day. access to documents over kavanaugh's record and in former administrations. and continuing to fight the heat-up as democrats look to stop the freight train of a nomination. >> thank you. we know what we'll be doing later on. reading ec ining axios a.m. the newsletter is at signup.axios.com. that does it for us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe," everyone, starts right now. i'm honored to hope this important summit on cyberbullying previous. >> she tweeted that again this morning, which hun morning. >> the safe and responsible use of social media. >> bruce ohr. >> but can be distractive and harmful when used incorrectly. >> he's been venting his frustration in a series of ten tweets over the last 24 hours. >> conduct themselves safely and

in positive manner in an online setting. >> one of the many tweets from the president. he must be a john dean-type "rat." >> reducing peer to peer bullying through kindness and open communication. >> a particularly sharp jab at the special counsel directly calling mueller "disgraced and discredit discredited". >> let's face it, most children are more aware of the benefits and pitfalls of social media than some adults. >> oh, my goodness. i can't figure it out. now, is she completely clueless or trolling the man that she's married to? i kind of think it's the latter. the first lady making remarks at a summit to "discourage online buggying." she did that yesterday, asked about the contradictory message, the first lady's office said in

a statement she is "aware of the criticism, but it will not deter her from doing what she feels is right." the president is proud of her commitment to children and encourages her in all that she does. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, august 21st. yeah. sort of like he encouraged don mcgahn to do all he did when he talking to robert mueller. we've got a packed show today. national affairs editor john heilemann. i have to ask, is she trolling the president there, or is she -- just completely -- separated from the realities of how her husband spends every waking moment when he has free time? >> there are many questions like that, joe, that are, what i like to call false binaries. no either/ors and that and/buts.

it's an either/or. look at melania trump the way she's handled herself in the last 18 months while her husband was in the oval office, i would say trolling the president rather than detamped from reality.kcutely aware and taken few subtle shots. this might be one of them. >> might be one of them. also with us, former aide to george w. bush from the white house department, professor of history and tulane university walter isaacson, i have to say, i'm shocked. i'll explain why in a moment. and washington anchor for bbc world news america, katy kaye and the man who just interviewed president trump on a number of topics, jeff mason. one of those topics is an interesting answer from the president on the ongoing mueller probe. we're going to get to that in a moment. first, walter isaacson, the fact that you're here at 6:00 a.m.

>> right. >> bright-eyed and bushy tailed. it's shocking me. i always tell the story that when people say when did you know "morning joe" was going to take off? it was when i read einstein while i was commuting home and i said, we've got have this guy isaacson on the show, and i told our ep then, said, he doesn't wake up early. get him on the phone. we call. you're in your bed. we can tell you're sleeping. yes, well -- i styneinstein -- p half way through. chris saying, god bless him. get him off. get him off, he's half asleep. after the first segment i said, hey, walter we're at end of the block. can you stick around another 15 minutes. >> chris was screaming in my ear. ratings came back the next day, highest half hour of our first

season and that's how i knew how special our audience was and my heart. it can't take you being up at 6:00 a.m. how hard is that for you? >> i realized my ratings are high whir i come on half asleep. i figured i'd stay in new york and get up early. >> i want to show you, walter. then we'll get everybody else to comment on this. you've seen a few polls before. a new national monmouth university poll that shows just 35% of americans say the country's on the right track. 57% say it's on the wrong track. that's a 9-point swing in the negative direction since june. we'll get to other parts of the poll in a second, but that right track/wrong track, how important is that as we go into off-year

elections? when we're picking who's going to be running the house and the senate? >> i think right track/wrong track is a very important indicator. that and there's often polling numbers of, does this guy or this person, this candidate fight for people like you? those are the type of polls i find a little more credible. astonishing to me is that it can be down at 35% when the economy on its surface and in its aggregate numbers is doing so well. i'd ask an expert like john heilemann or somebody, have you ever seen right track being 35% when unemployment is below 4%? and since i think the economic numbers won't always be as good, this could really tumble down if there's -- if there starts to be any blips in the economy.

especially from this continued china trade dispute, which could, you know, start bringing down the economy a little bit. >> so, joe, since walter invited me to comment, i will. that 35 number will be familiar to you because i've heard you mention it over the course of the last 18 months. the number, look at all polling we've -- all the polling we've looked at since donald trump has been in office, and had you to ask, what's the honest assessment what the trump core base is. you'd say, as you have many times about 35%. we're looking at right track/wrong track walter says is often useful in polling. but we've learned it often essentially tracks not the approval rating of the president but tracks where the president's base is at. no matter what else is going on, those are the people that think the country's on the right track because they're with the president. 35%, the trump base. those people. they don't care about the russia probe. they don't care about what's

going on in north korea. they don't particularly care about nato or anything that donald trump is doing or what we say in the media. they think, no matter what they're with donald trump and if donald trump is in office they're on the right track. >> the question i have, can you ever chip away at donald trump's pure base? all sorts of things have happened and that 35% is like chiselled in marble. >> you know, i don't -- a lot of times democrats don't like me to bring it up, but there was about, you know, 33%, 35%, 38% that would have said anything about george w. bush from 2001 to 2009. so i think that third, you know, maybe that 33%, that 35% is set hard and will be set hard, but elise jordan when you look at the people that are going to be getting out and voting. like i always talk about the women we had reports were standing in the rain in northern

virginia, or black voters across what's called the black belt in alabama during that special election. you look at the crosstabs there, it's probably much lower for the people who are the most likely to vote this fall. the people that are most motivated by what has happened. plo motivated in a negative sense since donald trump was elected in 2017. >> i'm fascinated. women voters across the country, was there vote a protest vote against hillary clinton or are they actually going to turn out and be motivated by donald trump and the way he's governing? as of now my bet is they aren't. we've seen that in a lot of the special elections and certainly in these suburban districts, but you look at especially what happened in alabama, too, and black women in alabama really saved the day with that election. so women across the country,

it's going to be interesting to see how they actually come out and vote. if they're motivated to do so. >> catkaty, let me get to anoth part of the poll. the president always claims he hires the best people, and that he would hire the best people if elected president, but with four ex-advisers indicted, three of those pleading guilty, his former campaign chairman on trial right now, a former aide in open revolt, monmouth posed this question in its latest survey. does donald trump hire the best people? here we actually cracked that lower third with 30% saying, yes, but a majority 58% said no. on a serious note here, katy, when we get -- let's move beyond this fall, and if donald trump decides to run for re-election,

and actually, count me as one of the few people who don't believe he will, but if donald trump does decide to run for re-election, that's when americans take a serious look at whoever is sitting in the oval office, and they ask -- does he or she have the leadership qualities that we need to run america? and part of donald trump's schtick was, i've run this big business. i've run -- you know, this, that and a the other -- that was his big schtick. i know how to run things. i hire the best people. this actually is a good peek into, let's just say, a preview of 2020 and the type of attacks that donald trump would face if he did seek re-election. >> well, look, donald trump has lost 5% of that 35% on that question of whether he hires the best people because of all the drama in the white house and comings and going in the white house, and repeatedly when you ask trump supporter over the course of the last year and a half what are the things you don't like the way the president

is handling the white house is the drama. trump himself feeds into that when he criticizes his own choices when he talks repeatedly about jeff sessions, somebody not the best person for that job. who hired him for that job? donald trump. he undermines his own message that he hires the best people, and you combine that with the fact we know that there are a raft of people who don't actually want to go into the white house, were donald trump to run for a second term or were the call to be made to them because it's too toxic and they fear for their own reputations. people thinking, not surprising, this is not the smoothest administration we've seen in the white house. >> and walter, you're heading back to louisiana, hurricane season and all pretty soon. when you head back there, when i head back to my home state of florida, i will talk to a lot of people who say, i don't like how he tweets.

i sure as hell don't like how he cozies up to vladimir putin. i don't like what he's doing with nato. makes me nervous the way he's talking about mueller. but the economy's doing better than its ever done before, my small business is doing better than its ever done before and, hey, the country's strong. they'll be able to put up with some of the president's crazy tweets. i'm still supporting him. there are people that do tune out all of donald trump's excesses and just look at their individual lives and say, hey, things are going pretty darn well for me. >> ethii think that's more true new york. people totally appalled by his character yet work on wall street and very happy the way he's treated the rich and investment class in this country. if you go, when i go back to louisiana and spending time there, there are really two or three types of people.

the business leaders in louisiana depend a lot on trade. when the amount of soybeans going through the port of new orleans is down 30% or the companies in louisiana can't import aluminum and steel to make the products they're doing, there's uncertainty among donald trump among business leaders in places like new orleans. on the other hand, in a lot of rural louisiana, there's just a deep contempt for anybody who would speak ill of donald trump and they are really still very strongly in your face that donald trump is setting this country right. >> yeah. and i've got to tell you from my read that's not 33% of americans. that's -- closer to 40% of americans who still will say, hey, things are going well, and it still is a binary choice for so many americans. so many people i talk to, say,

are you happy with donald trump? they go, well, he's better than nancy pelosi. or he's better than hillary clinton. it still is an either/or, black/white, red team -- it's -- blue team. very, very tribal. but jeff macing, there is -- again, i'm not whistling past the graveyards here. some of those very people walter talks about that are still the most offensive of donald trump, a lot of those white working-class voters are going to see their health care premiums go up. because republicans eight years after obamacare still have no substitute for obamacare. you've got tax cuts for the rich, and that's how they view it. republicans can't even run on their tax cuts, because it's seen at tax cuts for the rich. whether they believe that's the case or not. and this billionaire populist has turned out actually to be

best friend of fellow billionaires. so at some point, does that sink in with working-class voters who support donald trump, or are they with him to the bitter end? >> well, he was a billionaire populist in 2016, and it was something that actually really resonated with that base. certainly much more so than hillary clinton who had more of a background from the working class. at least in terms of her own family. so, know, i think it comes down to what we've been talking about so far which is, doesn't he want in that base to do the things that haven't gone well and end up resonating with them? so far the polls show, and the enthusiasm that we see out on the trail shows that is not happening. >> elise, you see it in mississippi with your friends and family in mississippi. i see it in florida there are still people that are with donald trump, even if it's not in their best financial

interest to be with donald trump. and i'm talking about health care. some of the people who are actually the most vulnerable when it comes to health care. who are -- the people that receive the least benefit from tax cuts that donald trump bragged to his billionaire friends at mar-a-lago the day he signed the bill. hey, i just made you guys a lot more rich. some of the people that are most vulturable are also the most hard-core members of that trump tribe. >> i've seen the most concern among female trump supporters about the president and particularly his child separation policy. you saw some movement there, deep concern among women who were were upset by the images, the horrifying recordings we heard of these children on the border. so that's something that i feel would be a more effecti iive message for democrats to focus on the cruelty and incompetency

of the trump administration executing policies with a president tweeting erratically about, you know, be it national security, be it security clearances to omarosa and calling her disparaging names. so the level of incompetency, the perception of incompetence and immaturity on behalf of the trump administration, particularly starting absolutely at the top with donald trump is something i do think has a potential to persuade women not all that enthusiastic about donald trump to begin with. >> and we have evidence of that actually from the past, and i've told the story before and we've got somebody from mississippi and louisiana here who will understand exactly what i'm talking about. after katrina, george w. bush's administration's response, the federal government's response, was so slow that people from the community, people from our churches, we organized care ava

taking bake water, diapers, sun screen to the gulf coast of mississippi and parts of louisiana, and everybody driving over there were bush supporters. i will tell you it was especially women who were working there that were asking the questions, where -- where's the government? where's the administration? and i saw more than one or two bush bumper stickers being torn off the back of minivans that were driving water over there day in and day out. i think the border separation policy is going to have the same impact, just like you said, elyse, on a lot of women voters who are republicans, who are conservatives, who support the donald trump, who may not go out and vote for somebody that would want nancy pelosi to be speaker of the house, but they may just stay home this fall.

