17? >> 16 people. >> 16 people certified. 16 people certified versus in the thousands, you can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. 16 people versus thousands of people. everybody around this table and everybody watching can really be very proud of what's taken place in puerto rico. >> it's important to remember it was obviously a world tragedy for the families of the 16 or 17 people who died. so -- it's a strange thing for the president to do, but according to the president, a death toll in the thousands would be shameful, he said. well, we now know that 2,975 people died on that american island following hurricane maria. we're going to get a live report from puerto rico in just a few minutes, talk about that. plus, the president was once again up after midnight tweeting.

and he was tweeting about the fbi. once again that official president statement was apparently based on something that he had just seen on fox news, and bob mueller, well, he wouldn't be the special counsel if president trump had not fired jim comey. so what's the consolation prize to sacking attorney general jeff sessions? as the president has been discussing. i don't know that the president wants to know that. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe" on this wednesday, august 29th. with us we have two slightly nervous red sox fans. for good reason. for good reason. msnbc contributor mike barnicle and politics editor for the "daily beast" sam stein. also former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments elise jordan, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc steve kornacki, a lot to talk to him about. he's got a forthcoming book "the red and the blue: the 1990s and

the birth of political tribalism" coming out october 2nd. also in washington, former chairman of the republican national committee, msnbc political analyst michael steele, and nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla. mika will be back tomorrow, and willie returning on friday, and you know, mike, by the time willie returns on friday, of course, the yankees will only be 3 1/2 games behind. >> no, no, no. no, no, no. joe -- you know better than most, it's 162-game season. they play the game every single day. there are ups and downs. there are, you know, dark moments. light moments for the read sd s spectacular all year. won yesterday, late, but they won. the important thing. the yankees are still -- >> what a win that was! >> joe -- joe -- >> sam stein, as you -- >> as you know, joe, it's all

going to fall apart. we're going to be in a pud many of tear -- puddle of tears when the yankees overcome us and probably lose the wild card game. >> so, sam, sam -- >> children, go to your room. go to your room. >> let's just acknowledge what's happening here, mike. we're falling apart. >> pump the brakes. things are going to be fine. >> all right. >> oh, my -- okay. i -- geez. i mean, sam you said -- >> yes? >> -- i know we're going to blow it. >> yeah. >> by the end of the year. we're going to blow it by september 5th! >> no. it's going to be crueller. it will be crueller than that. >> we may not even get in the wild card, the way this team is playing right now. >> lose that game 1-0 on a beautiful chris sale start we we give up a home run in the eighth or something like that. >> chris sale is on the disabled

list until 2034. >> you guys will be doing "morning joe" and i'll be at the playoffs. >> all right. fine. >> well, let me tell you. if we're doing "morning joe," we're doing it from the playoffs. >> yeah. >> if they make it. i've got to say this, though. we've got a long way to go. like, for instance, mike, you're right. we're children. i remember september 3rd of 2011. the red sox were ahead by 9.5 games. how did that turn out? >> they made the mistake of getting take-out chicken. >> eating chicken in the dugout. we'll see what happens. it's been a great team, but the wheels are coming off. it's sweet dreams and trying machines and pieces on the ground, as james taylor would say. anyway, so, anyway, the fear and loathing at fenway is over for now. start with yesterday's important news out of florida, and arizona. where they, of course, held

their primary races. in florida, tallahassee mayor andrew gillum narrowly won the state's democratic nomination for governor and one of the most significant upsets of the primary season. ip can tell you. what an upset has was. i saw commercial after commercial after commercial for all the other candidates. but -- but he actually becomes the first black major party candidate for governor in the state's history. in florida history. gillum faces off against the republican party's nominee, trump-backed, trump-obsessed, going to but my baby in a trump t-shirt congressman ron desantis. think about how that's going to set up. stop there for a second. steve kornacki, what an upset this was. again, if you were down in florida, down in florida and saw ads for a couple of weeks and, boy, you didn't see his ads.

you saw ads from everybody else. how did this happen? where did he come from? and let's just talk about the battle lines that have been drawn in two deep states south where i've lived. georgia and florida, in both states, you have black democrats, medicare for all, progressive candidates going against hard-core, right wing trumpistas, all the way in for donald trump. how does that set up for the fall? >> florida races, each base you can look at. democrat is side, republican base, each trump era base really got what it wanted last night. one thing that's staggering to me all the votes i don't think are fully counted yet, at least they weren't when i went to sleep. even at that point, something close to 1.5 million votes cast on the democratic side in that primary. up from somewhere around 850,000

last time. more than 1.6 million on the republican side. i was going back. i could not find an example in modern florida politics where you had the turnout in both parties that high over 3 million combined votes, at least going to be cast between those two parties. so a lot of energy on both sides there. how did the gillum thing happen? you're right. money wasn't there for him. friends at the polls, they weren't there for him again. never in first place, never even in second place in any of the polls taken before this thing, but the energy was there. the grass roots energy. somebody who ran to the left, positioned himself to the left, to the left's gwen graham, she was leading in the polls. she followed the traditional model of florida politics. tried to position herself a little bit more in the center with an eye towards appealing to what traditionally have been swing voters in a swing state like florida in the general election. gillum ran to her left. talk about impeaching trump, talked about abolishing i.c.e.

