i'm controlling this. i'm running this. i'm in charge. and i think as we remember from richard nixon, that scream, i'm in charge. i'm running this is what you hear from a president who is in increasing difficulty. and it's going to matter. we have a couple more months until these midterm elections. i think every morning guests on your show will be talking, taking the fever chart reading of the president's anxiety level. >> and it does, joyce, it does

keep going up, but here you have donald trump in all caps almost trying to convince himself that his counsel is not a, quote, rat. and it reminds you of how he defended michael cohen for some time and then suddenly threw michael cohen overboard. by the way, we haven't even brought up this morning that michael cohen's legal problems just got much, much worse over the past weekend which, of course, applies even more pressure to donald trump. >> he's under a lot of pressure right now. and although giuliani might not think the truth is the truth, one thing that don mcgahn, the white house counsel knows is that bob mueller is on a mission to find the truth. and so if mcgahn has been talking with mueller's investigators, you can be certain that he's telling them the truth and only the truth. there are too many cautionary tales about the way mueller has treated people who have lied to his investigators. it's interesting in mike

schmidt's story that he uses the word cooperator to describe mcgahn because that's a term of art for prosecutors. i'm not sure if he and maggie mean to use it in that sense here because to me that implies someone who has criminal exposure, who has been told that prosecutors are looking at them and who strikes a deal with prosecutors to cooperate in exchange for more lenient treatment. of course, it's also possible and perhaps more likely that mcgahn is simply cooperating in the sense that he's answering their questions. but it is intriguing since the president is the one who raises the specter of john dean and a rat. and then the walls have to be closing in on the president because michael cohen has gone radio silent up in new york, which is a pretty good signal that he's either trying to conclude a cooperation deal with prosecutors or has formally entered into one. >> michael schmidt. >> this is not a situation where mcgahn has gone in and pled or accepted a plea agreement or been given immunity.

it's a situation where mcgahn has realized that he has to do everything possible to prove to mueller that there is nothing here to hide, that he is a complete, open book to him. and he has continued to have discussions with mueller that the white house does not know about, that have not been reported back to the white house, that the white house does not appreciate the extent of. and as i was saying before, we still don't understand the full depth and breadth of what mcgahn has given to mueller, but it was certainly sachgs that mcgahn was afraid that if he did not go in and show everything that he had and volunteer information and be as forthcoming as possible and be as open as possible that he himself could ultimately find himself in a very difficult position either with the president trying to blame him or illegally. >> and i mean, for people like

don mcgahn and so many others, i would guess people like reince priebus and others that are called in front of -- i'm just throwing reince's name out there, but for so many people out there that have been called in to talk to the special counsel, to talk to robert mueller's team, why are you going to lie and get yourself sent to prison, separated from your family, separated from your job, separated from your life for a man who shows absolutely no loyalty to anyone? this is just a very bad situation for the president of the united states because, as it's always said, loyalty goes both ways and donald trump has never shown loyalty to anyone. michael schmidt, thank you so much for your reporting. another great story. joyce vance, thank you so much for being on as well. still ahead, jurors in the

paul manafort trial return for deliberations this morning. we're going to be talking about what a conviction could mean for the mueller probe and why it may not add much fire power to the special counsel's investigation. we're going to be bringing in legal scholar, jonathan turley to get his take on that. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪

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with us now, let's bring in the political writer for the new york times and msnbc political analyst nick confessore and law professor at george washington university jonathan turley who has a new piece for the hill on the manafort trial why a conviction would add little fire power to the mueller information. jonathan, let's start with the question that i'm going to draw upon all my years of legal training and all my years of legal practice and ask you an in-depth question regarding jurisprudence, what the hell is going on in the manafort trial? i mean, you have the jurors are not sequestered on one of the most important trials where

witness tampering it would seem would be an utmost concern to any judge, russians running around. you have, of course, the judge making just crazed attacks at the prosecution on and off and apologizes and then continues poking them, accuses one prosecutor who stared down mob families and had his life threatened by mobs, mobsters of crying in court. this is a bizarre trial. and i must say, there is so much evidence, just in the documents, against paul manafort and the jury is still out. what's going on here? >> well, the most curious thing is actually the defense. it makes no sense if you think he's trying to win. i don't think he is. i don't think this is an acquittal strategy. otherwise he would have put on defense witnesses. he would have created a narrative that would knock down or explain all these really damaging documentary pieces of

evidence. he didn't. i think this really looks like a hung jury strategy that the best they can hope for is to see if they can get out of this with a tie. the problem is that you can easily hang in a hung jury strategy. the jury can come out without a verdict on some counts but still reach a verdict on others. i think in addition to a hung jury strategy, it's clearly a pardon strategy. and the best things going for manafort in this trial actually came not from the witness stand but, as you mentioned, from the bench itself. the judge made very damaging comments in front of the jury. that helped. i also think frankly that manafort is helped by two other people, omarosa and michael cohen. i think that what his team hopes is that trump is going to look at people like michael cohen and seriously think of a pardon for manafort, not just to reward his loyalty but to show michael cohen, you picked the wrong

horse. you decided to switch over to mueller. so all of those things i think are encouraging manafort, but the one thing i don't see him trying to do or at least work hard at is to get an acquittal. >> andrea mitchell is with us and has a question. andrea? >> i'm wondering about an issue that joe just touched on which is the last of sequestering of this jury. once it went to the jury. not only the fact that they were walking around in the elevators and according to our reporters were brushing up against reporters and other people in the courthouse throughout the trial, but you had the president of the united states coming out on the south lawn on friday and speaking act how paul manafort is a good man and had already gone to the jury. so what, in your experience, would tell you that these jurors did not hear or see at home this weekend as diligent as they might be some reference to the president's support for paul manafort to say nothing of what

might still take place? why aren't they sequestered? >> that's an excellent question, andrea. i think that most judges view sequestering as called for when there's threats against jurors. there is one juror that apparently did feel threatened. that alone would have led many judges just to sequester the jury. you usually don't have sequestering just because they might violate the order of the court, which tells them to stay away from the media, not read or discuss the case. i think in this district, sequestering is not as prevalent as some other districts, but this is a judge that clearly felt it wasn't necessary. this is a saturated news story, and i think the chances that these jurors are going to be in some type of vacuum space is unlikely. how much that's going to impact the jury's decision, it's hard to say. this jury is clearly taking it very seriously.

the questions they asked the judge show that they're drilling down on the right questions. looking what really constitutes reasonable doubt and other things of that time. >> it's carol lee here. how might this outcome of this trial effect the outcome or how the next trial plays out in terms of strategies on either side? >> you know, carol, i think that the biggest impact for mueller will be that if he can convict manafort, even one count, he's looking at a decade in jail and then he's got to turn around and run the tables in d.c. on a second trial. by the way, the evidence in the second trial makes this one look like a walk in the park. so, the belief of the special counsel is that this is going to concentrate the mind of paul manafort. the problem is that manafort's counsel from the very beginning has telegraphed to trump that they are going to stay silent, noncooperative. and i think in the hopes of a

pardon. now n tein terms of a convictio ratifying the special counsel's investigation, i don't see that. look, this is completely removed from the allegations that led to the appointment of the special counsel himself. there has been some passing reference to the campaign, but it's been marginal. for mueller to nail manafort would prove that manafort is a criminal but not necessarily a criminal that he was originally tasked with finding. >> jonathan, this is nick confessore here, i think you can make the case that absent the trump scandal, that this trial would be the most important lobbying corruption trial since jack has laid bare, a world of corruption, influenced bedling and yet i wonder if he is convicted, how does it advance the investigation into president trump or the white house and presumed convictions to russia? >> i don't think it does unless paul manafort flips and brings

in some new information. it did peel away part of this world in d.c. i remember us talking over a year ago and saying that people are going to be shocked to the degree in which people on in thf these ukrainian, russian and other foreign interests. it's a cottage industry in this town and most that people are not aware of. it's part of the currency of washington, d.c. i'm not sure how long lasting it will be. in terms of putting trump in a materially worst position it won't unless manafort decides he'll bring something to the table, some real deliverables and get a deal from mueller. all right, jonathan turley, thank you so much. still ahead, robert mueller recommends jail time for someone with ties to the trump campaign, and we're not talking about paul manafort orrick gates or michael

flynn. "morning joe" will be right back. how can we say when you book direct at choicehotels.com