we'll see. still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to hear more from jeff mason on the heels of his wide-ranging interview with the president including the president saying he has the power to run bob mueller's investigation. plus, new reporting says you can add another name to the list of people from whom president trump is considered revoking their security clearance. and that person is president obama. we'll tell you, who will reportedly get president trump to back away from that really wise move. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. looks like it will be rough tomorrow in the northeast? >> thunderstorms rolling through, joe, today and tomorrow depending where you're located. also hurricane that could possibly have a direct impact in hawaii. more on that in a second. first things first, stop that causes all the problems is right in the middle of ohio valley sending heavy rain and bands of thunderstorms into the great lakes. spotty showers in northern virginia. this is the area of concern

later today. roughly 16 million people at risk of severe storms today. wind damage and isolated flash flooding of greatest concern. notice d.c. is not in the yellow. in the green for a margin's risk. storms may not be as concentrated for washington, d.c., richmond and norfolk. wou watch out pittsburgh, cleveland, erie. and friends in hawaii, looking like a serious threat. hurricane up to 150 mile-per-hour winds of lane. the forecast track overnight shifted closer to the hawaiian islands and now we're looking at eve be the cone of uncertainty including the big island of hawaii and including oahu and honolulu. weaker by the time it got there possibly a category 3 or 2 near in about 48 to 72 hours near the western half of the big island of hawaii. again, nice weather out there today. good weather in the northeast. also hot in texas, but beautiful oklahoma city into areas of the central plains. of course, more updates on hurricane lane as we get closer

later in the week to see if hawaii's actually going to take a big hit. close calls the last couple years and missed. this one, though is looking very, very iffy. new york city one of the spots that dodges showers and thunderstorms late tonight. more the overnight hours and early tomorrow morning avoiding any severe weather. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. oh, milk. another breakfast, another dilemma. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you'll make my morning,

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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. now to that reuters interview in which the president said that he could personally take over the probe into russian interference in the 2016 election. an investigation in which several of his own former aides have been charged. the president said the administration was "a smooth running machine except in that world and i've decided to stay out. now, i don't have to stay out. i can go in and i could do whatever. i could run it, if i want, but i

decided to stay out" the president said. i'm totally allowed to be involved in i wanted to be. so far i haven't chosen to be involved. i'll stay out. the president also expressed doubt about the findings of u.s. intelligence saying the probably "played right into the russians. if it was russia, they played right into russians' hands." jeff, you interviewed the president. what was your takeaway? >> well, that was certainly one of the more interesting parts of the interview. we covered a lot of ground but in that particular piece, the fact that he portrayed it as a choice whether or not to be involved in mueller probe and could run it was really interesting and the fact that just in that -- you showed the clip right there on the screen -- kind of in the clause of the sentence talking about russia, inserted a little bit of doubt whether or not they were responsible for meddling of the election in 2016 shows it is

still an issue he is not convinced about. >> despite every single entell chief that he hired and he hires only the best people, every one of them said it was russia. >> amazing how months after the helsinki summit and all of the fuss and criticism the president got after that having to row back his own comments publicly, which he hated doing about whether he thought it was russia or not and then here he is again in this reuters interview saying, perhaps it wasn't russia after all. he just doesn't seem able to bring himself conclusively to say, it was russia, end of story, given this opportunity he rose back on it again. you know, i was surprised also to hear him say that he might take the opportunity to revoke mum

mueller's security clearance. hadn't thought about it but didn't rule out that possibility. >> and a question for you, walter. >> yes. i've been reading this story that will be released this morning from microsoft in which brad smith, general counsel there and others releasing a report saying microsoft discovered all sorts of russian fake accounts, fake sites that are there right now to hack the mid-terms. if the president of the united states keeps sort of half defending russia and saying, well, we're not even they're they did it, is the government doing things that will try to protect us against russia hacking the midterms? or will we have to just rely on private corporations like microsoft? >> good question. comes down between his advisers, what they say and what the president himself says. his advisers came out into the

white house briefing room several weeks sayiago saying ru remained a threat and remained a threat in 2018 and started detailing all of the things the trump administration is doing to detect these undermining. the president continues to make comments like the one he did to us in our interview yesterday are damaging. >> jeff heilemann. we saw yesterday an extraordinary outburst. he's had twitter tirades in the past. about 14 tweets let go after the mcgahn testimony came out. how did he seem? he seemed in social media, even if you're just a completely neutral observer, he seems a little unhinged. does he seem unhinged in the room? >> that's a good question, too. he didn't seem unhinged in the room, no, but he did start out the interview seeming in less of

an ebullient mood than in some interviews i've done with leagues in the past. the interview yesterday with was -- was with my colleagues. he'll offer drinks, make a big show pushing the button on his desk to bring somebody in to offer a diet coke and he didn't yesterday nap was noticeable to the three of us at the beginning but ended up, we were only supposed to have 15 minutes with him and it ended up being more than 30. he warmed up and we ended up having a really good conversation. >> again, i ask you, you know, you've been up close with the president when he was a candidate and now as president of the united states more than most other humans on planet earth. so you read him pretty well. you've seen him sometimes dissemble directly to your face i know from some of your past interactions. so when he says something to you like, hey, i've never really

thought about the mueller security clearance question. did that read to you as credible or did it read to you as maybe one of these instances in which the president was not totally being forthcoming? >> i will tell you he actually yesterday seemed more disciplined in some of his answers than in some of our previous interviews. he did say to that question which i asked him that he hadn't thought about it, but later we followed up again and he said, i'm not going to comment on that. and he said i'm not going to comment to a couple of the things we asked yesterday. that is a little unusual for him. >> unusual. >> yes. i thought he actually showed a little more discipline than he sometimes does in q&as with reporters. >> what are other things that he steered away from, to follow-up, what struck you as an unusually disciplined way? >> talked to him about trade and china and talks coming up this week between the chinese and u.s. officialofficials, about t. i asked if i poiphones and

electronics might be another way of tariffs? he wouldn't comment on that, although he mentioned he had, and we know this, dinner recently with tim cook of apple. that was a hint that's an issue he has discussed with executives, but something he was very careful about not saying, and you know, that, again, shows discipline, because if he had made comments about that, that could be a market-moving comment. >> sure. >> i want to press you a little more how president trump discussed china. did he have a sense of confidence that he is winning the trade war? >> you know what? he had confidence that he's going to wait it out. because we asked if he had any kind of a deadline in mind for stopping this dispute over tariffs. he said no. i've got a long-term horizon for this. he says, we asked him. he -- we said you're supposed to meet with president xi later

this year? would you like things wrapped up by then? that's not the answer he gave us. he did again praise president xi and said he has a strong relationship with him. comfortable with a dichotomy of attacking china, trade practices and also praising a leader with whom he thinks he has a strong relationship. >> reuters jeff mason, thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being with us. >> my pleasure. >> walter, i find it really interesting always saying that the president of the united states, donald trump, is a day trader. we've seen lihim be a day trade on north korea. seen him be a day trader in a lot of other areas as well. he'll change his positions by the day, by the hour. it's interesting that the one thing that donald trump has been consistent absence the 1980s, which is, protectionism and trade wars and being tougher against people that he feels are

taking -- are taking advantage of the united states, and stupid political leaders. it's interesting that donald trump does seem to have a long game on trade. you can actually see what he's doing here. you can see china reacting in the short term. donald trump letting him in, then pushing him back again. he certainly -- he may get a lot of negative pushback from businesses and from a lot of other people on other issues, but as far as china cheating on whether it's currency or taking advantage of us on trade he gets reinforcement day in and day out, that the chinese really haven't been playing fair with us for a long time and i find it fascinating this one area that donald trump actually has had set beliefs on for a very long time. one of the few areas. it does look like he has a long

game. >> yes. both on trade and in some ways immigration and sort of the nativism who have been part of trump's blood for a very long time. when it comes to trade if you read "the art of the deal" his book, you're reminded he is not a businessman. he's a dealmaker. he's somebody who loves making deals and seeing if he can, not sort of a win-win for him. it's, he can beat people at making deals. if you're a businessman, you're deeply worried about the united states not being part of a world trade system, and you see all of the down sides. but if you're looking at this as a guy who just believes in the art or craft of the deal, he's playing a long game with china, and we're going to see. it's hurting the chinese economy. what i think you'll begin to see is when things are bad for the chinese economy, it doesn't mean

it's good for the u.s. economy. that hurts the whole world economy, including the u.s. and these trade sanctions against china are really going to start hurting not only farmers but manufacturers in the u.s. >> and we'll see when working-class americans, middle-class americans start to see consumer goods, the price of those consumer goods go up, and it really will end up probably being a game of chicken, but this is, again, in the 1980s, donald trump was taking, talking about the japanese taking advantage of "stupid american leaders" and trade deals that were rip-offs and that's continued again over the past 30, 35 years. anyway, still ahead, president trump says another former intelligence official could possibly lose his security clearance, and he got the idea after watching john hannity. we'll explain when "morning joe" returns.