a lot of people made in the last couple of day, bernie sanders came in, campaigned for him. energy was there. looked at it last night around the state, political geography, victory for gillum. mentioned the tallahassee mayor. winning in south florida, winning in miami-dade, winning in the rural panhandle areas where gwen graham was supposed to be winning. rolling up numbers in jacksonville, hillsborough, tampa, shows strength around the state last night. >> if you looked at the amount of money that green put into that race, spent millions and millions. so many republican, or democratic party insiders, were sure he was going to buy that election. polls looked like he had a good chance and, man. they get to the, get to the voting booth and michael steele, seems like democrats knew exactly what they wanted, and what they didn't want. now, talk about -- talk about how november's going to set up here. like, this is -- this is cliff

diving for both democrats and republicans. >> yeah. >> we could have. >> yeah. >> we could have the first two black governors elected in deep south states. douglas wilder won in virginia. >> right. >> but in the deep south, we could either have two progressive black governors in deep states south, deep south states where george wallace did great in '67, in '72, or you could have a massive victory for donald trump in both of those states, where -- >> yeah. >> -- again, two people that totally bought in to the -- to the trump personality cult, addre dressing their babies in "make america great again" t-shirts and bragging about it and whispering build that wall to their young infants, i mean,s that about as stark a contrast as you get. isn't it, michael? >> oh, you are so right.

you can't set this baby up any better than that. it is going to be a barn burner of an election across the deep south and georgia and florida, and then you have to also look at maryland, where you have another african-american male progressive in ben jealous running against incumbent larry hogan in a state 2-1 democrat, hogan sitting there with a 70%-plus job approval. you see this emerging dynamic where voters are going to have to make real stark choices. what i find interesting about this, though, is what bernie sanders and the bernie sanders team just put it writ large nationally has been able to do. they've gone out and tried to identify candidates -- definitely progressive. very clearly stated, no holding back, and running to the left of the democratic party. and is pushing the party and forcing its hand as we saw with the race in florida, to now come

to grips with having to rally around a, an, a progressive agenda that writ large again, a lot of democrats may not be sold on. that's an opening for republicans. you're going to see that narrative emerge fairly quickly. gillum is someone people do not know across florida, outside of, you maybe strong democratic circles necessarily. a lot of examination about him, making this a very interesting race indeed. >> and mayor gillum joins us at 7:00 this morning. go to arizona, meanwhile. on the cusp of electing its first female senator in a race to fill retiring senator jeff flake's u.s. senate seat. congresswoman kirsten cinema won the democratic nomination, and she's going to be facing off against republican congresswoman martha mcsally, who defeated former state senator kelly ward and former sheriff joe arpaio in

her bid for the gop nomination and there, heidi -- well, president trump didn't endorse an arizona u.s. senate primary, but he did take a victory lap anyway. not exactly sure. posting it to twitter at 12:44 a.m. washington time, martha mcsally running in the arizona primary for u.s. senate endorsed by rejected senator jeff flake. and turned it down. a first. nbc news captured video of mcsally reading and reacting to the president 's tweet in which he appears to say, oh, no. earlier she refused to comment. >> you're looking to replace jeff flake. jeff flake won the election in 2012 represented the state 18 years. what do you think of jeff flake as a representative of the state? >> today is about the next senator for this state. you guys can make the comparison. >> has he served you well? >> you guys can sort that out.

>> well -- so, let's -- heidi, obviously, i mean, the republican party has changed a great deal since donald trump started running. since donald trump got elected. that's the sort of thing you would never see in the past. where a candidate wouldn't even talk about a man who served his state honorably. but talk about arizona and how arizona may have avoided, the arizona republican party may have avoided a disaster in the fall, and actually moved away from the person who was desperately trying to tie herself to donald trump? >> this is the best possible outcome, joe, for republicans, if anyone showed us how to walk this tightrope of trying to not completely embrace donald trump but trying not to alienate him, it was martha mcsally. she did not endorse him when he was running for president, but

she did not alienate him either. she at one point called him a friend and then in the final moments of the campaign, she tightened her position on immigration. she'll be running against kirsten cinema, because all accounts a moderate, part of the blue dog coalition, and i think this race will be a very good test of whether or not someone like martha mcsally can survive, though, in the end having somewhat aligned herself with trump in this race, because it is so close, and i think it's going to expose as well, joe, one of the really undercovered stories of the 2016 election which was just how close the democrats came in some of these traditionally red states. in arizona, hillary clinton only lost by about 3.4 percentage points. so if martha -- if the democrats can do a good job there of tying martha mcsally, despite her