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so, what are you working on today? >> i think we're looking at what happens with don mcgahn and the president. the relationship between president trump and don mcgahn was already frayed in large because the president felt don mcgahn should be beholding to him personally not the white house. the idea that don mcgahn was working in the white house while trying to save his own skin will get under the president's skin. so how he deals with that, and how this shakes out is something i'll be closely watching. >> john meacham today at the belmeade country club, what are you working on? your tennis backhand or a new grip on the links? >> you know, we're working on the net game because, you know, when you're my age you can't really run for the ball, which

is terrible. one serious thought, it's very interesting to me that president trump who does not have what i call the widest appreciation of history settled on two places for his imagination to go as he feels the pressure. and both ended poorly for the protaganist. one was joe mccarthy and the other was richard nixon. his mind is not going to iran/contra. he's not going to the clinton scandal where presidents survived, which is an interesting point. >> yeah. very, very interesting. carol lee, we'll let you go off to work. john meacham you can't leave quite yet for the club. we have you for a couple of hours. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> it depends upon what the mean of the word "is" is. >> no it isn't truth.

truth isn't truth. >> what's he screaming? two statements almost exactly 20 years apart, hoping to redefine words to the american people. "is" and "truth" as two presidents struggle to keep their stories straight. we'll talk about why rudy giuliani is offering a baffling defense of an indefensible president. we'll be joined by three of the original former intel officers who signed that letter rebuking the president's decision to revoke john brennan's security clearance. more senior intel officials have signed on. that brings the total to 250 intel officials. we'll talk about that with the entire gang, including, of course, david ignatius and andrea mitchell and many more when "morning joe" returns. yeah, i think i can handle it. no pressure... ...that's just my favorite boat.

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he must have forgotten this 201 tweet citing admiral mcraven's lead role in a mission to kill osama bin laden. welcome back to "morning joe". it's monday, august 20th, 2018. we have john meacham and columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell and political writer for the "new york times," nick confessore. so the list of former government officials adding their names to the effort to decry the practice of using threats to revoke security clearance to stifle public comments keeps on growing. this morning 177 clear and bipartisan former national security officials have added their names to the outcry. they write in part quote all of us believe it is critical to protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure,

but we believe equally strongly that former government officials have the right to express their unclassified views on what they see as critical national security issues without fear of being punished for doing so. the list now includes more than ten former u.s. ambassadors, more than 20 former u.s. attorneys. this follows 150 directors and deputies from the cia and dni who came out against this practice last thursday and 60 former cia officials a day later. and andrea, there are some of those people that signed on that may not have been john brennan's biggest fan while he was running the agency, may have even criticized john brennan publicly and may have even gone after him in scathing terms behind-the-scenes, but they understand regardless of their feeling of whether they were for

or against brennan at the time that he was running the agency, that they all have to stand together shoulder to shoulder. and it's a remarkable thing to see, isn't it? >> it's amazing. it's unprecedented. this additional list add names that date all the way back to tony mendez, was the cia technical officer who helped pull off that escape to the canadian embassy to rescue the american diplomats who were in iran in 1979. you think about that. the range of people over the decades, bill burns, william burns the most senior diplomat, and nick burns, of course, former ambassador, people like that, at every step of the way added to this list. it's pretty extraordinary. all standing up for the principle, as you point out, not for everything that john brennan said. some may have objected to his use of the adjective treasonous which was his take away after

the helsinki after the president stood next to putin and not acknowledging the assessment of all the intelligence agencies as to russia's attack against america. that said, they believe that this is a threat. that this represents some defense against the politicalization. the athlete that in some future or current instance that intelligence officers will not feel that they know that something the president is saying or doing is wrong will not stand up and have the guts to say no there's no wmd in iraq as some officers did say. you have to have intelligence officers feeling that they can be nonpolitical and that they can tell truth to power. >> david ignatius, you, in fact, have wrote some columns about some of the problems members of the agency, former members of the agency, former leaders of

the agency had with john brennan's tenure. but it's like with federal judges that i talked to and that i've heard about when donald trump started to question the legitimacy of one federal judge in washington state, even conservative federal judges who were members of the federalist society and some who were even on donald trump's short list decry his attack of the judiciary. we're seeing the same thing here, aren't we? >> i think so. it's striking to me that many people who would have been critical of john brennan for having used what they would have seen as extreme or highly charged language in talking about donald trump, people who weren't great fans of john brennan as tenure when he was cia director have rallied around john brennan the person, but even more the principle involved here, which is that political

vendettas, because that's hard to see what trump has done in any terms other than that. vendettas against your enemies are simply not acceptable. so you had these numbers and they keep growing. first you had 15, then 16, then 177. it's a wave of people who are saying no, that's not the way our intelligence agencies should operate and we're going to stand with the director, even somebody we may not always be supportive. i would note, joe, also in my e-mail inbox this morning, are some notes from former case officers who absolutely defiant of brennan, saying he's getting what he deserves. who see a broad conspiracy against donald trump, the kinds of things that you hear from some house members are also shared by some members of the intelligence agencies.

so we shouldn't imply there's universal rage here because i could read your viewers, people on the other side who say, no, we stand with the president even now. >> yeah. and i too have spoken with some former members of the cia who shared some of those feelings as well. i think that's why it's so telling that certainly leaders have stepped forward and decided they felt they had to stand shoulder to shoulder with somebody in the agency who had their security clearance stripped. whether they agreed with them or not political iep. with us now let's bring in three of the original signer of the letters protesting the quote ill considered and unprecedented remarks and actions by the white house regarding the removal of john brennan's security clearance. we got former acting director of the cia, john mccoughlin.

former deputy director of the cia from 2015 to 2017, david s. cohen and former deputy of the cia from 2013 to 2015, avril haynes. admiral, let's begin with you and ask why did you decide to sign this letter, what important message do you believe it sends not only to the president, this president but also future presidents? >> sure. from my perspective basically what we're seeing in this decision is kind of a canary in the coal mine moment. i really think it's such a blatant abuse of power by the president to actually both revoke john brennan's clearance but also threaten the revocation of other clearances across the board and we've heard the names essentially mentioned to not just in the intelligence community. for purposes of saying these

people are folks who have spoken out against what president trump believes, and i think in a sense it undermines the principles that our country is founded on and it's really an attempt to undermine the institutions that protect those principles. so i think the first thing that we talk about in the statement is the freedom of expression. from my perspective it's not just john's freedom of expression we're talking about but really the message doing this sends to other people other than yon who have security clearances who, for example, may be former government employees who are working in the defense industry or in other places where they rely on those security clearances as part of their professional health and they will feel in a sense squashed because they cannot or chilled in their speech as a consequence of these actions. i think it's also the bruce orr piece is an interesting part of what's been happening, this athlete to revoke the security clearance essentially of a mid-level department of justice

employee because of his association with individuals, and that's really concerning. that's a question of getting to the institutions that really help to guard against the abuses of power that we see. >> andrea mitchell is with us and she has a question as well. >> john mclaughlin, as someone who is acting cia director and deputy cia director what are you hearing from your former colleagues as to the morale issue and whether or not they think their leaders can stand up against these threats, the current leaders? >> i think they are confident that the current leaders, like dan coats can stand up to anything like this. we've seen that in dan coats' case a couple of times. gina haskell has kept a low profile so far and i think she's still organizing her team and getting her leadership in order. i think you can assume when you see the outpouring of names on

this latest list that that's fairly reflective of sentiment across the community because most of these people, in some cases, are relatively recent retirees, most of them are in touch with people still there. and, you know, that list came together on a sunday. i would not be surprised if today we get a lot more people saying hey why didn't i have a chance to sign. so we could see more people stepping forward. >> david ignatius is with us, and has a question for mr. cohen. david. >> david cohen, i want to ask you, you were a cia deputy director, you also served elsewhere in the government, and you've spent a lot of time traveling overseas talking with foreign officials. what effect is this feud between president trump and john brennan, this vitriolic exchange