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president trump floated another person to strip their security clearance based off a clip he saw on fox news last night. sean hannity played an exchange on cnn from last week of phil

mudd. former cia counterterrorism official and head of the fbi's national security branch debating clearances with pro-trump commentator paris denard. >> when i am requested to sit on an advisory board, let me ask you one question. how much do you think i'm paid to do that at the request of the u.s. government? give me one answer and you got ten seconds. how much? >> i'll ask you a question. how much are you paid for your -- >> answer the question. >> contracting gigs for being -- >> no contracts with the u.s. government that pay money. zero. >> when you have a security clearance and you keep it -- >> zero relationships with the private sector that involve my security clearance. zero. i get zero dollars from consulting companies that deal with the u.s. government. are we clear? >> i will be clear and say that everybody in washington, d.c. knows if you don't want to be honest about it that's on you, but if you have a security clearance and you keep it, you get more money to have it. >> we're done. get out! >> it's not your show so i'm

staying right here. >> and [ bleep ] -- >> about this. >> get out. >> okay. so -- after 10:00 p.m. last night trump tweeted just watched former intelligence official philip mudd become totally unglued and weird. now, this is sort of the pot calling the kettle black. calling philip mudd weird. while debating wonderful paris denard over brennan's security clearance. denard destroyed him, says donald trump, but mudd, who donald trump says is weird, is in no mental condition to have such a clearance. should be revoked? tagging on sean hannity's twitter handle. elyse jordan, i don't really know where to begin. donald trump passing -- passing judgment on somebody else's mental well-being, and them acting erratic on television, but i guess you step back and ask the question, wait a second.

now donald trump is going to start an enemies list and revoke the clearance of anybody that debates against him, if they raise their voice? >> this is all about power. this is donald trump reveling in executive power that he didn't necessarily realize he had. this is clearly -- it's something that as a whole, congress should have clamped down on perhaps a bit more so that the executive didn't have such unrivaled abilities to self-police this and to doll out clearances based on their own whims. at the beginning of the show we talked about melania trump and debating whether she's trolling her husband with her, "be best" initiative. i'm decide these trolling her husband when she announces a decreased television time initiative for the people of this nation, because her husband is the first person who could be used -- he needs less time in front of the television all day and all night.

>> way too much tv time. bring in right now reporter for the "washington post." eugene scott. it's not just angry former cia employees. the "new yorker" reveals new details surrounding john brennan's increasing criticism of donald trump and included in the piece, this nugget. president trump considered taking away former prd obama's ability to see classified information. the peace reads -- piece reads - some of the president's advisors thaw he should have obama's access to intelligence briefings. in the end trump decided not to exclude obama at the urging of

h.r. mcmaster now gone. so that's very interesting. but eugene, i do get a sense that this is a bit like what elyse just said. donald trump is frustrated by not getting things through congress. donald trump is frustrated when he meets democratic elected leaders in nato. donald trump figured out this is something i can do and focused on president obama. >> absolutely. indeed seems donald trump is frustrated than being president works very differently than he thought when he ran for president. the reality he could consider removing president obama's security clearance shows how political his motivations may in fact be. initially he said he wanted to remove the security clearances of those who disrespected him and who were speaking against him in a very biased way, but we know that's not what president obama has been doing. to attack president obama for something that could actually

end up benefiting his government, trump's government, shows just how partisan he's handling these clearances. >>katty. >> when you lump this together for the president's orders, for his ability to pardon people when he wants to, is this just extending his presidenti presidentialabiliti presidentialabilitipresidential abili abilities? >> no conservative lawmakers are speaking out significantly, i mean conservative lawmakers who actually have to run for re-election in the future, speaking out against the problems of this and the challenges this could present to national security. he is going to perhaps keep moving forward until someone stops him or attempts to. what i believe we've seen senator warner try to do with

this amendment and john brennan with a possible lawsuit. >> you know, john heilemann, though, we're talking about executive orders and executive power. this is something republicans complained about with barack obama, that he governed through executive orders. you know, i mean, name the piece of legislation after 2010 significant piece of legislation, that barack obama passed? of course, he would blake republicans, but you could impeach bill clinton on a tuesday and he'd ask you to go golfing on wednesday because he wanted to pass legislation, and he did pass legislation. i just wonder. how much of this has to do with the system and how much does this have to do with presidents who don't have the skills that bill clinton, lbj, fdr had? >> i don't know. i just -- all i see here and i think it's, joe, i think you'll

get my kind of drift here. the great thing about trump with the twitter feed on these issues is that he sort of makes the point of his critics even as they're making the point. last week we saw -- critics say, hey, omarosa is out saying donald trump's a racist. in that moment is there an n word tape? trump calls her a dog on twit perp okay. thank you. you made the point. here you have all of these intelligence officials saying, donald trump is abusing his powercapriciously taking away people's security clearances not because they've done something illegal, but just because he doesn't like what they're saying. up last night watching tv and in a pernicious way starts threatening to take away phil mudd's security clearance. whatever you think about his performance on the show, it's an egregious example of the kind of

abuse of power that bipartisan national security and intelligence officials are concerned about, trump is engaging in the case of brennan and the case of others. he just -- the twitter feed twi almost like the moment. he wants to present the best evidence. he wants to be the best evidence against himself when it comes to what his critics are charge. yeah, i think he's frustrated with the office but not the first president to feel that way. in a sense the president is not as powerful as you thought. >> i think everybody's got that right. donald trump came in thinking that the presidency was much more powerful. it is frustrating. i could add ronald reagan's name to that list. he dealt with tip o'neill and dealt with a lot of democrats and he got a lot done over eight years, but it's a frustrating process. i remember a great story about reagan earlier on, he was trying

to get awac sold to saudi arabia. a congressman came in and knocked i had fabled jelry beans on the floor. reagan got down on his hands and knees picking up the jelly beans himself. i'm not better than you, you just relarks, all is good. i think that's something of the 18,000 people thinking about running for president in 2020, they need to understand it's a frustrating position, and it's sort of -- it's like servant leadership. you have to deal with people who are trying to take your head off politically every day. that's the game. if you're somebody like bill clinton who like i said can be impeached on tuesday and on wednesday be working to pass the next bill, then that's how you succeed. i remember bill clinton telling me one time that the best skill any governor or any president

can have is a short memory. and, you know what? he was exactly right. >> reagan won that awac vote too. >> joe, didn't kevin mccarthy pick out a specific color of m&m for donald trump. that's the example we have today with candy in the oval office. >> may have been starbursts, m m&m, taking the green m&ms out for him. eugene scott, thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. hope you'll come back. we'll read your new analysis piece that's called "melania trump implores all #to bebest but her husband nt listening." a quinnipiac poll said 91%

persons believe the political divide is of a fegting communities, families and workplaces. we'll be right back. ♪

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cbc. cbc. cbc. i.c.e. and cbc. speaks perfect english. >> he speaks perfect english. we'll get that later. i'm so glad the president of the united states is finally showing the congressional black caucus the respect that it deserves. coming up lawyers for the white house counsel don mcgahn insists he didn't incriminate the president in his extensive interviews with the special counsel. "the washington post" writer joins us. new reporting from the ap the ongoing investigation of the president's fixer could be on going. we'll discuss michael cohen's latest moves. "morning joe" is coming right back. making cars lighter, it's a good place to start,

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so you have, your headphones, chair, new laptop, 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes. start them off right, with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. like these for only $2 or less at office depot officemax. welcome back to "morning joe". it is tuesday, august 21st, 2018. still with us, we have national affairs analyst for nbc news, while while. got former aide to the george h. w. bush white house and state department, elise jordan. still awake history prove at tulane university walter isaacson. also washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay. let's bring into the conversation editor-at-large of

the weekly standard, bill krystol and jeremy peters. while whil whi >> i wouldn't call it challenging. i'm familiar over the course of our decade long relationship, i'm familiar with most of our theories. rare when i here you post a theory i'm not familiar with. this morning in the 6:00 hour you floated a theory that i never heard you propound previously and i know we both shared aversion to speculate but i invite to you speculate to explain your theory. your theory trump will not run for re-election in 2020. please explain. >> well as far as speculation goes, first of all, you know, john, i'm so averse to speculation that the motto of this show is not all the news fit to print it's all the speculation you can fit in three hours. this speculation comes from

speaking close to donald trump, people that worked with him on the last campaign, people that worked with him in the administration who say that the very essence of donald trump is being the strong guy. and if things continue to go bad, and let's say -- let's say that mark cuban decide to run against him in the republican primary and out trump trump, and you have avanatti, people who will beat trump up day in and day out. this is a guy who is not having a great time inside the white house. people close to donald trump told me months ago they wouldn't be surprised if he takes his one term and then goes back doing what he's all about, which is he's about making money. and he can say he was the 45th president of the united states. you know, the question is, does

donald trump want to enjoy being an ex-president and trying to make as much money off of that as he can when he's 75 years old, or when he's closer to 80? i just don't think for a man who is driven mainly by money, i don't think that he's going to want to sit around and get beaten up for eight years. >> i thought this theory would do something with the mueller investigation and trump deciding not run because it would be some way to avoid being impeached or indicted or something like that. my challenge to you is this. it seems to me that the theory that i've been going with for a while, trump would have to run for re-election assuming he's not impaved or driven from office from something else because the most that means to him is his victory in 2016. he wants to do it again. my own speculation, if he ran and won again in 2020 he would

quit in january of 2021 because he has not in of being president for a second term but he really wants to win twice just to show all of us we're wrong. >> he's got 40% approval rating. he lost by almost 3 million votes in 2016. he knows, and he knew at the time that hillary clinton was going to be the weakest general election candidate he could face. let me just ask you, i keep talking about bill clinton this morning. how many percentage points do you think bill clinton would have beaten donald trump by if you had bill clinton in peak form in 1992 form against donald trump in 2016? i'll even say george h. w. bush. george h. w. bush would have cut donald trump up into a thousand pieces on the debate stage ten seconds in. barack obama that would have been an ugly election as well. you could look -- everybody is

acting like donald trump is this unicorn and he's this remarkable political figure who is just going to win presidential elections. he's not. he lost by 3 million votes. he lost to, again, i will say one of the least effective politicians on the national stage in recent memory. and there is -- there is no 2020 re-election. there's just not. and that may be why donald trump is playing for his hard core third because he knows he's not going to face re-election. i'm the only person in the world speculating this right now other than people that are close to donald trump and just don't think he's going to put up with the possibility of getting walloped in 2020? but, you know, i could be totally wrong. but, again, it is just complete speculation. >> barack obama, george h. w.