efforts to walk that tightrope to trump, and really gin up their turnout it is possible that they could pull off an upset, even though the prognosticators at this point still say that given the traditional patterns there, mcsally may have the early advantage. >> early advantage. so, elise, what's your takeaway from the election results? are you looking at the florida race and surprise in florida as one of the most interesting races in the fall? >> well, clearly the florida race is fascinating just because you have two young politicians, the same age, from just the far reaches of both of their parties. so that, of course, is going to definitely be something that i'm excited to sit back and watch and see how it plays ought, b s also in arizona what representative mcsally has sdun incredibly interesting and the fact she managed to preserve her authenticity and not alienate trump voters without going too

far in the other direction has been somewhat of a model to watch and so we'll see how that plays out for her in a state that, heidi, as she explained, isn't as close, isn't as resoundly republican as it has been in the past. >> i would say that you can't understate how good a job and how relieved mitch mcconnell and his crew are over this result. it could have been a total disaster. kelly ward, or joe arpaio, would have been a sure-fire loser in that state. they swooped in when it became very clear they had this problem on their hands. they convinced the congresswoman to run. she ended up running a very solid campaign and avoided what could have been a roy moore situation. i don't know if the seat stays in republican hands, it's a very tough race, but senate republican leadership has done a decent job, i would argue, since the alabama debacle trying to shore up their position. >> look at the contrast with virginia and ed gillespie's race

and he came out tarnished from that because that just wasn't who ed gillespie was and voters could sense the inauthenticity. >> i'm struck by at least three themes that seem to be consistent in every one of the elections we've held thus far this year. volatility, turnout and trump. >> yeah. talk about the trump and volatility factor, too, in arizona. looks like, and it is, mcsally won resoundingly. show the numbers again and add you t up the other votes, close to 50%. we'll tally and see how close they come. mystery around the question, why was joe arpaio in his race in the first place? 86 years old. just pardoned last year. 47%, add it up, still a considerable amount to come in. some indications arpaio might have gotten in the race, folks around him who were on that trump side of the party who were disgruntled with kelly ward.

so what you basically did was, you saw a perfect split almost right down the middle of the trump wing of the party there that allows mcsally to come up and win. it is. 24-point margin over ward. trump wing versus non-trump, almost at 50/50. the biggest factor in the race for mcsally, arpaio got in the race, split the vote well and looking ahead to the general election, arizona, look 30shgs ye30shgs -- 30 years. kirsten sinema up over mcsally. the best position a democrat's been in 30 years. >> hard to project now, steve, but in the florida governor's race, obvious lly one to be closely watched across the country. right now who would you put as the early favorite in that race? >> somebody, believe it or not. two polls have been taken in that matchup of gillum versus

desantis, very unlikely matchup. most recent, six weeks ago. 39-3 # gill 39-36, gillum over desantis. close ties, very close association desantis has with trump and democrats think that's the thing to carry the day for them in 2018. look, in 2014, in 2010, democrats were close to winning the governorship, very close to winning the governorship in florida. what did you have in 2014, 2010? midterm environments friendly to the republican party. democrats say we close in 2010, close in 2014. now you're gov a rick scott-like candidate in 2016 but throw in a very different midterm climate and the trump bag say will make the difference. republicans say, look, too far to the left for gillum and the wild card we have to say, nobody talked about gillum until 24 hours ago. we'll find out a lot about him nobody was saying before. >> and, boy, michael steele, you have candidates like gillum

coming from nowhere, beating other candidates who were tough. he surges ahead to 34%. more times than not candidates like that have a history on their side and momentum on their side. and it also, that victory, if gillum runs a strong race, that's very good news for bill nelson who is, who's struggling in the race of his life right now against rick scott. >> yes. absolutely. gillum could have the effect of pulling out a lot more of that democratic vote. in fact, if you peel back a little of the numbers and steve has done a phenomenal job doing that over the last 18 hours or so, you'll see that the young vote turned out. that there was a youth vote, if you will, that really coalesced around gillum. with that along with other energies that are currently on the ground there in florida, the anti-trump feel and all of that, it could be a nice setup where you could have gillum actually pulling and creating coattails

for the democrats up and down the line. here's the other side of that conversation, i think, you need to take into account as well. we don't yet know fully what the full measure of the trump vote is in florida two years later. and so i think that's going to be something very interesting to watch, too. you'll also have the overlay of race playing out in florida along with the sort of the philosophical differences, if you will. so there are a lot of dynamics on the ground here that are going to be taking shape and forming this race between desantis and gillum which could have a ripple effect on a bunch of other races as well. >> well, we need to go, but steve kornacki, that opens up an important question. of course, tim russert talks in 2000 about florida, florida, florida, the ultimate purple state, ultimate swing state and we 245thought about that.