happening on foreign intelligence services and others who look at the united states, what kinds of questions are they asking themselves as they watch this spectacle? >> i suspect they look at this as they looked at other recent episodes here where you have the president taking a position that is contrary to the intelligence community and his national security establishment and, again, they see a president going off in one direction, sort of attacking the intelligence community. because that's what this is. this is in some respects about john brennan but i think even more so is about politicalizing something that should not be political which is his security clearance process and you see this outpouring of objection from career intelligence officials saying you should not be doing that. that is similar, i think it will sound similar to a foreign

audience to the outpouring of rejection of president trump's refusal to acknowledge, you know, for instance, that the russians interfered in our elections. i think you'll genesee -- -- again see donald trump using national security in a political fashion and rejecting the intelligence community, and the folks in the intelligence community trying to do what's right for this country and trying to protect our national security. >> this is obviously a statement of principle from you and your former colleagues but i wonder given we have a president who spins conspiracy theories about a deep state working against him, that there's a danger for you and your colleagues in moving into the politics realm, in coming out like this, and involving yourself in a political dispute, and as i was saying it is a principle, but does it carry the risk of am ply

fieing the charges the president is trying to make to his base? >> i think you are sort of caught between a rock and a hard place on an issue like that. if we don't speak up then there's not an opportunity to make at that principle point that's so critical. our voices have a certain credibility because we're speaking across the political spectrum, essentially and working from folks -- you know i personally was a career officer within the united states government. i worked under the bush administration. i then worked for president obama as a political aponyee. but the reality is i see this as protecting the government and the national security structure as a whole and we can't let it be politicalized and our voices are critical in that conversation. i feel the greater risk is that we don't talk in this scenario. >> this is john meacham. just wondering what are you hearing from the incumbent

community about the level of candor from between the intelligence gatherers and the white house? has the drama that so many of us focus on outside the walls of the incumbency, is this affecting our national security in the sense of the flow of information from the intelligence gatherers to the policymakers? has there been a chilling effect of some kind? >> john, on that specific point, that is the flow of intelligence, no, i don't think so. i mean people talk a lot about morale in the intelligence community. you know, it ebbs and flows, but i can tell you i was at one of the agencies on friday and presiding at a retirement ceremony for someone i was asked to do and what struck me is everyone who talked immediately went to the mission. there is such a mission

orientation in the intelligence world that, yes, i think frankly they won't -- no one will say this but, frankly, some of the things that the president has done and said lowers respect for him, but not for the presidency. and so there's this driving ethic that you support the national security and, therefore, you collect the stuff, you lay it out as clearly as you can, and you let the chips fall where they may and i don't think that particular part of the process is in jeopardy. i wanted to add something to what avril said if i could. people ask all the time why are you intelligence people out doing this and i want to say that for most of us we are out of our comfort zone. this is not what we normally do. but as a friend of mine said the other day, we're in an upside

down world now. this is not the world we're used to. someone like myself who has worked for seven presidents is not accustomed to a president who threatens to lock up his opponent, who attacks our institutions, whose truthfulness can never be assumed. so we're in a strange world now. and if the world ever turns right side up again you'll see most of us fade back into the shadows. there's other reasons too. >> lots of other reasons too. david cohen, as john said we are in an upside down world. nobody really expected to be quite where we are and yet let's just stop for a second and talk about whatnot only you all have done, but also throughout the entire process, how the intel community has stood shoulder to shoulder and tried to keep things right sized and you can

look at dan coats, dni. you can look what mike performan pompeo saying russia was a risk. you can do down the list. the intel community has continually worked to right size statements from what the president has said. >> i think that's right. but i am concerned about this chilling effect both in the intelligence community and in the law enforcement community. avril mentioned at the outset the case of bruce orr, which i think is very troubling, more troubling in some respects than going after the security clearances of formers. he's currently serving civil servant in the justice department. and what the message that's being sent by the president by

saying, you know, i'm seriously considering revoking his security clearance, not because he did anything inappropriate with classified information, not because he's not suitable to handle classified information, but because in the president's view he, bruce orr somehow is involved in the russia investigation and that upsets the president. that sends, i think, a signal to folks in the intelligence community and in the law enforcement community that if you cross this president your livelihood, your ability to do your job will be threatened. so i am worried that you will have analysts in the agency, not the directors, but, line analysts who think do i want to brief in the oval office this analysis that says, you know, that north korea is restarting its nuclear program. or that the iran is abiding by the deal? something that's directly

contrary to the president's interests. is that in my interest to do that or am i putting in jeopardy my security clearance. likewise suppose there's a prosecutor investigating wilbur ross who needs a security clearance to do that. is that person going to think, gee, maybe i shouldn't be doing this because it will jeopardyiz me doing my job. >> david cohen thank you. john mclaughlin. admiral haynes. we appreciate all of you being with us. andrea thank you. what are you working on? >> we're working exactly on this, on having some of they former officials speaking about why they signed and one thing that really, really is stunning about this list as i've gone through it is sean o'keefe former nasa mr. straight orand secretary of navy, and long time

ally of dick cheney. this is across the board and across politics. >> all right, thank you. still ahead on morning joe the white house fires a speech writer who addressed a conference attend by white supremacists. bob costa has reporting on that straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. >> just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. 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. this isn't permanent, right? ask him. [terry squeals.] get unlimited data, live tv, and your choice of an extra on us. more for your thing. that's our thing. visit att.com so you have, your headphones, chair, new laptop, 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys.

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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. . one of president trump's speech writers was fired last week after it was revealed he attend a conference by well-known white nationalists. three people told "the washington post" he was fired after his speaking appearance in 2016. it was an engagement where he talked on a panel on a conference alongside individuals who described themselves as a

white nationalist and a believer in quote, racial nationalism and who sees the future of the country quote precipitating out on racial lines. the conference has also in the past been attended by prominent white nationalists, richard spencer. beatty was a visiting instructor at duke university before joining the white house and wrote his doctoral thesis on a member of the nazi member in germany. in a statement to the "post" he says in part the conference where he went, he delivered quota standalone academic talk and said nothing objectionable. let's bring in right now political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of washington week on pbs, and an msnbc political analyst robert costa. also with us washington bureau chief susan page. so, bob, tell bus the story, what is significant about this

story? >> joe, it was broken over the weekend. in short mr. beatty was fired on friday, resisted being fired when he was confronted about the inquiry about his appearance at this 2016 conference. but it raises questions about what kind of due diligence is being done of some of they white house staffers at a senior level. this was not some intern. this was a top speech writer who worked with vince haley, the head of speech writing at the white house at times with steven miller, head of policy and speech writer. but he appeared with peter who denies he's a white nationalist. he believes racial clashes are coming in this country and he believes that white people should really stand in solidarity. >> susan, i have a question for you here. if the president has a speech writer who is a white nationalist, have we seen him echoing some themes of the right

and the white nationalists, what ought we conclude about how welcomed he was in this white house? >> well he was clearly welcomed for some time as a key speech writer. so that welcome. i guess one question s-how fully did the white house know about his views, even a cursory clearance process should have turned up views that are offensive to americans, white nationalists. it's difficult to go to a conference that draws white nationalists and make uncontroversial remarks. just by the nature of the venue. so it raises questions about what this white house is willing to tolerate and also how well its processes work on the totally routine processes of trying to do clearances of people that you're going to bring into the white house as your key staffers. >> bob costa, let's talk about this weekend. rudy giuliani going out on the

sunday shows, saying the truth isn't the truth, actually shouting the truth isn't the truth. the president unhinged on twitter again, talking about rats and john b. being a rat and claiming he knew all along. don mcgahn was talking to a degree that actually he didn't know what don mcgahn was talking about. what can you tell us what you're hearing out of the white house and what you heard this weekend? >> mayor giuliani seemed like he was being evasive on prepress and to a certain extent he was. when you read between the lines of what he was saying and what i was hearing you get a sense the president's legal team is worried. the president could be baited by this "new york times" story about don mcgahn, the white house counsel, baited to do an interview, to sit down with robert mueller sooner than later now to tell his side of the story. there's people close to the president, the president in some ways can't resist the idea that mcgahn of out there for 30 hours