bush, bill clinton all in peak form against donald trump in 2016 looks a lot to me like reagan-mondale, a vast wipe out. even those environments at 55% in the popular vote in a national election any of those three gentlemen who have been north of 55 against trump. >> without a doubt. mookie betts beating against a single-a ball player. bill krystol has this cutter. a very awkward wind up that throws every batter off. but krystol just follows harvard baseball. he doesn't follow -- >> i like the red sox, actually. i'm glad i showed up here. >> want to start off in a jovial way. >> on joe's theory i don't think it's ridiculous he might not

run. it's a century since -- coolidge is the last president who knows not to run for re-election in 1928. two others since then didn't, truman and johnson who could have. they were eligible for another term. they didn't because they had primary challenges. i do think this new hampshire poll that shows half of republicans and more independents are open to an alternative to trump is interesting. someone will run against trump. maybe a spoiler candidate. a more serious candidate. mccarthy looked like a spoiler in 1966 but it turned out he did a lot of damage to lbj. that's an important -- there needs a primary challenge. he can look at that and decide gees i'll go through a bunch of primaries, i'll probably win then be wounded and than general election. >> because you know your party pretty well, given you said

there might be a spoiler candidate, given trump's popularity within the republican party which is historic, is there a plausible republican that could give him a run? >> sure. if you look at these focus groups a lot of people say they approve of trump. half of those are core supporters. yeah i approve some things. i doppler like the judges. i like the tax cuts. when they are pushed, they are off trump, trump supporters. they don't like the attacks on trump. but when ask after this election, after november 6th you're in with an additional four years of trump. a lot of people said well, i don't know. he's done pretty well. he's disrupted. it's unfair. another four years that's risky. maybe it's time for someone else.

he's done a good job. i do think -- joe says he could declare victory having disrupted things, had some trade negotiations that worked out okay. no great foreign policy disasters. gets his conservative judges appointed. not crazy at that point. all i'm saying is i think there are more voters open to an alternative to trump in 2020 than you think if you look at the current numbers of approval. >> republicans? >> the poll shows republicans overwhelmingly 78% in new hampshire approving of trump. 47% say that they shouldn't challenge him in 2020. you could say, i approve of trump so far but i'm not so sure i approve for an additional four years. >> joe, i picked up on your comment earlier. i was hoping to have a trump free holiday. that's impossible. everybody is still asking about him the whole time. of course the thing they are asking is what happens in 2020?

now the counter to your theory is you raised bill clinton, george bush, barack obama all potentially good campaigners. the democrats don't have that yet on their side. done trump look at the democratic field, think this is a weak field still, and i just can't accept the idea of not running and winning. that desire in him -- you spoke about it earlier, he's not a businessman, he's a dale maker. he likes the win. he likes crushing his opponents. if he looks at the democratic field and the democratic field looks as weak as it does today wouldn't that temptation be too strong for him? >> at this point in 2000 it would have been 2010 or i'm sorry 2006. nobody believed barack obama was going to win the democratic nomination from hillary clinton. but barack obama did. also donald trump is more afraid

of losing than he is desirous of winning. and going out a loser at 75, 76 years of age, is not what donald trump wants to do. and it also -- you got to go back to the fact that nobody was more surprised that donald trump won than donald trump. he did not think he was going to win on election night. he thought that he was going to, you know, turn this campaign into -- in fact, i don't think he ever really thought he would get out of the republican nomination fight. he thought jeb bush was going to win and maybe run an independent spoiler for his old friend hillary clinton who was his old friend. who went to his wedding. this guy was a lifetime democrat. again he could have used that independent maverick position to start up his own news network,

which of course, we thought he would be starting breitbart tv or trump tv after he lost in 2016. >> if you're right about this, joe, every nato ally country's main newspaper will be running it as their headline news because this is music to ears of america's allies. >> it's all wild speculation, but walter isaacson people close to barack obama in 2010 the job was miserable. it was nothing he expected. nothing michele expected. if they could, without, you know, without historical consequences left town after republicans took control of congress in 2010, 2011, he would have done it but for the sense of responsibility that he felt to himself to history. the presidency has become such a

brutal job, even if you win re-election, even if your bill clinton or george w. bush or barack obama, those are eight miserable, eight tough miserable years. yes we reward him in many ways. but with the 24/7 news culture, three hour tv shows like this talking about politics all the time, twitter 24 hours a day. facebook 24 hours a day, if you're donald trump and you can walk away to your first love which is making money, why not do it? >> you've become somewhat convincing on this subject, joe. i'll say that i don't think -- not that i have inside information -- i don't think it crossed president obama's mind that strongly maybe i shouldn't run again. because he had a deep feeling and conviction for what he was doing for the country, for history and what he believed in. i'm not sure there's a deep belief in many things that trump

wants to accomplish in his second four years in office. so, there's something convincing about that. i don't believe he would be scared out of a race by a tough opponent. that would, i think, get his competitive juices flowing. but if he can say i've done what i can do in four years and not have to spend up to being almost 80 years old in that office, that makes some sense to me. >> yeah. again, wild speculation, but fun wild speculation. go ahead. >> can i be a quick contrarian voice her. i disagree with you that donald trump loves making money above all else. i think he loves himself above all else so giving up being the focus of the 24/7 news cycle and have everybody fawning over his tweets, i think it's difficult the drug of all that attention

for donald trump to ever walk away from voluntarily. >> and there is the pin in the balloon. forget everything we just said. and listen to what elise said. so we talked about this report that white house counsel don mcgahn gave the special counsel valuable insights to president tru trump's comments and the actions that he did that could have fed to obstruction of justice charges but nbc news is reporting that mcgahn's legal team told trump's lawyers the high ranking advice orwould have resigned if he thought he witnessed a crime. yet a source familiar with the matter adds there's no way of knowing exactly how mcgahn's testimony may fit with other evidence that robert mueller has. meanwhile "the washington post" is reporting that mcgahn's lawyer reassured the president about his comments to investigators in his three lengthy interviews since last november. quote, he did not incriminate

him, mcgahn's attorney wrote in one e-mail to trump's lawyers which was described by multiple people. but mcgahn and burke declined to comment. let's grinning in investigative reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor. what can you tell us about the reports? >> reporter: a lot of hub bub have these cooperating witnesses had to say to robert mueller starting when they were interviewed in the late summer and late fall of last year and continuing this spring. and don mcgahn, as you all know, is a fairly important character because he's inside the meetings. he's in the room where it happens. and so there's been some concern over the weekend about what did he exactly say to mueller, and over the weekend his lawyer, don mcgahn's lawyer assured the president's team, my guy did not

incriminate the president, stop worrying, there's no there there. >> i'm curious, the timing of this story seems, i don't want to say fishy but seems it's the kind of thing that has the fingerprints of a leak all over it. first mcgahn story comes out, "new york times" over the weekend and the president is upset about it and they are trying to contain the potential fallout from that story and say actually it's all fine, none of this is out of our control, it went according to plan, good idea to let mcgahn talk to mueller. doesn't this feel orchestrated to you, not necessarily untrue but kind of a purposeful covered response to a sense of things spiraling out of control over the course of the weekend? >> so, yes and no. i think the subtext here is there's a battle going on between two sides that didn't agree with each other about the

cooperation early on. that trump's early lawyers agreed to which is give mueller everything he wants, give him all the records, sends him all our staffers. there's great disagreement, don mcgahn did not like that idea when it was begun. however, the stories over the weekend don't really tell us anything new. so it's hard to know what the hul hullaboo is about. we know in november of 2017 don mcgahn of sitting down for all day interviews, two back-to-back in november and december and we knew he was sitting down to talk about the key moments he knew the most about. how did trump react about firing fbi director james comey? what was he saying before he did it? what was he saying to don mcgahn in private about his interest in firing robert mueller? his interest in getting jeff

sessions the attorney general to retain supervision of the russia probe. you remember how angry the president was when sessions recused himself. so that's really not new. and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. >> all right. so bill krystol, let me ask you, how do you think robert mueller is doing right now? you've got a manafort case that's stumbling along. i still can't figure out what the judge has been doing in that case, continually mocking the prosecution and not sequestering the jury. that aside where is the mueller investigation? papadopoulos may be backing out of his plea deal. manafort may have a hung jury. i mean we obviously have found out that the russians tried to hack our elections and did some very bad things and they've been indicted. how does this go back to the president? what has mueller shown us? >> we don't know.

what we do know -- i disagree with carol a little bit. he spent 30 hours with mcgahn, 20 hours with priebus, 20 hours with bannon. he knows what happened in the white house, whether there's enough to either indict, i guess mueller probably believes you shouldn't indict a sitting president. that's coming from the trump team. we don't know what mueller's legal team's judgment. it would be in the report that goes to congress. we just don't know. i think mueller knows what he's doing. i very much dislike this attempt to second guess stuff when it's a black box for us. there's public support which i am concerned because trump has done a pretty good job from his point of view in muddying the waters and getting people impatient about the mueller investigation and doubtful about it. i say there's enough support. people want it to end. the polling shows this. they don't want trump to fire mueller and they want him to finish the investigation which

he'll do. how much we'll know in the next two weeks with cohen possibly flipping, manafort verdict kwoeb in a different place two weeks from now than we are today and i just keep coming back -- i have no inside knowledge. people think they are doing important work. these are not people who are incredibly close and disciplined about not saying anything. they don't look like people trujing through something they signed on to do and checking the box here for the last few months that they have to do it. i think they are doing important work for this country and that they are, that doesn't mean they necessarily will find stuff that incriminates the president. i have high regard for mueller. >> carol, speak being of 24/7 operation, this is a 24/7 operation. mueller's team is a 24/7 operation. and you look at the 30 hours he spoke with mcgahn and he spoke

with reince priebus and again so many people. i heard one person after another who went in and questioned by mueller's team coming out and telling them around him mueller knew more what was going on in the trump white house than he did. that he's pieced absolutely everything together. i guess the remaining questions are whether there are indictable offenses in there. >> absolutely. that's the key question. i don't think bill and i actually disagree that much about this issue. i see mueller as head down black box, i agree there. however, what's really interesting about what you just said, actually, joe, is mueller knew better than the witnesses what had happened. he has their contnotes, he has memo steve miller before he fired comey and the memos that

various people wrote after they fired comey, explaining what trump was saying. there are differences between them. it seems to me the issue about indictable offenses has already been resolved. mueller is not going to and has told the president's lawyers in a couple of different ways that he does not plan to charge the president with a crime. but in his report to rod rosenstein, it seems like he wouldn't spend this many hours with people if he weren't going say what behavior you found that was troubling. it may be that this troubling behavior, potential of obstruction of justice is criminal, it rises 0 that level and he'll lay out the evidence for rod rosenstein to decide should you refer this to congress. that's the remedy in our constitution. is it serious enough that you have to let congress resolve this? >> right. okay. all right.

that, at the end of the day, carol, i guess, that's the reporting that he's not thinking about indicting the president of the united states just getting the information to congress. thank you for your reporting, carol. and bill krystol, thank you as well for being with us and i didn't know you were a red sox fan. >> it's not harvard baseball, joe, but still boston. it's nearby. you can still walk over to fenway park so it's good. >> do you care to curse certain republicans chances moving forward by saying who you would like to run against donald trump in 2020 in the primary? >> one or more. trump has set a low bar of what i will accept. in the old days i had these

preferences. a sane republican would be good. >> a sane republican. we'll write that down. >> you sort of expanding it. narrowing your opportunity. thank you, bill for being with us. still ahead on "morning joe" president trump says he would most likely meet again with north korean leader kim jong-un and eyeing a second summit with vladimir putin. we'll bring in a member of the foreign relation committee next on "morning joe". and we promise to get jeremy peters here as well. he's got a great new piece reporting on what today's politics is doing to families and communities. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back.