donald trump shocked the world in 2016. why is rec scott still ahead in florida in a senate race, a lot of people ask me, in a year when donald trump is impacting the outcome of races the way he is? and we showed a clip of puerto rico, which was supposed to bring a lot more puerto ricans to central florida, which was supposed to help democratic candidates. what's going on in florida right no you? >> no. this has been the outlier. trying to look at all the competitive senate races. look at the states trump won very closely in 2016, where democrats are up in 2018. michigan, ohio -- no. ohio wasn't close. michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. >> right. >> democrat incumbents in good shape to very good shape. down to florida, as you say -- >> also, donald trump numbers have just completely nosedived. you know, he has re-elects in the low 30s in wisconsin and michigan. and i believe in ohio, but in

florida, he's still riding high in the mid-40s. >> yes. i think a couple things might be going on there. number one, one thing i think i put a little more stock in now and i didn't at the outset of the race is a lot of people were measuring rick scott against 2010 and 2014, when he eked out wins in governor's races less than 50% there and then saying, well, in a different midterm climate now the guy is doomed. i think he became more popular with florida voters in his second term. i think that's a factor. nelson we got say for a senator who's been there three terms, you know, it's not clear how deep his base of support has ever really been there. he has breaks. run in favorable years for democrats, 2000 ended up being a favorable year. 2006, favorable year. drew katherine harris. how tested has he been and florida, a state you see this in those turnout numbers for the primary last night. yeah, democratic energy and enthusiasm absolutely through the roof last in that primary.

republican enthusiasm and energy is right there, too. tell what you. you want to interpret what florida could mean nationally? this for a possible confusing outcome. we wake up after the election and say, bill nelson has been ousted by rick scott in the race for u.s. senate. the next senator is andrew gillum. very possible. >> very possible. right. we'll see. still ahead on "morning joe," in the words of one republican senator, "nothing lasts forever." lawmakers writing off jeff sessions while others rally around him. plus, it's not just america's intel community that's heard enough from devin nunes. british spies apparently didn't take him seriously enough eveninger to even have an appointment with him when he flew to london to get a briefing. that new reporting ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. , you can cy car in the aisle,

even if it's a better car class than the one you reserved. so no matter what, you're guaranteed to have a perfect drive. [laughter] (vo) go national. go like a pro. see what i did there?

everything was so fresh in the beginning... but that plug quickly faded. luckily there's new febreze plug. it cleans away odors and freshens for 1200 hours. breathe happy with new febreze plug. your insurance rates a scratch so smallr you could fix it with a pen. how about using that pen to sign up

for new insurance instead? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ howdoing great dad!r does this thing got? looking good babe! are you filming. at booking.com, we can't guarantee you'll be any good at that water jet thingy... but we can guarantee the best price on a hotel, like this one. or any home, boat, treehouse, yurt, whatever. get the best price on homes, hotels and so much more. booking.com, booking.yeah

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.

it's been almost a year since hurricane maria left puerto rico absolutely devastated. wiped out. and now a new study estimates the death toll is much higher than initial government numbers. the report from georgia washington university estimates nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath of the storm. that's dramatically higher than previous official counts, and the last one was just 64. the storm ripped through puerto rico last september, destroying homes and leaving so much of that island without power for months. with us now from san juan, puerto rico, nbc news correspondent gabe gutierrez. gabe, can you tell us more? >> reporter: hi, joe. good morning. we're here outside of puerto rico's main morgue and the government had actually brought in refrigerated trailers here months ago to hold dozens of unclaimed bodies, but, yes, as you mentioned, this stud fri

george washington university basically confirmed what many here in puerto rico had known for a very long time. that the government count of just 64 dead from this hurricane just wasn't enough, and instead now governor ricardo updated the figure following the release of this report to 2,975 estimated deaths making hurricane maria the deadliest u.s. natural disaster in more than 100 years. we spoke with several families that talked how the weeks and months following the storm their loved ones were trapped without power and that is some of the things that this study took into account. here is katrina secadis one of the women we talked ob aftto af losing her mother. >> she asked moo e to send her one of the battery fans, if i could get it to her from here and i said, okay, i will. i promise. and -- she died two days later.

and i wanted an autopsy, because i knew that she died because of the neglect. >> reporter: if you recall, president trump visited puerto rico just a few weeks after the storm and rated the federal response a 10 at the time and also said he was proud of what was happening here in puerto rico. the white house released a statement after the release of this george washington university report last night saying that the president continues to be proud of the federal effort here and will be a part of puerto rico's recovery, but the mayor of san juan has been an outspoken critic of the federal response here. that did not sit well with her. take a listen to what she had to say. >> shame on the white house and shame on the president. all he had to say is, i'm sorry. that 2,975 of you died. that's all he had to say, but

he's incapable of doing that. >> reporter: now, today happens to be the 13ening anniversary of hurricane katrina and now with this updated death toll it is 60% higher or so than the death toll back from hurricane katrina. still a lot of outrage almost a year after hurricane maria. the power has been restored. just restored self weeks ago to the entire island, but still a lot of outrage following the release of this report. joe? >> it's flabbergasting. the entirety of this. the fact they just were able to put the power back on recently. the fact that the federal government apparently was not being honest about the extent of the response, that we didn't know the death tolls until now, but also the fact that congress has not really done any comprehensive or effective oversight into what happened here. hearings have not been really held. an investigation has not been really launched.