telling his version of events of obstruction of justice. giuliani says we won't be pulled in that direction. but how long can he keep his client from sitting down and telling his side? >> john meacham, that's something that nobody in the white house wants this president to do. the president claims to want to sit down with bob mueller, man-to-man. and yet nothing has happened so far. but if that were to happen, what a showdown that would be. >> yeah. not like sitting down with omarosa. the stakes would be somewhat higher. one of the things, susan, i world love to hear your view on this. one of the things we know historically in the white houses, the paralyzing effect that investigations can have on the actual workings of even

ordinary white houses. to what extent do you think the russia, the mueller investigation, the manafort trial, how much of that is affecting the actual administrative work, the policy work of the administration? >> i think they are raising what the russia investigation is the defining fact of the trump white house because it involves and consumes the president and his legal team and it is a big concern of his chief of staff. and a scandal of any sort, the iran/contra scandal, the monica lewinsky scandal has a big effect on the white house. we saw with the clinton white house they made a big effort to compartmentalize the scandal from other operations of the government. there's no such consistent effort on the part of the president trump white house. the main thing this trump white house is concerned with is protecting the president and what's happening with this

russia investigation. >> well, david ignatius, it seems that while the trump white house has been complaining and trump allies have been complaining from the start that this investigation has hung over the entire trump presidency, it's been rudy giuliani and donald trump that have been dragging their feet week in and week out, week in and week out own whether the president will sit down with robert mueller, and finish this investigation off. that's the last thing robert mueller needs before finishing off the obstruction part of the investigation yet they just keep trying to run out the clock. >> you do get that feeling, joe, that they are running out the clock. i want to ask my colleague bob costa, unders this white house as well as anybody outside it, just to give us a little snapshot of how it's working. i'm particularly curious about the realm of white house chief of staff john kelly. you don't hear so much about kelly any more.

he said he would stick around until 2010. that was kind of surprising. is he back in charge of the flow of paper to the president? is he the guy that got this beatty, the speech writer out pretty darn quickly after the news broke? how is it working? >> he's still in charge of the paper flow, but when it comes to the political capital of this white house, who makes the decisions, it's the president himself. it's not general kelly. this is what people inside of the white house tell me. the president actually wants somewhat of a weak chief of staff, he wanted someone to come in and make sure the door often value office was mormon toward, the president wasn't being bothered a lot. the president wanted more control over his day-to-day activity, spending more time at the executive resident dense in the morning. making his own decisions, his own phone calls and on twitter and everything else. kelly is not a heavy hand. he's a heavy hand with the schedule. but beyond that not so much. and with regard to the staff,

it's still the president making some of these key decisions though unclear whether the president was aware of this speech writer mr. beatty and his association with this conference. >> bob, so it's monday morning. in august. hot august with a lot of scandals swirling around the president or the president's men and women. what are you looking at this week? what are you working on? >> the key for the president right now is giuliani says he's not going to do an interview, but we've now been about over a week since they sent their reply back to robert mueller the trump legal team. what does mueller do now? we're in a wait and see period. giuliani can say whatever he wants. mueller will either come back with more terms for an interview or issue a subpoena or maybe just issue as report about the president's conduct and that could be, as they say in politics a game changing moment ahead of the mid-term elections if mueller decides enough of the games we'll move forward, talk

about the president's condub. here's what we know. what witnesses like mcgahn have said to us behind-the-scenes. >> robert costa, thank you. still ahead, 78 days until the mid-term elections. 78 days. with us we have veteran journalist ron fournier who says there maybe 78 days until independence day. he'll explain that next. >> i won be rushed in having him testify so he gets trapped into perjury. when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he's going to tell the truth, he shouldn't worry that's so silly. it's somebody's version of the truth not the truth. he didn't have a conversation -- >> truth is truth. >> no truth isn't truth. we do whatever it takes to fight cancer.

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our nation is indeed at a crossroads. will we pursue the search for truth or dodge, weave aefrnd ev the truth. i'm talk about illegal conduct by the president of the united states. if he's engaged in a consistent pattern of obstruction of justice. the allegation is grave. the investigation is legitimate.

ascertaining the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the unqualified unevasive truth important. a former judge of the court of appeals for the d.c. circuit kenneth starr. mr. president i'm deeply troubled because judge starr's pursuit of the truth is being undermine every step of the way, every single day in the press, by those whose sole mission is to attack and impugn the court appointed prosecutor and additionally created process. and these attackers are not the journalists or the broadcasters. what troubles me the most these reckless attacks, these ruthless onslaughts are being carried out by the closest advisors to the president of the united states. wow. that's mitch mcconnell. we think talking about the trump

investigation, and all those attacking robert mueller, but john meacham, talk about parallels between what mitch mcconnell was complaining about in 1998, and what is actually happening 20 years later for an investigation against bill clinton that went on twice as long and didn't produce one tenth of the results that robert mueller has already produced in a year. >> yeah. you know, clips like that make you understand to some extent why people dislike washington. you know, you don't need to reach very far for an explanation. there's an inherent cynicism in life. you don't have to believe everything is about the brookings institution or others to say politics is an imperfect

business full of imperfect people. at the certain level and in certain moments in the life of the republic the people who really do speak truth, who really do damn the consequences in the short term are rewarded in the long term because they did the right thing. i think that republicans and democrats should be supportive of this investigation. there's clearly probable cause, if not in the legal sense of that, certainly in the common sense meaning of it to support this search for truth. and with all respect to mayor giuliani, there is an objective truth. there are objective things known as facts. the most important interview arguably in human history interview between jesus christ

and uppontius pilat search whats truth. truth is what we most daily gently come to. we've been talking in the intelligence community, the line from the gospel of john is on the wall of the george bush center for intelligence in langley. you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. what a lot of people are fearing within the trump circle if people know the truth the truth will actually take them from freedom. >> how remarkable it is that you have mitch -- those are mitch mcconnell statements and other republicans making similar statements in 1998, and 1999. being shocked and distressed that bill clinton was engaging in moral relativism and even calling into question the definition of the word "is." and there you have mitch

mcconnell, of course, attacking the president's men and women from going after the independent counsel at the time. donald trump himself, the president himself just twisted while we were showing the clip of mitch mcconnell and attack on robert mueller. an attack on a marine, an fbi director, a man who has committed his entire life to service to the united states of america. there is certainly nothing disgraced or discredited about bob mueller, and the majority of americans agree, and as i said before, there really -- if the polls taken were elections, mueller would be beating donald trump in a landslide by 20 points in just about every

single category. sadly, my biggest takeaway from the mitch mcconnell clip is john me channels takeaway. i'll say it more bluntly, this is why americans hate politics. and, you know, it's tribal. what is good for democrats one week is good for republicans the next week. and the inconsistencies through the years -- actually through the months, through the days, drive americans mad, because there just seems to be two teams, two tribes fighting each other and the truth at the end of the day doesn't mean as much as protecting a member of your own tribe. when we come back, we're going to be talking about how one man

believes that, actually the election this year will elevate independence and create a sort of independence day and start breaking down what john meacham has called for a long time, a 164 duopoly and actually made add a little bit of independence to our political system. ron fournier coming up next. we just got married. we're all under one roof now. congratulations. thank you. how many kids? my two. his three. along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. that is quite the family. quite a lot of colleges to pay for though.

a lot of colleges. you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now. right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management. with my bladder leakage, the products i've tried just didn't fit right. they were very saggy. it's getting in the way of our camping trips. but with new sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. introducing more sizes for better comfort. new depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. mom: okay we need to get all your school supplies today. school... grade... done. done. hit the snooze button and get low prices on school supplies all summer long. like these for only $2 or less at office depot officemax. ♪ come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away. ♪ like these for only $2 or less

i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. they said i had afib. what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke. i needed answers. my doctor and i chose xarelto® to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. for afib patients well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding