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this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. with us now from the capital we got a member of the foreign relations committee, democratic

senator jeff merkley of oregon. thank you for being with us. you said something that caught my attention about donald trump and his selection for the supreme court. you believe that the president of the united states shouldn't even be able to nominate a justice at the supreme court at this point because he's under investigation. explain that. >> well right now there's this enormous conflict of interest in which the president is under investigation yet he's nominating an individual who will essentially play a significant role in questions like can the president pardon himself or can the president fire the special prosecutor. it isn't so much that he can't nominate but i don't think it's appropriate for the senate to proceed with these hearings until this investigation is cleared up. >> senator, this is walter isaacson. you've been talking about a resolution dealing with putin,

the russian investigation. what do you think the senate should be doing now when it comes to the president's meetings with putin, when it comes to this russia investigation? >> yes. i really believe that it is not a good moment for the president to be meeting alone with putin after his performance overseas. we have a lot of concern about transparency in u.s. foreign policy and this again ties into fact that the president is under investigation for potentially coordinating, collaborating with russia. >> senator merkley, elise jordan here, you have been at the forefront of pushing the trump administration to do something to resolve their income period ten and inhumane child separation policy. what is happening now that the trump administration has missed the court ordered deadline by i believe about three weeks and are you having any luck pushing your reunite act? >> well, we're in the situation now where more than 500 children

have not been united with their parents and this does go directly to the callous incompetence of the administration in failing to track the connection between the parents and the children. now the administration had a strategy, it was using periodically of saying to individuals we'll deport you, your children will have the choice of staying here to have an asylum hearing and putting the family in an impossible situation. the court has now blocked that, which is a step towards families being kept together but we still don't have a resolve for all these children who have been separated. even more troubling, at this very moment there are more than 30 republicans who have signed on to a bill to establish internment camps in the united states of america and that's just absolutely unacceptable. i will fight that in every possible way i can. >> senator merkley, after you came back from the border, you told me many of your republican

colleagues said to you that they really didn't like this policy of separation, but that they western prepared to speak up against it. have you noticed any kind of shift over the last few weeks, particularly perhaps as they go home, they look at the polls, they hear how unhappy even republican supporters are with this policy of family separation. your hoping that maybe some of your republican colleagues now might join you on this? >> i'm continuing to hope, but my colleagues continue to say we just can't really speak out publicly in a way that confronts trump. trump is too popular with our base back home. and to be unable to speak out on something such as inflicting trauma on children really is disturbing. it shows extraordinary strange period of american politics we're in that adult men and women serving in the senate are afraid to speak out on such a horrific policy. >> all right senator jeff

merkley, thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it. and now as promised we go jeremy peters. his recent reporting for the "new york times" look at how the state's of today's politics are impacting americans every day lives. you write in part this. high tension, raw emotion and occasional violence have always been a feature of american democracy. but politics is changing how americans think and by the way heavy in new and unsettling ways. the volume and sheer ubiquity of information about politics combined with americans' ability to instantaneously render public judgment on one another's views has made the political conversation much noisier. for the first time the country is led by someone who inflames that conversation on a nearly daily basis. i think, jeremy, so many of us have actually experienced this in our personal lives.

i've heard a lot of people talk to me how their families just don't talk about politics any more. tell us what you found out there. >> i was in a focus group with frank luntz that he was conducting back in april. it was really one of the most telling moments i've had in kind of observing voters this year. he asked a question how many of you have stopped speaking to a family member or friend as a result of politics in this last presidential election? close to half the hands in the room went up. and i thought that was extraordinary. i never seen anything like that. and it kind of underscores the extent to which donald trump is not just somebody who divides us politically, he divides us emotionally, socially, culturally, and when i start to dig a little bit deep near to the research that's been done on this subject of political division, which by the way is this cottage industry of polling

and political research now because political scientists said it's never been this bad. what you start to see is research pointing towards the fact that people no longer look at politics as politics. they look at it as a reflection of someone's values. so if i disagree with you, joe, on your politic, you're not just somebody who sees things differently than me. you're somebody whose values are abhorrent to me. who i reject. somebody i see as almost less of a human being. so when we went around and talked to families and solicited from our website stories about people who ended relationships because of politics, or people who had disruption in their work productivity, or relationships with neighbors in their communities that had frayed because of fighting over donald trump. you know, what we saw is that this is incredibly common and it's only getting worse.

>> so, elise, let me talk to you for a couple of reasons. first you worked for george w. bush. if you had any friends, it could be interesting at thanksgiving like it was during the gulf war and certainly after the recount and the supreme court decision. things were intense then. but they have changed. i know for you and for me we grew up in the deep south, i grew up in georgia, alabama, mississippi, northwest florida, and you know most of the people in my quote tribe, are trump supporters. i'm wondering what you -- when you go home -- i know when i go home, i say hey we can talk baseball let's talk about kids, let's talk about grandkids, i don't want to talk about politics. so i'll just sit and i know it's hard to believe and listen.

what about you? are you finding dinner with friend in mississippi a little tougher? >> well, specifically with my family, i just heard from so many of them. they are sick of talking about donald trump period just because he's sucked up so much of the oxygen justin national conversation. while george w. bush was president he might not have been universally popular but it wasn't the singular obsession of the country to dissect george w. bush every second and it wasn't with barack obama either except maybe over at fox news. jeremy's report is very important because he's identifying something that i've seen over the course of the last two years, doing focus groups with lord ashcroft polls and that's just the rupture that this election has had on friendships, on family, how people feel very silenced about their political views especially if they are a trump supporter that they can't necessarily share those views because of the

judgment that they will receive and the negative judgment that they will receive. so at this point it really seems so much more cultural than anything about politic, and so that's my question for jeremy, do you think that this is even, that the trump presidency has become more of a cultural moment than a political one? >> oh, absolutely. i mean, i think it's really both. it's been so disruptive and divisive on both front. i mean you have really what is a culture war going on, on one side, and a political realignment on the other where the republican party is becoming something completely different than what we've come to know it as over the last generation. i think one of the other interesting aspects of my reporting here, i was doing research and talking to the scientists who studied this phenomenon and i can underscore how new this is for these political scientists because really they have just never seen this level of divide at such a

high level. it's this idea that gender -- i'm sorry, that partisan identification trumps characteristics like gender, race, so you're more likely to be divided from someone based on how you identify, whether republican or democrat whether you're a man or a woman or ema s christian or a jew. politics have seeped into our identity because people do see their opponent's political beliefs, friend's political believes as a reflection of their personal character. >> john heilemann, i hear this at dinner tables. i support donald trump, i don't want to talk about this. it just exhausts me. which feeds into what bill krystol was saying, some republicans may support donald

trump right now out of loyalty and tribalism, but just like democrats are tribal, but they don't know if they want to put up with it for another four years because it is exhausting. >> yeah. i think, you know, there's no doubt this is an exhausting time in our politics. you have people talking about civility in politics being important and they would like have more rational discourse but still spend a lot of time yelling at their opponents. there's contradictions built into this. one thing that jeremy is talking about, writing about here is this notion that it helps explain, this notion that trump is as much of a cultural phenomenon as he is as a political phenomenon helps explain one of the great mysteries of this era. what happened to your republican party? how can it be that donald trump is so popular in a party where he stands for nothing, almost nothing of the ideas, the

ideology, the policies that the party has historically stood for? it's because the notion of ideas and ideology and policies have now become divorced from partisan politics and much more about emotion and grievance and values and about a sense of cultural opposition rather than sort of we believe in free trade, we believe in anti-communism, we believe in tax cuts. it's a tribal and cultural thing more than it is a thing about, again, about ideals and policies and politics in some ways. >> well you can talk about my party. you can also talk about my church. evangelicals, my god what they were criticizing with bill clinton 20 years ago and said disqualified bill clinton from even being a local dog catcher now certainly is just fine with them. but this is an interesting time we're marching through, but we'll get through it together.

jeremy peters, thank you so much. still ahead, michael cohen is reportedly being investigated for bank and tax fraud. does the president's former fixer have a $20 million reason to flip? i think he does. we'll talk about that ahead on "morning joe". ♪ a hotel can make or break a trip. and at expedia, we don't think you should be rushed into booking one. that's why we created expedia's add-on advantage. now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. ♪ add-on advantage. discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. only when you book with expedia.

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so president trump tweeted michael cohen the former fixer of trump denied a story in omarosa's new book. a reunion on the horizon. our next guest says not so fast. we have emily jane fox. we also have john heilemann. >> there's a lot of speculation in the news of late like cohen, maybe cohen has been cooperating for a while p.m. seems he's gone quiet in the last, i mean more quieter than usual. the stories emanating from cohen world, have slowed. i sense something is going on. >> it's interesting. there was that tweet about omarosa's book. there was chatter in that world that has reaction to that book,

him talking to 0 ma roso, tweeting, denying the story in the book. last week he was with his children, sort of business as usual. all this speculation that cohen has been cooperating with investigators for weeks that to me from my reporting is untrue. but there is a quiet that has set in in the last couple of days, and i think that is worth noting. >> and, again, we've been doing a lot of speculating on the air this morning. i will ask you, just because your speculation on cohen world as as important as anyone's speculation. if that's right, if a quiet has settled, a hush has settled over michael cohen and the people around michael cohen, what does it suggest to? >> look, we know from reporting that investigators are starting to decide whether or not this is someone who is going to cooperate, if they're going to offer him an agreement, or if they're going to indict him. so there is a quiet because they're figuring out which of those two roads michael cohen is going to be able to go down, and i don't think there's a sense in

the people who are closest to him, most familiar with his thinking they want to jeopardize anything. so they're being very careful deliberately not to jeopardize an ability to avoid a very public arrest or to be able to cooperate if that's what he decides to do, if that's what the government decides to offer him. >> sometimes we're reduced to reading the tweet leaves so to speak. i notice that trump retweeted something that cohen -- what did you make of that? >> it is interesting. the president and his attorneys had spent weeks assassinating cohen's character, calling him the most uncredible man in the world, calling him pathological. but when it serves president trump, of course, michael cohen denying the story in omarosa's book is credible, worth retweeting. it is a valuable and viable character witness. what we saw was the president using people the way it serves him. that's the way he always operates with people in his world. >> all right. emily, thanks so much. stay with us if you can. we're going to be talking more

about this ahead with the former federal prosecutor from the manhattan office who is investigating cohen. also, the latest developments in the paul manafort trial and the george papadopolous plea deal. plus, more from the president's wide-ranging interview with reuters, including his belief he can take over mueller's investigation if he wants to. good luck with that. "morning joe" coming right back. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's

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so we have a packed show ahead, a really busy 8:00 hour. we're going to be talking about donald trump's claims that he hires the best people. we're going to show you some polls that suggest america disagrees, including some in his most hard-core base. plus, the economy is doing very well. it has been for some time. but a solid majority still thinks the united states is on the wrong track. we're going to show you the new polls that suggest that, and we're going to break down those numbers and what it means for

republicans and democrats going into the fall. plus, it is day four. i can't believe we've gotten to day four, but it is day four of jury deliberations in the trial of paul manafort. is that a reason for prosecutors to be worried? "morning joe" coming back in just a couple of minutes to talk about all of that and much more in a packed hour straight ahead.