we don't really have answers what went wrong. a question to gabe, because in the end, i don't want to be so crass about this, the island has to prepare for the next hurricane. hurricanes aren't going away. hurricanes are getting stronger. they're coming with more frequency. gabe, as you talk to people on the island, do they have any sense that if another hurricane were to hit any time soon they would be better prepared for this one? >> reporter: no, they wouldn't. the simple answer here. a lot of officials here readily admit if yore category 5 or 5 storm were to hit puerto rico there would be utter devastation. we've spoken with some power officials here from the local power authority prepa and they say the grid is better than before hurricane maria, but many people here on the ground simply don't believe that. so as you mentioned, power had just been restored here. the infrastructure is very vulnerable here and there is a great fear if another hurricane were to hit, hurricane season

well underway, if another hurricane were to hit there is no clear plan how this government will be able to respond. now, this isn't the first study that came out. a couple of months ago, harvard university estimated there were 6, -- 4,600 deaths or so. so much frustration why they couldn't get an accurate count, but this puts a more firm figure on that and a lot of people here are fearful what happens if another hurricane were to hit. there doesn't seem to be any long-term plan at this point. back to you. >> all right. thank you so much. nbc's gabe gutierrez. greatly appreciate it. still ahead, it was a late night for donald trump yet again. he was tweeting after midnight after one of his favorite topics from the campaign trail. and it wasn't the red sox. it was hillary clinton's e-mails. talk about that, and much more, when "morning joe" returns. it was here.

i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. they said i had afib. what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke. i needed answers. my doctor and i chose xarelto® to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. for afib patients well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto®

compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. learn all you can to help protect yourself from a stroke. talk to your doctor about xarelto®.

dinner date...meeting his parents dinner date. to help protect yourself from a stroke. why did i want a crest 3d white smile? so i used crest. crest 3d white removes... ...95% of surface stains in just 3 days... ...for a whiter smile... that will win them over. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life. 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. now save $150 on this dell notebook at office depot officemax. reon friday, sept 7th, tonijoin stand up to cancer for all the inspiration all the laughter kevin heart if you change one letter in 'cancer'

it becomes 'dancer', what!? all the stars tom hanks keep this movement going strong. every network every star kevin bacon dream big with us. one night to save lives get ready to see it all tune in live, september 7th 8/7 central a new theme song this week for donald trump. it's "after midnight."

you heard it going to break, because donald trump was awake and tweeting again after midnight in the white house. claiming without evidence that china -- so -- it was a fat guy in jersey, in his mother's basement that donald trump said was hacking hillary clinton's e-mails. and then, of course, you had his intel agencies telling him, russia hacked the e-mails. but now donald trump without evidence suggesting that maybe china hacked hillary clinton's e-mails, and the president actually demanded that the fbi and the doj better make a move or their credibility will forever be gone. the president's tweet -- it appears to be in response to a daily caller report that received coverage last night on fox news. in beijing, the chinese foreign ministry responded at a daily

news briefing saying that it's not the first time we've heard such accusations. elise, i don't know how many times donald trump's own intel chiefs have to tell him, dan coats, director of national intelligence, wray, running the fbi. you've got gina haspel at the cia. go down the list. they've all told him the same thing. kirsten nelson said, our democracy is in the cross hairs because of russian interference in our elections. everybody in his government says it's the russians. and he's saying, maybe it's the chinese. >> joe, it's almost leike he's desperate for it not to have been the russians who hacked the election and interfered with the election. i don't know why he has such a chip in his shoulder saying it's

not the russians and would rather prefer it be really any other country on earth. >> unbelievable. mike barnicle, this is, again, a president who knows it's the russians. everybody in the -- in the administration says it's the russians. the intel agencies warn him it's the russians. the united states military warns him that it's the russians. the intel community warns him that it's the russians. and, again, he goes from a fat guy in jersey to the chinese. this is -- i mean, it's sad and it's pathetic but again, i wonder at what point -- at what point do people who support donald trump say, wait a second. not only do i not like the guy's tweets, but i hate the fact that america's national security, america's democracy is in the cross hairs of russia and vladimir putin, according to kirstjen nielsen, who's always been loyal to donald trump. >> the odds on that --