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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. so all of that partisan battle in washington that we were just talking about rages on, one group is taking a unique approach to disrupting american's political duopoly. the group called unite america is trying to recenter the political conversation we are having every day by backing independent candidates competing in statewide races this fall. in an effort to build momentum on saturday, more than 200 independent leaders gathered in denver for the first-ever unite summit. with us now, veteran journalist

ron fournier. ron is now the president of trustcot rossman, a michigan public relations firm hired by the unite america group, and ron attended saturday's summit and in a new column for "the washington post" this morning he writes in part this. while a viable third party is as elusive as a horned horse, there exists a rare-but-real creature in american politics that can systematically dismantle the status quo, the independent. untethered to two major parties, growing in sums and significance, independent candidates and officeholders are the reindeer of american politics. if these creatures can be corralled into controlling coalitions and legislatures across the country, including the u.s. senate, they could find a powerful leverage point to break the partisan fever. their time has come. november 6th could be

independent's day. ron, it is great to have you with us. we're going to go to nick confessore with the first question. >> good to see you. >> hey, nick. >> you know, i have seen and you have seen this story before. i have heard so many people argue for, it's time for the independent, they're finally here, it is going to change everything. what is different this time? because in the past we have seen this movie and it ends the same way, in either defeat of the independent candidate or for electing an opposing canned that tends to be more contrary to the view of the independent. what is different this time? >> first of all, as you know we have been talking about this forever and there is no guarantee it is going to happen, and it is not going to happen overnight. what has changed is people are even angrier than ever. we have seen this anger turn become into president, barack obama into president, donald trump into president. what's -- you know, we have the

plain and simple fact there are more independents in this country than there are republicans and democrats. what unite america is trying to do is get over one of the two big hurdles. one is the rules are rigged against independent candidates, the republicans and democrats have the rules rigged in a way it is almost impossible to get on ballots. the big problem is the issue you are talking about, viability. even though there are more independents out there, voters don't want to waste their vote and they're worried, you know, is there any way this can happen. what unite america is trying to show on the state level is if we can level the playing field through this organization, you can get the independents elected. when you get them elected, there are already examples where it can change the way state legislatures are governing. >> ron, this is susan page here. >> hey, susan. >> we have covered a lot of campaigns together. i think there's some concern on the part of some democrats that the rise of talking about third party and independent candidacies in this midterm

election could help republicans because it could be a place for republicans who are republican-leaning voters who are unhappy with the trump era, give them a place to land without voting for democrats. do you think there is a partisan impact? >> yeah. >> i realize there's not a partisan intent by the movement, but is there a possibility of a partisan impact from it? >> definitely. you and i have been covering this long enough to know, republicans say don't vote for independents, you might help the other guy and democrats say, don't vote for independents because you might help the other guy. 40% of americans don't like either party, who are forced to vote for one party if they vote at all. we have to give those folks some voice. the system has to be open to more than two choices. you can't go into a drug store anywhere in america and only pick between two kinds of toothpaste. how is it we limit ourselves because of the fear of the other guy to only two choices in

politics? it makes no sense. >> you know, ron, this could have a real impact, especially in the united states senate, if you had five, six, seven independent senators that voted as a block, and they could influence how the senate and basically how the government went for quite some time. how do candidates like angus king in maine find a way forward, where he's running this fall and, yes, a lot of people consider him to be more democrat than republican, but at the same time he's got some trump voters that look at him, like him, trust him and will be voting for him. this is another guy who, you know, he's most likely going to be re-elected as an independent, drawing support from both sides. >> well, because he's got the two things that unite america is trying to get established nationally. one, he's got the infrastructure that can at least level the playing field against the duopoly. two, in maine voters have seen it can happen. take alaska, for example.

you have up there an independent governor with a democratic lieutenant governor who because one lawmaker flipped from republican to independent, they were able to forge a governing coalition. it includes democrats, three or four republican moderates and a couple of independent members of the legislature, and they were able to put through a very courageous, very hard-fought budget plan that neither the democratic party on its own or the republican party on its own would have dared to touch. >> all right. ron fournier, thanks for being with us. it is great having you back. hope you will come back again soon. >> any time. >> being a loyal tigers fan, are you still going to see the tigers play despite the tough season? >> of course. i'm about two blocks away from it right now. >> okay. very good. great seeing you. hope you will come back very soon. >> any time, man. take care. >> you too. still ahead, we have more on president trump's reaction to the reporting that white house counsel don mcgahn's cooperating with the mueller investigation. this nugget from "the new york

times" story that mcgahn's nickname for donald trump is someone who shares his affinity for new york skyscrapers. and rough relations with the press. . all set, jack? >> okay. >> make it a good one. shoot. >> don't be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen. those chains are made of chrome steel. >> picture. >> he's loose! man 1: proof of less joint pain... woman 2: ...and clearer skin. woman 3: this is my body of proof. man 2: proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... woman 4: ...with humira. woman 5: humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain,

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sean spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. >> in a situation like this you have over time facts develop. >> it is somebody's version of the truth, not the truth. truth isn't truth. >> alternative facts. >> facts developed. >> truth isn't truth. >> alternative facts.

>> facts developed. >> truth isn't truth. >> well, i guess you have to add that one to the montage from earlier this month as rudy guilliani utters one of the, i guess, more baffling, more memorable lines in recent political memory. meanwhile, white house counsel don mcgahn reportedly opening up to bob mueller after fearing that he was being set up by the president to take the fall. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, august 20th. with us we have pulitzer prize winning historian and author of the best seller, "the soul of america, the battle for our better angels," john meachem. columnist for "the washington post", david ignatius. nbc news chief correspondent and host of andrea mitchell reports, andrea mitchell. national reporter for nbc news, carol lee. also "new york times" reporter

michael schmidt as well as u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and msnbc contributor joyce vance. john meachem, before we get to rudy telling us that the truth is not the truth, that perhaps what the meaning of "is" is or is not, i wanted to ask you, we always talk about turning points in this trump administration, and many people believe that we will never have a turning point. trump is just going to plow through one thing after another. but you had a lot of people comparing what happened with admiral mccraven this past weekend, with what happened to the mccarthy hearings when welch finally said, "sir, have you know shame." how impactful do you think admiral mccraven's comments were and the response to that? >> i think they were essential.

i think they speak incredibly well of the admiral and of that broader national security community that i think signed a better, bob gates among others, people who are, in fact, standing up and saying that as george h.w. bush said in another context, this will not stand. my fear is that to link these two themes, is that in a world where the tagline of the administration is there are alternative facts, truth is not truth, that the great underlying democratic -- lower case "d" -- crisis right now is have we reached a point where the party in power has so devalued the kind of statesmanship, the kind of articulation, the kind of principle -- and i don't mean to be overly grand about it but what the admiral was writing there was a principled view. he said, take away mine, please, that would be the badge of

honor, i want to be with the guys you are against. that says an enormous amount about where we are. how effective it is? will that penetrate the 45% or so of the trump folks who seem to be enthralled to this particular man and this particular style of politics, i just don't know. i hope it does. remember, it took mccarthy four years to rise and fall from lincoln's birthday in 1950 until that moment with joseph welch. that was 1954. there are a couple of people who are going to be able to say they were margaret chase smith, they were there early, and there are a lot of people who are going to be trying to rewrite history. >> very few though are going to be able to say they were margaret chase smith in the republican party. but, david ignatius, the intel

community has proven itself time and time again to put america first. you look what donald trump's own appointees are saying, what dan coates is saying, the director of national intelligence, but also what people like bob gates have been saying, what people like general haden have been saying. general haden i thought touched on it several months ago, that it is not a coincidence that donald trump is attacking the intel community, that he is attacking journalists, that he is attacking people in academia, that he is attacking science. he attacks fact-based operations, people who make their living and who live to gather facts and to put together the reality. of course, the intel community has facts about not only the last campaign but about vladimir putin that drive donald trump absolutely correctly -- i mean

drives him crazy. so he has his war on facts and he has his war on the intel community. >> joe, these are people who pride themselves on being the ultimate, sometimes the last professionals in government, the people who insist on speaking truth no matter what, who will tell presidents the vietnam war isn't going well, sir, who will tell presidents the afghanistan war isn't working, your strategy isn't going to work. this is an agency that celebrates that and has traditionally. it is also an agency that likes to get on with it, and so the very public comments by former agency officials i think are awkward for people who basically like to keep their heads down and do their jobs. you said in the beginning, joe, that maybe this was a tipping point, and i didn't know with admiral mccraven's statements,