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important summit on cyber bullying prevention. >> he tweeted that again this morning, which -- >> the safe and responsible use of social media. >> who else the president has tweeted about this weekend? six times, a guy named bruce ohr. >> but also be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly. >> he has been venting his frustration in a series of ten tweets over the last 24 hours. >> conduct themselves safely in a positive manner in an online setting. >> one of the many tweets from the president, he must be a john dean-type, quote, rat. >> to reduce peer-to-peer bullying through kindness and open communication. >> a particular lay sharp jab at the special counsel directly calling mueller, quote, disgraced and discredited. >> let's face it. most children are more aware of the benefits and pitfalls of social media than some adults.

>> oh, my goodness. see, i can't figure it out. now, is she -- is she completely clueless or is she trolling the man that she is married to? i think it is the latter. that was the first lady making remarks at a summit to, quote, discourage online bullying. she did that yesterday. asked about the contradictory message, the first lady's office said in a statement that she is, quote, aware of the criticism but it will not deter her from doing what she feels is right. the president is proud of her commitment to children and encourages her in all that she does. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, august 21st. yeah, sort of like he encouraged don mcgahn to do all he did when he was talking to robert mueller. we've got a packed show today. we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, john

heilman. i just have to ask you, is she trolling the president there or is she just completely separated from the realities of how her husband spends every waking moment when he has free time? >> there are many questions like that, joe, that are what i like to call false binaries. they're not either/ors but an and/buts. if you look at history and the way melania trump and the way she has handled herself while the husband has been in the oval office, i would say she is trolling her husband. she has been known to take a few subtle shots at him. seems as this if might be one of them. >> we have former aide to george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. we have professor of history at

tulane university, walter iefson. and white house correspondent for reuters, the man who just interviewed president trump on a number of topics, jeff mason. one much those okayintopics is interesting answer from the president on the ongoing mueller probe. we will get to that in a moment. i want to show you, walter, and we will get everybody else to comment on this because you have seen a few polls before. there's a new national monmouth university poll that shows just 35% of americans say the country is on the right track. 57% say it is on the wrong track. that's a nine-point swing in the negative direction since june. we'll get to other parts of the poll in a second. but that right track/wrong track, how important is that as we go into off-year elections, when we're picking who will be running the house and the senate? >> i think right track/wrong

track is a very important indicator. that, and there's often polling numbers of does this guy or this person, this candidate fight for people like you, those are the type of polls that i find are a little bit more credible. what is astonishing to me is that it can be down at 35% when the economy on its surface and in its aggregate numbers is doing so well. i would ask an expert like john heilman or something, have you ever seen right track being 35% when unemployment is below 4%? and since i think the economic numbers won't always be as good, this could really tumble down if there starts to be any blips in the economy, especially from this continued china trade dispute which could, you know, start bringing down the economy a little bit. >> so, joe, since walter invited me to comment, i will.

that 35 number will be familiar to you because i've heard you mention it on some occasions over the last 18 months. it is the number, if you look at all of the polling that we -- all of the polling we have looked at since donald trump has been in office and you had to ask, what's the honest assessment of what trump core base is, you would say, as you have many times, it is about 35%. so we're looking at right track/wrong track as walter says is often a useful thing in polling. but what we have learned is it essentially tracks not the approval rating of the president but where the base is at. no matter what else is going on, those are the people who think the country is on the right track because they're just with the president. 35%, that's the trump base right there. you are looking at it. those people don't care about the russia probe, they don't care about what's going on in north korea. they don't particular care about nato. they don't care about anything donald trump is doing or what we say in the media. those are the people who think no matter what they're with donald trump, and if donald

trump is in office the country is on the right track. >> but the question i have is can you ever chip away at donald trump's pure base? i mean all sorts of things have happened and that 35%, it is like chiselled in marble. >> well, you know, i don't -- a lot of times democrats don't like me to bring it up, but there was about, you know, 33%, 35%, 38% that would have said anything about george w. bush from 2001 to 2009. so i think that third, you know, maybe that 33%, that 35% is set hard and will be set hard, but, elise jordan, when you look at the people that are going to be getting out and voting, like i always talk about the women that we had reports were standing in the rain in northern virginia or black voters across what's called the black belt in alabama during that special election, you look at the cross tabs

there, it is probably much lower for the people who are the most likely to vote this fall, the people that are most motivated by what has happened. motivated in a negative sense by what has happened since donald trump became president on january 20th, 2017. >> well, no, i'm most fascinated by watching college-educated voters and women voters across the country, and are they going to be -- was their vote a protest vote against hillary clinton or are they actually going to turn out and be motivated by donald trump and the way he is governing? as of now, my bet is that they aren't and we've seen that in a lot of the special elections, and certainly in the suburban districts. but you look at, especially what happened in alabama, too, and black women in alabama really saved the day with that election. so women across the country, it is going to be interesting to see how they actually come out and vote, if they're motivated to do so. >> let me get to another part of the poll.

the president, of course, as we all know always repeatedly claims, and claimed on the campaign trail, that he hires the best people and that he would hire the best people if elected president. but with four ex-advisers indicted, three of those pleading guilty, his former campaign chairman on trial right now, a former aide in open revolt, monmouth posed this question in its latest survey. does donald trump hire the best people? here we actually cracked that, a lower third, with 30% said yes but a majority, 58%, said no. on a serious note here, catie when we get -- let's move beyond this fall and if donald trump decides to run for reelection, and actually count me as one of the fee people who don-- few pee who don't believe he will. but if donald trump decides to run for reelection, that's when

americans take a serious look at whoever is sitting in the oval office and they ask, does he or she have the leadership qualities that we need to run america? part of donald trump's schtick was, i've run this big business, you know, this, that and the other. that was his big schtick, i know how to run things, i hire the best people. this actually is a good peek into, let's just say, a preview of 2020 and the type of attacks that donald trump would face if he did seek reelection. >> well, look, donald trump has lost 5% of that 35% on that question of whether he hires the best people because of all of the drama in the white house and the comings and goings in the white house, and repeatedly when you ask trump supporters over the course of the last year and a half, what are the things you don't like about the way the president is handling the office, it is the drama. it is all of the white house chaos. trump himself feeds into that when he criticizes his own choices, when he talks repeatedly about jeff sessions

as somebody who is not the best person for that job. well, who hired jeff sessions for that job? that was donald trump who hired him for that job. so he undermines his own message that he hires the best people, and you combine that with the fact that we know that there are a raft of people who don't actually want to go into the white house were donald trump to run for the second term or were the call to be made to them because it is too toxic and they fear for their own reputations. it is not surprising people are starting to think, yeah, this is perhaps not the best, the smoothest management operation we have ever seen in the history of the white house. >> yeah, and yet, walter isaacson, you are heading back to louisiana, hurricane season and all pretty soon. when you head back there, when i head back to my home state of florida, i will talk to a lot of people who say, i don't like how he tweets, i sure don't like how he cozies up to vladimir putin, i don't like what he's doing with nato, makes me nervous the way he is talking about mueller,

but the economy is doing better than it has ever done before, my small business is doing better than it has ever done before and, hey, the country is strong. they will be able to put up with some of the president's crazy tweets, i'm still supporting him, there are people who tune out all of donald trump's excesses and just look at their individual lives and say, hey, things are going pretty darn well for me. >> i think that's actually more true here in new york. you have people who are totally appalled by his character and yet they work on wall street or whatever and they're very happy about the way he's treated the rich and the investment class in this country. if you go back to -- when i go back to louisiana and spending time there, there are really two or three types of people. the business leaders in louisiana depend a lot on trade. when the amount of soybeans going through the port of new orleans is down 30% or the companies in louisiana can't

import aluminum and steel to make the products they're doing, there is an uncertainty now about donald trump among business leaders in places like new orleans. on the other hand, in a lot of rural louisiana there's just a deep contempt for anybody who would speak ill of donald trump, and they are really still very strongly in your face that donald trump is setting this country right. >> still ahead on "morning joe", president trump is certain he could take over the mueller investigation, and not so certain that russia hacked the presidential election in 2016. those two takeaways are from his reuters' interview yesterday, and we will break it down next on "morning joe." first here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill. >> joe, a couple of things. we are watching severe weather threading in through areas of the east and we have a growing threat of a hurricane hitting

hawaii. let's talk about the severe weather threat because this is imminent because it is occurring now and later this afternoon. showers and thunderstorms rolling through the great lakes. cleveland, it is about to pour on your morning commute. also we had showers to the west of d.c. in northern virginia. so later today after we get a little more heating out there during the day, we will have about 16 million people at risk of severe storms today from cleveland to buffalo to erie, pittsburgh, even areas of virginia. notice i-95 from norfolk to richmond to d.c., you are in the marginal risk. i think you will get storms between 5:00 and 8:00 p.m., but they will be hit and miss. not everyone will be named. let's talk about the hurricane heading possibly for hawaii. it is about 500 miles away from the big island, about 700 miles from honolulu, and it has shifted a little closer to the big island. all of the island chain is in the forecast uncertainty, the cone we call it. this is the time. we have thursday into friday it is a category four now. it will be about a category two or three when it is closest to the big island. still a possibility of a big impact or a glancing blow.

we will figure out in the next 24 hours. new york, 75 degrees and sunny today. really a nice little early taste of fall in the air after a very wet and humid august. we'll take it. you are watching "morning joe." we will be right back. ♪ so you have, your headphones, chair, new laptop, 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes. start them off right, with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. like these for only $2 or less