>> allowing this guy to say otherwise. >> joe, the odds on that happening are zero. because there are certainly enough opportunities for republican members, especially in the unite senate. forget the house. the house is gone, but republican members of the united states senate, to stand up in the face of something obvious that has been pointed out by everyone as you just pointed out. this country has been under attack with russia. russia declared war on us. it's a cyber war, but declared war on us, and what we see here again in that late-night tweet from the president of the united states is the continuing distance that he takes in driving down the road with normalcy in the rearview mirror, well in the rearview mirror, and it just continues day after day after day. >> it's even worse, though. because the second part of the tweet is what is really interesting. doj and fbi have to investigate this. >> damaging institutions. >> listen, a huge swath of the country isn't following after

move's this closely but they will know from sheer repetition from the president that the fbi and doj aren't really investigating what really happened, the fat guy in the basement or the chinese, and you have erosion of trust facilit e facilitated by this president. him not respecting the conclusions of the intelligence community is super bad, obviously, but him making this damage to the fbi and doj reputation is also pretty bad. >> ridiculous, steve kornacki. again, everybody knows, he's been warned, shown the forensics evidence that the u.s. military provided to him that the intel community provided to him, the forensic evidence that it was russian whose did it, and then he's talking about robert mueller's probe being a witch-hunt. look at all the polls that have come out and my gosh. compare right now the -- the trust in the mueller probe, according to fox news, 59%

approve. 37% disapprove. almost 6 in 10 americans approve of the robert mueller investigation. those are landslide numbers. the star investigation, at the same time, another fox news poll -- only 36% of americans approve. you know, steve, kind of tired of reading stories about rudy giuliani's brilliant strategy. or even people asking. is this a brilliant strategy? is he crazy like a fox? no. he's driving donald trump's numbers into the ground on the investigation and isn't he driving robert mueller's? look at numbers, since rudy's been going out and lying about things, robert mueller's approval ratings and the probe's approval ratings skyrocketed. >> by the way, i admire your taste in tweets there. interesting to see up on the screen. >> yes. brilliant, brilliant. great guy to follow on twitter. >> i think it's interesting. yes. look, the difference between 98

now when it comes to public reaction of these investigation, those numbers capture is well. it means if and when mueller has a final report everybody gets a chance to look at it's going to be read with i think a little more openness than that starr report was received back in 1998 by a broad cross-section of people and the investigation has gone up recently. the one thing i say, the politics what giuliani and the trump team are doing, not connecting with broad public opinion but is there a connection of the polls of the republican party? if you accept the giuliani logic this is about preventing impeachment and removal from office, you can't have a republican defection, look at that result in florida last night. if you're a republican office holder and watch what just happened with adam putnam, who spent 20 years assembling an absolutely seemingly perfect resume in makes, made all of

what we thought were the right moves in politics to position himself at age 33, 34 run for governor and what happens? one single defining event is that donald trump decides, i like this desantis fellow. goes out and endorses him. look what it did to the numbers in the race? putnam was leading that race before trump got is runs away w. broad public opinion may not be there, republican office holders are sticking with him on everything. results like that last night. >> at least through the primaries. i mean, michael steele, there are a few inevitable facts that are moving -- as we move into the fall. in the primary process. fact number one. when it comes to republicans in primaries, donald trump is the kingmaker. >> yep. >> just like sarah palin was the kingmaker in 2009, in 2010, donald trump is the kingmaker in 2018. number two.

the democrats' reaction to donald trump, despite the compelling stories. the democratic party has moved far left with so many of these candidates. medicare for all candidates. they don't want to go on noah trevors daily show and answer the question, how do you pay for everything that you're promising? but again, extraordinarily compelling stories, but at the same time, trevor noah -- at the same time -- what did i say? >> noah trevor. noah trevor. >>er that both laughing. >> they're both first names. >> yeah. well -- you know what? i was just -- i was -- i was just so excited last night that bradley jackie had extraordinary hit up the middle and brought the sox red back. anyway, it doesn't change the fact that the democratic party's darting left. the republican party is -- is --

is going right, if you want to call that right, and now donald trump is talking about, in his tweets, the possibility of violence and i think you're going to see the press embracing a lot of these candidates on the far left and you're going to have donald trump race baiting all the way to the fall. >> oh, absolutely. i mean, he's already setting this thing up to put that narrative in play, should it look like the house is getting away from them and a lot of the races in general elections now with his primary candidates leading the charge are going to be losing. this is the nair tirrative he w to set up. if democrats take control they'll come after you with violence. it's going to be an ugly fight. the only one talking that way is the president. even candidates on the ground, strong trump supporters, haven't gotten to that point. it will be interesting to see if

they pick up that mantra as well and start talking about, well, if i don't win, there's trouble to come. it is an ugly underbelly that's being scratched by this president in our politics, and which again gets back, which will be an interesting dynamic in those races where these very hard, right conservatives are returni running against far left progressive democrats. how the race piece starts to play in to this as well. so the president's already starting to scratch at that, my friend, and it's not a pretty picture that's going to emerge otherwise. >> yep. steele michael, brilliant insights. thank you, as always. of course, the moral of that story is, don't stay up and watch the red sox scratch it out late into the night. you're good, joe. >> mike, how long was the eighth inning? like 50 minutes? something like that? >> still going on. >> still going on. >> we're going to pull it out.