bob gates, two former cia directors, people who tended to want to be out of the fray and have been holding back decided they couldn't do it any longer, that the situation was getting so serious that they had to speak up before it was too late. there was a little bit of that sense that we're really accelerating now towards dangerous outcomes so people began to speak. to me, in the end this is going to up down to the american public in two ways. we have a jury of 12 americans that's in recess, coming back today, that's going to decide the first of special counsel bob mueller's cases. it is a crucial case. if they come back as a hung jury or without a decisive conviction, donald trump will be able to say, see, i told you this was a witch hunt and now here the jury agrees with me. and then we have the midterm elections obviously coming in november. in some ways i think the story moves to the country at large and how are people processing

this, but you certainly do see among the elite opinion what i thought was a tipping point with this removal of brennan's security clearance. >> it is very interesting you talk about bob gates. andrea mitchell, bob gates an example of a man who really has seen more, done more than most anybody else in modern american politics. he's worked for republicans and democrats alike. robert gates, i remember before the election, was a man who did not support donald trump at all, but mika and i, i remember us having a private conversation with him and he said the same thing that general hayden said privately, which was we only have one president at a time. >> exactly. >> and we have to do everything we can do to make donald trump a successful president. we have no other choice. so that's why when you see bob gates finally speaking out, it

carries the tremendous impact that it does. >> it does. and just to reinforce what that letter said that had the signatures of bob gates and judge william webster, these are not political people. these are career people. judge webster went from the judiciary to the fbi and then the cia, so held in such high regard, a man in his 90s who has never spoken out like this, ever. i have known him for more than three decades. these are the people who were so unusual on that list, that reinforced the point it was a breaking point. and as david ignatius was just saying, these are people who usually keep their heads down and to not enter the fray, and they said in that letter that they are not entirely comfortable with everything that has been said, with everything john brennan said, but they felt that the security clearance process and the threat it could potentially pose for current officials, which would be

career-ending for any of them including bruce ohr, the mid-level justice official who is now under threat rhetorically from the president, that is what caused them to sign this letter. >> let's talk about president trump's personal attorney, rudy guilliani, pushing falsehoods and the new position of the trump legal team about the president's top campaign aides meeting with russians in june of 2016. so here is rudy on "meet the press" yesterday. >> the meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about -- about clinton. the meeting turned into a meeting -- >> which in itself is attempted collusion. >> no, it is not. >> you just said it. the meeting was intended to get dirt on hillary clinton from a kremlin lawyer. >> no. >> that was the intention of the meeting, you just said it. >> that was the original intention of the meeting. it turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all. of course, any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any

candidate's staff would take. if someone said, i have information about your opponent, you would take that meeting. if it happens to be -- >> from the russian government? >> she didn't represent the russian government. she is a private citizen. i don't even know if they knew she was russian at the time. >> okay. so, you know, sometimes it is a close call, sometimes you can just say, he was lying. rudy was lying. those claims are blatantly false given the e-mails that donald trump jr. posted more than a year ago in which he was told, the woman offering dirt on clinton was, quote, the crown prosecutor of russia. the russian attorney, the russian government attorney, and, quote, part of russia and its government support for mr. trump. joyce vance, i'm not exactly sure what it gains the president of the united states to continue having his attorney go out,

telling one lie after another after another. of course, after trump jr. learned that this top prosecutor, this member of the russian government was coming to meet him and manafort and kushner and the entire gang, of course he was thrilled. so they knew this coming in. i'm not exactly sure how it helps donald trump to have rudy guilliani lying a year later. >> increasingly, guilliani and the president are playing to the court of public opinion because they know that they'll lose in a court of law. we'll watch that happen this week in alexandria where this jury, if they base their decision in the law and the evidence will return verdicts of guilty against paul manafort. so guilliani is, i think, at this point simply trying to feed a false narrative to the american public. truth is not truth, don't trust what your eyes and your ears tell you.

instead, trust the cultive personality that's become trump because they know bad news will come in the form of a report from mueller sooner or later, whether it is before or after the election. they won't be able to survive the content of that report if it is anything like what we're hearing publicly. their only hope is to lie to the american people. i think what we all have to do at this point is hope that the american people will demonstrate the backbone that they have over time that john meachem talks about so many times and find the courage to go with the truth and not with the cultive personality here. >> still ahead on "morning joe", white house counsel don mcgahn's advising the president he is also cooperating with bob mueller. michael schmitt explains how much mcgahn is telling the special counsel and why he felt compelled to offer his side of the story. but first, here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. what is it looking like? >> joe, a nice, quiet week. knock on wood somewhere around here, because hurricane season, we're only about two weeks away

from the peak of hurricane season. nothing brewing anywhere. we deserve it with what we went through last year. stay tuned, the most active month coming up. severe storms are possible in the middle of the country. we have good thormunderstorms crossing the mississippi river, into mississippi currently. 5 million people at risk because the cold front will plow through areas and try to make its way towards tupelo and nashville. again, kind damage and maybe a little hail. on tuesday it will roll through the east from pittsburgh to erie. 14 million people at risk. i'm not expecting a widespread severe weather outbreak. mod map, perfect in the northeast. we are hot in the northwest today, another 90-degree day in portland. we will do it tuesday. even wednesday is 94 in portland. by the end of the week we get a pattern change.

we start to cool things off in the northwest. we will see the heat building in the middle of the country and a picture-perfect end to the week, areas from the mid atlantic to the northeast. almost a little taste of fall in a few spots out there as we're not talking about the exceptional heat or humidity anymore. new york city is one of those spots that had kind of a hit-and-miss weekend. looking for a beautiful end to this week, and i think next weekend looks great, too. make your plans now. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ how do you win at business? stay at laquinta.

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cost support options. 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. we have a good sense, obviously, of what mr. mcgahn testified to. i can figure it out from -- >> wait, how do you say that good sense? have you debriefed him? >> no, no, but mr. dowd has a good sense of it. he talked to him at the time. i can figure it out, he says. maybe with the oiji board. you never know with rudy. that's the president's current

attorney, rudy guilliani talking about what white house counsel don mcgahn might have talked about to bob mueller. he had 30-hour interviews. people close told "the new york times", mcgahn's lawyer offered a limited accounting of what he told investigators. michael shh schmidt, what a report you had this weekend. tell us about it. >> basically it is unusual for lawyers in an ongoing investigation who have been advising a client to go in and meet so openly with investigators, but there's a lot of different factors that led to this happening. don mcgahn has cooperated extensively with the mueller investigation. now, the president's lawyers say, like guilliani did there, that they have a full accounting of what they said and they fully

understand that. that's not true. they don't know the extend of mcgahn's cooperation. we still don't know the extent of mcgahn's cooperation, but it was not simply, i'm going to go in and answer these questions truthfully. mcgahn realized he was in a precarious spot and needed to lean as hard as he could into mueller. there was a chance he could be indicted for conspiring to obstruct justice. there was a chance the president could try to pin this on him, and he needed to show mueller that he was going to be an open book and a cooperator in the sense of being as helpful as possible. now, he was the person in the room for all of the key moments that are under investigation for obstruction, whether it is the firing of comey or the efforts to get sessions to recuse himself and unrecuse himself or get rid of sessions.

these are things that mcgahn is directly there with the president for, and mueller has had that extraordinary witness to help his investigation. that's what we reported. >> and on twitter yesterday president trump responded to that story and insisted that white house counsel don mcgahn won't turn on him like richard nixon's did. he tweeted, quote, the failing "new york times" wrote a fake piece today, implying that because white house counsel don mcgahn was giving hours of testimony to the special he must be a john dean type rat. john dean, of course, was the white house counsel for richard nixon, became a key witness in the watergate scandal. he served a prison term for obstruction of justice. trump went on to write about mcgahn, quote, i allowed him and all others to testify. i didn't have to. i have nothing to hide, and demanding transparency so that this rigged and disgusting witch hunt can come to a close. so many lives have been ruined,

blah, blah, blah. so, michael schmidt, what is it about "the new york times" article that you think from your sources after it was printed shook up donald trump and the white house so much? >> well, it was the fact that they didn't totally appreciate this issue. they didn't totally appreciate what the byproducts of cooperation would be. last year the president's lawyers, john dowd and ty cobb, sold him on a strategy to cooperate. they took the president at his word that he had done nothing wrong and said, look, we can bring an end to this and the sooner we cooperate the sooner it will be over and the cloud will be lifted from your administration. obviously that has not worked out. the investigation is still going, if not bigger than it was a year ago. and the president has realized that. he has changed his legal strategy. he is more combative and

antagonistic to mueller when he wants to interview white house officials. but what happened was is that the earlier strategy of cooperation unleashed mcgahn to cooperate with mueller and tell him everything that he knew. so people around the president, people who were close to the president are now saying, look, the strategy of cooperation may not have been such a great idea. did we simply give mueller the keys to understanding all of these issues? >> coming up on "morning joe", is paul manafort getting indirect help from none other than michael cohen and omarosa? while professor jonathan turley explains that theory straight ahead, "morning joe" will be right back. ♪