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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. now to that reuters' interview in which the president said that he could personally take over the probe into russian interference in the 2016 election. an investigation in which several of his own former aides have been charged. the president said the administration was, quote, a smooth-running machine, except in that world. and i've decided to stay out. now, i don't have to stay out. i can go in and i could do whatever. i could run it if i want, but i decided to stay out, the president said. i'm totally allowed to be involved if i wanted to be. so far, i haven't chosen to be

involved. i'll stay out. the president also expressed doubt about the findings of u.s. intelligence, saying, the probe, quote, played right into the russians', if it was russia, they played right into russian's hands. jeff, you interviewed the president. what was your takeaway? >> well, that was certainly one of the more interesting parts of the interview. we covered a lot of ground, but in that particular piece, the fact he portrayed it as a choice whether or not to be involved in the mueller probe and whether he could run it was really interesting, and the fact that just in that -- and you showed the clip right there on the screen, and just kind of in the clause of a sentence as he was talking about russia that he inserted a little bit of doubt as to whether or not they were responsible for election meddling in 2016. it goes to show that that is still an issue that he is not convinced about. >> it is still an issue, catie, despite the fact that every single intel chief that he himself hired -- and he hires

only the best people, every one of them said it was russia. >> yeah, i mean it is amazing how months after the helsinki summit and all of the fuss and criticism the president got after that, having to robaw bac his own comments publicly, which he hated doing about whether he thought it was russia, and here he is in this reuters' interview saying perhaps it wasn't russia. he doesn't seem to be able to bring himself conclusively to say it was russia, end of story. given this opportunity, he rose back on it again. you know, i was surprised also to hear him say that he might take the opportunity to revoke mueller's security clearance. he hadn't really thought about it but wasn't ruling that out as a possibility. >> yeah, no doubt about it. walter isaacson has a question for you. walter. >> yes. i've been reading this story that will be released this

morning from microsoft in which brad smith, the general counsel there and others, are releasing a report saying that microsoft has discovered all sorts of russian fake accounts, fake sites, that are there right now to hack the midterms. if the president of the united states keeps sort of half defending russia and saying, women, we're not even sure they did it, is the government doing things that will try to protect us against russia hacking the mid terms or are we just going to have to rely on private corporations like microsoft? >> that's a good question and it comes down to kind of that divide between his advisers and what they say and what the president himself says. now, his advisers came out into the white house briefing room just several weeks ago and said that russia remained a threat and remained a threat in 2018. they started detailing all of the things that the trump administration is doing to go against, sort of protect the

u.s. election from this kind of meddling. but it gets undermined and their confidence in what they are saying is undermined by the fact that the president continues to make comments like the one he did to us in our interview yesterday. >> jeff, heilman here. we saw this extraordinary outburst on the president's part. he had twitter tirades in the past, this one was extended. there were 14 tweets he let go after the mcgahn news came out. i'm mostly curious beyond the news and your excellent interview with him, is how did he seem? he seemed in social media, i think even if you are a completely neutral observer, he seems a little unhinged. does he seem unhinged in the room? >> that's a good question, too. he didn't seem unhinged in the room, no, but he did start out the interview seeming in less of an ebulient mood than he has in some of the interviews i have done with some of my colleagues in the past. the interview yesterday was with my kol lead jim holland.

this is the third time i have been in an interview with the president. he will offer us drinks, make a big show to push a button on the desk to bring in somebody to offer a diet coke and he didn't yesterday. it was noticeable to the three of us at the beginning. but it ended up, we were only supposed to have 15 minute with him and it end ed up more than 30. he sort of warmed up and we ended up having a really good conversation coming up on "morning joe", is george papadopolous poised to back away with his deal with bob mueller? why a cryptic tweet is fuelling speculation about his role in the russia probe. that's ahead on "morning joe." hey allergy muddlers.

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pg&e wants you to plan ahead by mapping out escape routes and preparing a go kit, in case you need to get out quickly. for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. former trump campaign advisor george papadopoulos is fuelling speculation over what his next steps may be in his plea deal with bob mueller's team. yesterday afternoon, papadopolous sent out this cryptic tweet, writing, been a hell of a year. decisions. the tweet came after his wife suggested that papadopolous is strongly considering backing out of the plea deal that he struck with mueller's team and that her husband would make a final decision about it today.

mueller's team is recommending that george papadopolous, who is scheduled to be sentenced in september, be given up to six months in prison for lying to the fbi. with us now we have former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquaid, former federal and state prosecutor ellie honegig and senior reporter at "vanity fair" and nbc and msnbc contributor emily jane fox. ellie, let me begin with you. it looks like george papadopolous is considering flipping, flip-flopping. we don't know what is going on here. i guess the first question is, why would mueller come out tough with a possible six-month prison sentence for somebody who was cooperating with the team? >> yes. so, joe, he would come out tough because clearly papadopolous was a failed cooperator, a badly-compromised cooperator. he lied something like a dozen times in his first proffer with

mueller's team. papadopolous is lucky he's getting any benefit. a lot of times prosecutors lied to that many times would rip up the agreement and say, you're done. it is kind of funny to hear george papadopolous talk about, decision, decisions. you know, two things about trying to withdraw a guilty plea. one, it is exceptionally difficult to do as a matter of law. he would essentially have to show the judge he was duped, he didn't understand what he was doing when he pled guilty. the whole point of a guilty plea, the judge will say over and over, do you understand what you're doing. even if he succeeds in withdrawing his plea, it is a suicide mission. he has nowhere to go. he is going to trial and all indications are he would just get destroyed at trial. i don't think mueller is sweating this one. >> yeah. so, barbara, what is he exposed to for lying to the fbi? if he doesn't like the six-month deal, let's say he decides to go in and fight it out on this legal suicide mission, what's he looking at in terms of prison? >> yeah, i don't know that he's going to do much better than six

months frankly. he could face potentially up to five years in prison, and i think if the deal is ripped up he could revert to the original charges that were out there against him in the complaint, which included obstruction of justice, which has a 15-year cap. so i think his exposure would actually be higher. i think the tick-okay could mean something else. i think it could mean, look out, trump people, i have more to give, i want a better deal than the six months. but i think i agree in light of what he's done so far, the repeated lying to the fbi and to mueller's team, that they're just not interested in doing business. if you look at the plea agreement he signed versus the one that was signed by richard gates and michael flynn, it lacks a paragraph in there about cooperation, that we agree that you're going to continue to cooperate, we might call you to testify, and in exchange we are going to file a motion with the judge under section 5k of the sentencing guidelines to ask for a reduction in your sentence. that paragraph is not included in george papadopolous's plea agreement, and i think that's

because he is a failed cooperator. they went down that road and they thought, you are just a liar who is never going to tell us what is what. maybe he has changed his mind, but i think for mueller's people it is too late. once they filed that sentencing memo they said, we've made our final decision. >> let's go from the man who donald trump said was one of his top advisers through the man that ran his campaign through the rnc and donald trump said he needed to get him over the top. that, of course, is paul manafort. barbara, you have been following that trial closely. i know that it is always dangerous to try to figure out exactly what a jury is doing, to figure out exactly what is happening inside the courtroom based on media reports, but this one really has been curious to see a judge attacking the prosecution as much as this judge has been doing, not sequestering the jury, and then the jury is still out on a case that seemed even by the

documents presented to the jury an open-and-shut case. can you provide us some insight? >> yeah, i watched the trial and i think it is a very strong case. i do still think that the jury is likely to convict ultimately. i think any reasonable jury would convict, although you never know the makeup of any particular jury. i think the fact they've been at it for three days is not yet cause for concern by the government. i think one thing about this judge, you know, he was very difficult on the prosecution. he had some extraneous statements. i'm told he is always that way, this is sort of how he rolls. but one of the things that he did during the trial i think maybe contributing to the lengthy deliberations, and that is in an effort to speed along the trial when the prosecution would ask to publish exhibits for the jury, that is display them in open court as they were coming in and as they were being discussed, the judge would often say, we don't have time for that, let's move along, they can see those exhibits during deliberations, we don't need to look at them now. it is a complicated case with financial transactions and

documents. i think that the time they saved in the trial they may be giving back in the deliberations as the jury now needs to go and pull out all of those documents and look at them and see how they match up. one of the questions they have asked is whether they could have some sort of key or chart showing them which exhibits match up with which counts or which witnesses and the judge said no. so they're doing that work themselves, and i think in a case with more than 400 exhibits it could take them some time. so i wouldn't be worried yet that it is taking too long. i think that they are meticulously doing their job. >> just to go to this question at a really basic level, we all, you know, are into tea leaf reading and all we non-lawyers sit and try to glean information from lawyers, but you look at the situation. you're waiting, what is going on and the jury occasionally asks a question. yesterday the jury didn't ask any questions. should we read anything from the duration, the questions they're asking, or should we all just basically chill out and wait for the jury to render its verdict?

>> so, john, and barbara knows, waiting for a verdict as a prosecutor is agonizing. >> right. >> we are seeing the whole american public go through it now. you're sitting there going, what is going on, why are they silent, when are they coming back, are they coming back at noon. it is so hard to read anything into silence or to the notes. when we used to get a note, we would scrutinize the handwriting, is it -- does it look like they're bothered or not. so, look, i've -- i had a jury out in a one-count, one defendant extortion case for a full week. we're not -- you know, this is 50 times more complicated than that and we're at day three or four here. so, you know, these things take time. i think barbara is exactly right. the one thing i think we can glean is this jury is meticulous. you could see that from their first set of questions. they have 18 counts. i believe they're going count i, every element. count two, every element. that's going to take a while. >> emily, so michael cohen up here in new york state is facing problems of his own, and the 20

million in bank fraud, that story came out on friday. how much pressure is he under right now to cooperate? >> i think if my sense from my reporting is that it wouldn't be pressure for him to cooperate, that there are two roads that could happen. we're kind of at a fork in the road where he could either be offered the ability to cooperate or he could be indicted and arrested. i think the first road is preferable to him right now. he sent so many signals he is ready to cooperate, that his loyalty is no longer to president trump but to his family, and, as he has said, to his country. so i think the pressure is not whether or not he can cooperate. the pressure is if he's going to be arrested or not. that is the thing, the looming threat that is weighing on him most right now. >> and is he cooperating, do you know? any suggestion that he's already cooperating? >> it is not my reporting that at this moment he has been offered the ability to

cooperate. i think talks have only just begun, and i don't think that they have been very specific. so i think things are very much up in the air right now. >> all right. barbara mcquaid, ellie honig and emily jane fox, as also, thank you so much for being with us. we really appreciate it. coming up next, our interview with one of the kings of comedy, d.l. hugely about his "new york times" best seller. there's a humorous title, but an important message. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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with us now, we've got actor and comedian d.l. hugely, the author of the new book "how not to get shot and other advice from white people," proving once again "morning joe" tries to help the selling of books and moving of books, which i think we do pretty darn well. we have assembled the whitest