>> still going on. but something that you know is going to happen. donald trump is going to be echoes of charlottesville in florida, echoes of charlottesville in will be echo charlottesville in georgia and across the country. >> florida is going to be ugly. >> yeah. and now he's already talking about violence. >> yeah. >> think about that. the president of the united states absolutely no evidence. he told you that if democrats win congress, you're going to lose your jobs. if he's not in office, you're going to lose your jobs. the economy is going to collapse. and now he's saying if democrats win, there will be violence in america. that's sick. coming up, donald trump meets with evangelical leaders, just a week after being implicated in a scheme to cover up his alleged affairs with a porn star and a playboy model. i wonder how much longer we have to put alleged by those words.

we're going to tell you what he told them behind closed doors. we'll also tell you what the president reportedly told japan's prime minister behind closed doors earlier this year about pearl harbor. we'll be right back. ♪

let your perfect drive come together during the final days of the lincoln summer invitation event get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus one thousand dollars bonus cash. at booking.com, we can't guarantee you'll good at that water jet thingy... but we can guarantee the best price on this hotel. or any accommodation, from homes to yurts. booking.com booking.yeah

it's a revolution in sleep. the new sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now, from $899, during sleep number's 'biggest sale of the year'. it senses your movement, and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. it even helps with this. so you wake up ready to put your pedal to the metal. and now, all beds are on sale. it's the last chance to save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 36-month financing. ends labor day. sleep number. proven, quality sleep.

you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. reon friday, sept 7th, tonijoin stand up to cancer for all the inspiration

all the laughter kevin heart if you change one letter in 'cancer' it becomes 'dancer', what!? all the stars tom hanks keep this movement going strong. every network every star kevin bacon dream big with us. one night to save lives get ready to see it all tune in live, september 7th 8/7 central hey, heidi, we've talked a lot about how 2018 may be the year of the -- it's certainly shaping up that way. we saw two black democrats in georgia and florida get through to the primary process, but also you're reporting on nbc a good number of muslim americans are also throwing their hat into the ring and getting involved. >> right, joe. what we're seeing is a

resurgence in this community because there was once a time when many muslims raised their hand for office, and that changed a couple of decades ago when the community kind of came under an unwelcome spotlight after september, 2001. what we're seeing is a resurgence really in that community which is symbolized in the rise of rashida tlaib, representing the district that john conners vacated outside of detroit. i went there and talked to american muslims. most of all, i wanted to know what it's been like to live during the era of trump. i was surprised to find, joe, that this resurgence is not just a reaction to trump, it's a reaction to what they've been living over the past couple of decades with the increased scrutiny of their community. i talked to a gentleman who deals with a lot of american muslims. i was shocked, joe, just about

how difficult it is for a lot of these folks, simply to travel back to their home countries, which could be -- that's all it takes to trigger them getting on to the terrorism watch list. he kind of sat there in his chair going through his speed dial, calling up friends and asking them, you know, what their daily lives are like. so it's a reaction to that, which is what they've been living even before trump. it's just that trump put the spotlight on this community of what's it's been going through over the past couple decades. >> he certainly did. his reaction the complete opposite of george w's going to a muslim center, embracing muslim americans and saying they are ever bit as much a part of this country as he is himself. let's hope more americans will start feeling that way as we move forward. coming up, it's now going to be a bernie-back progressive

versus a trump-backed republican in the race for florida. we'll talk to the democrat in the race who stunned his primary opponents with a major come from behind victory in florida last night. they are shocked in tallahassee that the mayor of tallahassee won it last night and he's going to be with us this morning. andrew gillam will join us. "morning joe" returns in one moment . "morning joe" returns in one moment -looks great, honey. -right?

sometimes you need an expert. i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's all good. steve, you're covered for general liability. and, paul, we got your back with workers' comp. wow, it's like a party in here. where are the hors d'oeuvres, right? [ clanking ] tartlets?