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to the mueller investigation. jonathan, let me start with a question. i'm going to draw on my legal training and years of legal practice and ask you an in-depth question regarding juris prudence. what is going on the manafort trial? i mean you have the jurors are not sequestered on one of the most important trials where witness tampering, it would seem, would be an utmost concern to any judge, russians running around. you have, of course, the judge making just crazed attacks at the prosecution on and off and apologizes and then continues poking them, accuses one prosecutor who stared town mob families and had his life threatened by mobsters of crying in court. just this is a bizarre trial. i must say there is so much evidence just in the documents against paul manafort and the

jury is still out. what is going on here? >> well, the most curious thing is actually the defense. it makes no sense if you think he's trying to win. i don't think he is. i don't think this is an acquittal trat acquittal strategy, otherwise he would have put on defense witnesses, he would create a narrative that would knock down or explain all of these really damaging documentary pieces of evidence. he didn't. i think this really looks like a hung jury strategy, that the best that they can hope for is to see if they can get out of this with a tie. the problem is that you can easily hang in a hung jury strategy. the jury can come out without a verdict on some counts but still reach a verdict on others. i think in addition to a hung jury strategy, it is clearly a pardon strategy. the best things going for manafort in this trial actually came not from the witness stand, but as you mentioned from the

bench itself. the judge made very damaging comments in front of the jury. that helps. i also think, frankly, that manafort is helped by two other people, omarosa and michael cohen. i think that what his team hopes is that trump is going to look at people like michael cohen and seriously think of a pardon for manafort, not just to reward his loyalty but to show michael cohen, you picked the wrong horse, you know, when you decided to switch over to mueller. so all of those things i think are encouraging manafort, but the one thing i don't see him trying to do or at least work hard at is to get an acquittal. >> yeah. andrea mitchell is with us and has a question. andrea. >> i'm wondering about an issue that joe just touched on, which is the lack of sequestration of this jury. once it went -- once it went to the jury, not only the fact that they were walking around in the elevators and according to our reporters were brushing up against reporters and other

people in the courthouse throughout the trial, but you had the president of the united states coming out on the south lawn on friday and speaking about how paul manafort is a good man and it had already gone to the jury. so what in your experience would tell you that these jurors did not hear or see at home this weekend, as diligent as they might be, some reference to the president's support for paul manafort, to say nothing of what might still take place? why aren't they sequestered? >> that's an excellent question, andrea. most judges view sequestering as called for when there's threats against jurors. there's one juror that apparently felt threatened. that alone would have led many judges to sequester the jury. you usually don't have sequestering because they might violate the order of the court which tells them to stay away from the media, not read or discuss the case. i think in this district sequestering is not as prevalent as some other districts, but

this is a judge that clearly felt it wasn't necessary. this is a saturated news story, and i think the chances that these jurors are going to be in some type of vacuum space is unlikely. how much that's going to impact the jury's decision it is hard to say. this jury is clearly taking it very seriously. you know, the questions they asked the judge show they're drilling down on the right questions, looking at what really constitutes reasonable doubt and other things of that kind. >> coming up on "morning joe", the trump team suggests anyone in politics would accept dirt on a political opponent even if it came from russia. back in 2000, the gore campaign received material designed to prepare george w. bush for the debates. they immediately turned it over to the fbi. we're going to be talking to long-time republican operative stewart stevens who was there and had one of the few copies of that book. "morning joe" will be right back. it was here.

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hey, let's bring in long-time republican political strategist stuart stevens. with us, senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center, peter weiner, and "the new york times" nick confessore and usa today susan page back with us as well. stuart, there are so many maddening things about the way republicans are behaving these days. i speak as one former republican to a guy that worked in a lot of republican races, but one of the things that bothers me the most, because i believe americans not involved in politics might believe it, is donald trump and the trumps and guilliani saying, oh, we were going to get dirt on our opponent, everybody would get dirt on our opponents even if it was coming from russia. i can tell you if somebody came to my chief of staff as a lowly

congressman and said, hey, somebody has dirt on an opponent from iran, you would immediately pick up the phone and call the fbi. this happened in real life in 2000, even though it didn't even involve a foreign power. tell us about it. >> well, in 2000 those of us who were involved in the george bush debate prep had very tightly-held debate books. i think there were about seven or eight of them. each was numbered, but each interestingly also had a different typo on the front page so if it was copied you could identify where it came from. somehow it ended up in al gore's debate prep team and they immediately called the fbi. they also were sent a debate prep practice, which actually i was in, i was moderating that one, which we taped a lot of these things. that particular tape probably would have been particularly helpful to them and it was probably selected for that reason by the person who sent them, and it was an example, the

person who received it was practicing to play george bush in their debate and he recused himself from the rest of their debates. it is just an example, you don't take anything that you can. that thing came from austin. it was postmarked in austin. they knew it was coming from austin, not russia, and they called the fbi. >> yeah, and, pete weiner, that's what people did in washington. i know you worked in the bush white house, you worked closely with karl rove. karl rove was a tough political operator, but neither karl rove nor anyone else i ever knew in government or anybody else i would guess you knew in government would ever take a meeting with russia or iran or somebody representing those governments, would they? have you ever known of this to ever happen before in american

politics? >> no, you're exactly right. actually, in my experience it is the people who worked on campaigns that i spoke to who were most shocked by this. there's nobody on either side, democrat or republican, david axelrod, stuart stevens, karl rove, that would ever take that meeting or take that information. they would call the fbi. just the take a step back, i think this episode is an illustration of the moral corruption of the trump people. i think for them they actually did think that everybody in politics acts this way. that's how they've acted their entire lives and they've brought that ethic or lack of ethic to american politics and brought it down. the other thing i want to say is this thing is painful for those of us who have been in politics because politics are a lot of things and it has its down sides, but politics is ultimately about justice.

it is an imperfect way to advance the common good and the moral good, and when you get a crowd like this who have no conception of what politics is and no allegiance to any higher purposes and just trash it and act like this, it is deeply proble problematic. it creates deeper cynicism in the country, and it is a difficult thing to watch for people who have a higher view of what politics can be. >> stuart, nick confessore here. >> nick confessore. >> just to expand this discussion, obviously one worry that the al gore camp had was that karl rove sent the briefing book to the campaign, it was essentially a dirty trick. they were acting both out of principle and caution in turning it over to the fbi. what does it say to you about the state of mind of the trump team at the time this happened, the trump tower meeting happened in 2016 that their antenna weren't up, that it was perhaps even some kind of a trick?