cast possible for d.l. >> i was going to say. >> john meache meachem actually down on wasps. anyway -- >> i feel like a plaintiff. >> so d.l. -- >> this is really -- >> "how not to get shot." >> absolutely. >> now, tell me, has a white person ever given you this advice? >> well, yes, meghan kellie. meghan kelly, who actually is the whitest woman i have ever met. i was on her show to talk about the boat. philando castile had just gotten shot and we were going to morph the conversation into community and policing and she had mark furman who, who is the poster boy -- mark furman talking about police is like bill cosby going to a rape crisis center. i was fired from the lapd for being a liar and brutal. he got o.j. off. it was a whole -- >> right. >> we got into this heated

argument, you should pay attention, if fill an dphilando had paid ahenttention to the la and i was so angry i decided to write a book. >> what's some other brilliant advice white people have given you. >> rudy guilliani, you need to teach your children to respect the police. geraldo rivera, if you dress like a thug, you will be treated like a thug. joe ar ppaio, just don't break e law. i figure white people been giving black people advice for a few hundreds year. maybe we should listen. >> no. >> it was tongue in cheek. >> so obviously what you are telling us it is tongue in cheek, but we have talked a good bit. gene robinson, eddie mcleod and a lot of us talked onset about one of the most depressing things as an american and a guy who loves my country, believes

in my country, believes, as john says, that the arc of civilization is ever moving upward. what is so depressing in 2018, a black father, if i were a black father first thing i would have to do is sit down with my three boys and say, listen, here is the deal, the rules aren't the same. when the police pulls you over, put your hands-on the steering wheel and freeze. >> even that doesn't -- >> by the way, we have seen that doesn't -- >> that doesn't even work. >> as a black dad you spend your life scared to death when you send your kids out. >> i think that is also one of the reasons -- like this is the third book i have written, but it is the one that's the most impactful to me and the one i'm most proud of because it comes as a desire to, a, obviously entertain people, but i think we have to be humanized to some degree. we have been -- when you look at the situations that we find ourselves in, there have been race riots in america primarily because someone of color got killed and no one was brought to account for it.

no matter what we call it, whether we call it black-on-black crime and they should do this or that, people shouldn't die, an unarmed person. when they go, you shouldn't rush to judgment, when you shoot an unarmed dude you just don't want me to rush to judgment on your rush to judgment. it came out of a sense of frustration. >> joe, it has been a constant in american life for years and years and years. all of this talk about, you know, we ought to have a real discussion about race, i mean -- >> right. >> you heard that ad nauseam, we've never going to have a real discussion about race. >> right. >> because, listen, we are three cool, woke white guys here. >> did he say woke! i'm giving him my b-e-t award. >> you and i, we go into a -- >> meachem thinks, by the way, woke must be some sort of port that he drinks. >> are we talking about herman work. >> you and i go into a department store or something like that, you're going to get

followed town the aisle, not me. a lot of white people never get that. >> not only to they not get it, but they don't believe it. i honest li believe people have opinions because it is based on their experiences. but if you look at, you know, just the dynamic of things that happen, the same police officers that police your neighborhood are not the same ones in tiner city. you will find people have different -- they have a different mission statement. when you are policing wealthier neighborhoods you are more like the army corps of engineers, in neighborhoods of color you are the marine corps. >> but i got to tell you what you just pointed out, i mean the policemen who patrol various areas are more likely to live in my neighborhood rather than in your neighborhood. >> sure, sure. but i still think that there needs -- in 2008 or 2007, the fbi came over to report, they said police departments in america had been compromised basically. there were white supreme tises, nazis. rather than having a conversation about a better

screening mechanism, we talk about what communities of color can do to improve their relations. if you have a person that's biased anyway, naturally it is going to work its way into how he polices people. we can't -- in pittsburgh, there was a cop, january, he was fired for being brutal and a liar. he got fired from that police department, got hired again in pittsburgh. 90 minutes after he was sworn in, he shot a kid in the back. not only did he shoot the kid, he said, i'm comfortable with what i did and i'm not going to be judged by anybody except god and the judge. if you don't like it, you know what you can do. if you have to take somebody's life, to be that callous tells me about you. >> let's go to john meachem, the whitest -- i don't know. his new book is called "the soul of america," the history of marvin g marvin gay in the making. >> i got access to the papers. it was very important. >> indeed. >> i never thought we would see

as radical a shift in the presidency as the temperatureal change ben george w. bush to barack obama until we went from barack obama to donald trump. is there anything in the idea that trump has played this so hyperbolically, so badly there's a positive backlash to this as we move forward? >> i think the positive backlash is only if people start understanding how far we have come. he looks bad to everybody. liej like i watched -- we watched and a porn star was accusing him. if you ain't worried about gonorrhea, how are you going to help us with north korea? i don't understand that. >> by the way, again, boroed -- borrowed that from kevin. >> no, it was gibbon. >> i hate to be one of those guys, because i can't -- like one guy, they think all black people, we all have the same,

because one guy can't encapsulate people, we got kanye west and barack obama. i think there seems to be an emboldening of people who are racist or misogynist. they team to have found their voice and i think they can do a lot of things that are hurtful. just like jackie robinson, people didn't start to change the way he felt until they saw what he was going through. you know what? it is not a reflection of who we are. >> what is your take when you see a video where a guy, a black guy is being led into a jail cell, doing absolutely nothing, and suddenly all of these white cops stood around while a black cop came up and beat the ever-living stuff out of him. i sit there going, wait, does that black cop think that he needs to do that to fit into the force? like what is going on there? because there's -- sometimes we will see hispanic cops shoot

black guys, black cops. what are your thoughts and what do you take out of that every time you see it? >> i think you have get the idea that they -- the uniform is their color. i had a brother-in-law. he was a -- he became a sheriff and he was the biggest ass. i was, like, what is wrong with you? i think there are people of all different kinds of stripes. there are some people who put on that uniform and it becomes -- they morph into something else. that is irrespective of whether you're black or white. i saw the same video. when you look at the experience, like i saw a video of a 10-year-old boy in chicago get handcuffed, pee edpeed on himse because he was so frightened. he wasn't the right guy so they let him go. when i was 8 years old in los angeles, i got pulled over by the police. 8 years old. i was a kid. the police pulled us over.

and said, put your hands on the car and asked me who a guy was in my neighborhood. i'm 8 years old. i don't know. i said, this car is hot. he pulled his gun and said listen, "n" word if you take your hands off this car, i'm going to blow your head off. 8 years old. i'm 54 years old. we make the monsters we sometimes then became afraid of. i can tell you this, i don't care who you are, from tim, scott, who was a senator, one black man or one black woman who hasn't had a negative experience with the police. >> so let me ask you, i know you're a comedian. i know you're not trying to save the world. trying to get a message across by making people laugh. >> right. >> but you have been a live for 54 years. how do we break that cycle? because i'm a big believer, you know, support law enforcement. >> sure. >> do what you can. you look at new york city. >> it is a wonder that we can

walk around in new york city for the most part safe, safer than any time since the 1950s. at the same time, how does this stop? the things that happen to you when you were 8 years old? the thing that happened in chicago to the 10-year-old boy? how does that stop? >> accountability. it's a simple word. used all the tile. if you're a police officer, you should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. oftentime, like, if there's a -- have you ever in theed when there's a suspect, they'll say, we see everything we need on the video? but if a police officer does something, we don't know what happened before that. we don't know what frame of mind he was in. you give them a presumption of innocence that no one else gets. that is a tough job to do. you have to be accountable. if you take somebody's life and they're running away, you should lose your life and your freedom like i would. what we're calling out for -- i have a son would is the most beautiful human being i know. but he is also -- he has

asberger syndrome. he's a physically fit kid. people who are emotionally incapacitated are more likely to get shot by police. the most dangerous place for black people to live is in a lot of white people's imagination. like why is it -- you can imagine a guy gets a gun, he gets shot. you see a guy gunned down. all these people in texas and florida. and he goes to jail. so the fear you have of us is not based on your interaction, it's based and what you think you know. it's movies. it's books. it's videos. you get to shoot a kid running a way and everybody finds a way to justify that. even if we look at the things we've done to make things better. if there's a video, they give cops these video cams. why do we all see them at the same time? take them for a month, then decide not for your home use, they're to instill trust. all the things we need, society, the public in general gives them

such power, that they won't do anything that governs it. if you lie on a police report, and you -- we prove -- you should lose your job like i would. if you take somebody's life, you should lose your livelihood and your freedom like i would. you should be held -- listen, it takes six months to be a police officer. it takes 12 months to be a cosmetology -- i guess cutting somebody's hair is easier than shooting them. the same thing they tell our black children to be accountable. do that for the people in charge of policing them. when you really look at what's happening, policing for black people hasn't changed. only in our neighborhoods to keep us where we belong. stay in your neighborhood. stay out of here. every time you see somebody calling the police on somebody, it's because somebody thinks they don't belong where they are. they don't belong at barbecue. we can't be that exotic of creatures you feel like you're afraid of us. when i say the most dangerous

place for us is in white people's imagination, it's really true. >> we'd love to keep talking about it. unfortunately, john -- >> got to get back to marvin gaye. >> marvin gaye, exactly. >> all right, thank you so much. what a pleasure. as always, we greatly appreciate it. the book is "how not to get shot and other advice from white people." we'll be right back with more "morning joe." your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown

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the coverage in just a minute. we want to leave you with one more look at "morning joe's" take on yesterday's white house event. and, yes, spelling counts. >> letters are for losers. >> it's my great honor to join you here today as we pay tribute to immigrations and customs enforcement and customs and border protection. i.c.e. and cbp. >> cbp. >> i.c.e. and cbb. >> cbp. >> cbp. >> here today to salute the incredibly brave patriots who keep america safe. the heroes of i.c.e. and cbc. i.c.e. and cbc. cbc. cbc. cbc. cbc. i.c.e. and cbc.

speaks perfect english. >> good morning, i'm chris jansing in for stephanie ruhle. this morning, executive power. the president asserts he is, quote, totally out to be involved in the mueller investigation. even saying he could run it if he wanted to. but despite months of claims that he'd sit down with the special counsel, he's now worried it could be a perjure trap. >> they simply don't have any evidence of collusion and they have no evidence of obstruction other than their version of the truth. >> going fishing. microsoft seizes control of websites created by russian hackers intended to look like conservative think tanks and the u.s. senate with the intent of stealing passwords and yet deny chuls of users. and courting support, documents on the supreme court nominee are released as judge kavanaugh heads to