>> well, i also think that in all likelihood the fbi warned all of these campaigns about possible foreign involvement. i know that happened in 2012, just that there could be data breaches that we needed to be conscious of. so i would expect as this thing unfolds that you're going to find out someone high up in the trump campaign was warned that china or russia or some foreign agent might be trying to access their materials to use for all sorts of purposes. you know, it just -- it just don't parse that russians want to talk to us, you don't do anything. the first thing you would do is talk to the campaign lawyer, and the campaign lawyer would call the fbi. it is really -- it is not a close call, guys. i mean it is sort of like somebody comes to you and says, what do you think about -- i'm low on money, i'm thinking about knocking off a bank. i don't know, man. i don't think it is a great i

te. maybe we should have another fundraiser. it is cult and dry. >> susan page here, pete. i wonder if you think the practices and the example we saw set in 2016 is one that candidates and foreign interests might take in future campaigns. do you think it sets a different standard about what might be acceptable if you were either running a presidential campaign or if you were an outside interest that wanted to influence a potential future president? >> yeah, i think -- >> sorry, go ahead. >> i think the answer is yes on both counts. i'm certain that the foreign entities are going to learn from this and try to infect and infiltrate campaigns more and more. it is a good question about the effect on american politicians. you are seeing a lot of them to become mini trumps and run like he does and probably adopt the same lack of ethics he does. i also have a hope and hunch

that viruses create their own an anti-bodies and that the public will rise up and push back against the trumpism. we may see something happen, that the people who are patterning themselves after trump have to lose. there has to be a political cost. we've seen that the republican party can't be summoned to rise up based on moral conscience or moral courage, so it has to be self-interest in the end that drives this. >> yes. you know, stuart, speaking of mini trumps, i want to show you two ads from the state of florida, coming out of the state of florida in the governor's race. one is ron desantis, who tries very hard in a 30 second ad to be donald trump's mini me, and the other is the ad of adam putnam, a guy who served the state of florida well and

honorably for years, both in congress and on the state level and in my opinion, knowing florida politics, is so clearly more qualified to be governor of that state, but look at these ads. everyone knows my husband ron desantis is endorsed by president trump but he's also an amazing dad. ron loves playing with the kids. >> build the wall. >> he reads story. >> then mr. trump said, you're fired. i love that part. >> i support president trump's agenda. tax cuts to create jobs and cracking down on illegal immigration. but florida is not picking an apprentice. we're electing a governor. for me it has always been florida first, and i would be honored to have your vote. >> so the question is, stuart, does that resonate in a state where jeb bush was governor in 2004, handled four hurricanes and ran the state more ably than

anybody i have ever seen run any form of government? have republicans gotten to a point where they're going to continue supporting a guy because he reads bedtime stories about donald trump to his baby? because that commercial shot him ahead in the polls of adam putnam. >> well, i think that answers your question. i think the answer is in florida it will. i mean, look, you have this strange divide, and you talk about it a lot on the show correctly, that trump is very popular with the republican base. the republican base are the folks that will be voting in a republican primary in florida. i have done a lot of races down there. that's who is going to be voting. now, the question is can you run that kind of campaign in the general election and win. trump won florida, but you're going to have a different electorate here. it will be a very interesting observation to see how much trump is being talked about the

last week by republicans in that governor's race. i don't know the answer to it. i think the polling will tell us, but what it tells us will be very telling as to what they believe will work. i mean ultimately politics is the perfect marketplace. you do what you think will work, as you know. so it will be very interesting to see how that race ends. >> yeah. pete wayner, where is the republican party right now, where is the country right now? you talked about moral leadership. you talked about jimmy carter following the ugliness of watergate. where do we go next? >> well, i think the republican party is in a corrupted state right now, that donald trump has reconfigured it, has redefined it, he is its voice, its face and its conscience or lack of conscience, and that's a terrible thing for the republican party. in terms of where the country is, i don't know. my suspicion, frankly, joe, is

that there is an increasing exhaustion with trump, with his antics, with the constant dehumanization and with the intensity of his presidency. i think that the public is going to rise up and push back against him. we actually saw that in the alabama race. even trump supporters themselves according to joe trippe who ran the race for jones, said that they could detect in trump supporters this kind of exhaustion. i don't think that at the end of the day the public is going to stick with trump and with this, and i think the problem for the republican party is that they are -- just as they are digging in and becoming more trump-like, i think independents and certainly democrats are going to push back. 2018 is going to be the first act of that drama, but there will be more to follow. >> all right. pete wayner, thank you so much. stuart stevens, as you know, i

grew up as a young boy in meridian, mike penssissippi. i loved archie manning, i loved ole miss, but i'm coming down in september to show to set up the alabama/ole miss game that weekend and talk about politics in the deep south. i hope you'll show up there. and be on the show on that friday. and watch alabama beat ole miss on saturday. can you be there? >> love to. i think you'll have a bad saturday, but it will be a good show. >> sounds great. all right, thank you so much. still ahead, our next guest is exploring an idea that he says could disrupt american politics. is the u.s. poised for a quiet revolution? we'll ask a question and get the answer ahead on "morning joe." ♪i believe, i really do believe that♪ ♪something's got a hold on me, yeah♪

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and lock in hydration leaving skin so supple, it actually bounces back. the results will blow you away! hydro boost and our gentle exfoliating cleanser from neutrogena® with us now, the vice president for communications, of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the southern baptist convention, pastor dan darling, he's the author of a new book that challenges christian's view of humanity. in it, dan calls for a dignity revolution. writing, seeing people as god sees then, created in his image, means we will often have to refuse to prioritize one interest group above the other. it means we will have to stop compartmentalizing our views of human dignity. we need to start caring about dignity wherever it is

undermined and assaulted. we must resist letting our politics shape our faith instead of our faith shaping our politics. for every argument we make online or in the office of a public official, there are hundreds of interactions in our daily lives that test whether we really think every person is made in god's image. human dignity is more than a platform, it's a way of life. thank you so much for being with us, pastor. this is such a timely book. and i've got to say twitter has been so instructive because through the years, even going back to 2009, i would have people who would say the most horrific things about me, or somebody else, and then you're like, who is this person? i'm just like -- the most, i hope you die, i hope this, i hope that. then the bio, they would say, jesus is love, spending my days

loving the lord. and i just -- you sit there and you wonder how somebody separates their private faith with their public views in politics. and how there's almost a feeling that anything goes. you can leave your faith at the door so long as you're protecting your tribe and your political team. >> yes, joe, i've been troubled for a long time about the lack of civility in our public discourse. i think you're on to something. that technology, like social media, which has helped elevate many voices and is so good in so many ways, has also kind of removed a little bit of our humanity so that when we're making political arguments, when we're disagreeing with each other, sometimes we don't see the humanity of the person on the other side of twitter. we think we're arguing with principles. i'm trying to help recover this

idea of dignity. that every single person is created in the image of god. even the person we disagree with. that person on the other side of the green is not an avatar, they're not just picture, they're not the sum total of their arguments. they're a person and we should recognize their humanity. >> this especially goes to the immigration debate we're talking through right now. i have said it all along, just so people know. i'm very conservative on immigration. i think if the first thing you do in the united states is break the law, there's a problem. you should be sent back home. and then you should apply the same way people across the world apply to come into this country. that said, how do you look at children being ripped out of the arms of their mothers, being orphaned for all we know, and then go to church the next day and read the story of the good samaritan, and not understand that the two things do not line

up? >> well, i agree with you, joe. you know, immigration is a complexion issue and good people will disagree on exactly where the line should be and how many immigrants should come into this country or how to fix this problem. but i do think our immigration system has been inhumane for a long time in terms of the way we deal with people. i think regardless of your views on immigration, we should look at immigrants as people. they're not throwaway. they're not disposable. they're not a burden. they're people created in the image of god. you know, my moral imagination in large pass was formed by the pro-life movement. which says these are not fetuses, these are human beings created in the image of god. i think we should apply that moral ethic to other vulnerable immigrant groups. >> i think your idea of dignity and it seemed to me more and more our politics and our culture are built around pride. i wonder sort of how you move

from a culture of pride, a culture of dignity, the idea of taking offense, of defending yourself at all costs has really taken root. >> my views of human dignity are rooted in the christian gospel. one of the things it says is when sin entered into the world, it corrupted our humanity. so our natural default is to turn inward toward ourselves. when we turn inward toward ourselves, it naturally turns us against our brothers and sisters. turn us against other people who bear the image of god. so it's a choice to say, well, i consider the humanity of those next to me or will i prioritize my own well being. >> the book is "the dignity revolution." reclaiming god's rich vision for humanity. dan, thanks for being with us. and i hope you'll come back very soon. we'd love to talk about this more. >> thank you, i appreciate that. >> and susan page what are your final thoughts this morning? how is this week as we move into

a new week, how is this week going to shape up and what are you looking for as this news cycle churns on? >> i think things are really accelerating. we're lucky to have a verdict in the mantrial this week and mayb learn a little more about what truth is. >> all right, susan, thank you. nick, thank you. we certainly appreciate you watching the show this morning. stick around. the news coverage continues with chris jansing, see you tomorrow. >> thanks so much, joe, hello there, i am chris jansing, in for stephanie ruhle. this morning, white house confidential. president trump lashing out after a bombshell report in "the new york times" reveals white house counsel don mcgahn is cooperating with special counsel robert mueller. trump's team insisting it's all pa