we cover commercial vehicles, too. i think there's something wrong with your sink. we cover commercial vehicles, too. in them therr hills on your guarantevacation.find gold but we can guarantee the best price on this rental cabin. or any accomodation from hotels to yurts. booking.com, booking.yeah

stop fearing your alarm clock... with new*! zzzquil pure zzzs. a drug-free blend of botanicals with melatonin ...that supports your natural sleep cycle... ...so you can seize the morning. new! zzzquil pure zzzs. mom: okay we need to get all your school supplies today... school... grade... done. done. hit the snooze button and get low prices on school supplies all summer long. like this case of paper for only $29.99 at office depot officemax. ♪ well, the stage is set for

more key political battles all across the south in the country this fall. in florida, democrat andrew gillam won his party's primary and he'll face off against republican ron desantes in the race for governor. arizona is poised to send a woman in the united states senate. we're going to get live reports from both states just ahead. but, let's welcome back to the show our guest panel, it's wednesday, august 29th, with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle, politics editor for the daily beast, sam stine, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments elise jordan, former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele, nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla and let's bring into the conversation new york times reporter jeremy peters. so, we're going to get to all

the results, but i just want to give you a quick take on my take from the primaries last night. we talked about it before last hour, but the number one take away in republican primaries, donald trump is the king maker. we talked about it in the show, talked about it for the past several weeks. adam putnam spent 20 years preparing for last night. donald trump came in with one endorsement, sidetracked his political career and helped ron desantes win that election in a landslide. republican primaries, make no doubt about it, just like sarah palin was the king making in 2010 for republicans, donald trump is the king maker in 2018. the second lesson, dems historic possibilities this year should not mask how far left they've gone, around they are going lefn

the key marquee states, georgia, florida, those are states in the deep south. but they have candidates, they have black candidates that are talking about medicare for all. also again, adopting more of a bernie sanders approach to politics than say a bill clinton approach. at the same time, they could also be the difference makers not only in their race for the sort of election turnout we saw in the state of alabama but also for people like bill nelson who could really benefit by the victory last night. number three, we have to be on guard. donald trump will almost certainly use that in his attacks against the media to make this a racial battle, a racial, political war.

and as michael steele said, he started scratching at that last night. number four, which 20/20 democratic presidential democrats will go to georgia and florida and what will they say? either of those two democrats in georgia and florida, if they win, then they become king makers in 2020. and number five, can a combination of the hillary/obama/bernie sanders coalition be created and be brought together to help democrats win? that remains the big question. mike barnacle, that's a question that's going to determine the fate of so many of these democratic candidates. can you bring two sides of this democratic party that split apart, the bernie side and the clinton side, that split apart, can you bring them together and in 2018 can everybody work together to help democrats win

some pretty historic races that are in front of them in november? >> joe, there's going to be a lot of division in the campaigns this fall. there's going to be divisions within the democratic party, as you just pointed out. the sanders wring, the sanders/elizabeth warren wing from the more centrist wing of the democrats. there's going to be that division that's already unfolding in front of us. and there is certainly going to be, again, as you pointed out and as michael steele pointed out earlier, race is going to be a factor, a big factor in these campaigns, especially i think in florida where the president of the united states will absolutely engage in a racial way to try to divide the state and encourage people to vote for the republican candidate. >> michael steele, depending on which way the races go, if republicans win in georgia and florida, if republicans hold on to the united states senate, if republicans do fairly well in

the house and don't bleed as many seats as they currently expect, it will be seen as a massive victory for donald trump, but the opposite is true. >> yeah. >> if democrats win the georgia gubernatorial race, if democrats win the florida democratic race, this is not me rooting for democrats in these two states, it's just stating the truth, that is a revolution. that is not just a political revolution, that is a societal revolution. >> yeah. >> a lot of people talked about the new south for 30 years. that would usher in the new south brought to you by the extremism and the racism of donald trump. >> yeah. well, your fifth point was for me really one of the most important points to what you've just said because it really does talk about how democrats are able to coalesce around this

idea of, yes, we're desperate and we have these different parts of the party, but this is about pulling together what we need to win and how disciplined they will be to do that. when you look at the florida race, you're talking about not really touted that much, but the impact of tom styer, gen-x, the parkland students out there engaging politically, those forces have a ripple effect across the country. you'll see it come into play in georgia. you're absolutely right. how the democrats will pull together this coalition with donald trump sort of putting this poison of race and sort of feeding this white nationalist meme and all of that in states like florida will be very, very important to the outcome come november. >> and i just wonder if republicans are smart enough to

understand that some of that race baiting and some of that hatred may work in primary races, but boy, it backfires in the general election. >> oh, yeah. >> and i just don't know if they'll be able to shift gears. donald trump hasn't been able to for 18 months and he's not going to be able to help himself going into the general election. seems to me that will be a political god send for democrats. to get people out to vote. andrew, mr. mayor, you shocked the political world. i was getting phone calls, joe, you know florida. we're worried about this green guy. he's dumping too much cash in. joe, graham, she doesn't have -- everybody was saying you need to say this on your show. you need to say that on your show because they all thought the south florida guys and women were going to win this thing. you had another thing in mind. how did you shock the political world? >> yeah. well, first of all, good morning, joe, and to everyone

there. it feels real good. we had over 500,000 people come out yesterday and support the underdog candidate at a very, very grass roots level. i think my four opponents combined may have spent close to $90 million to our 6. and it was the voices and the activism of everyday folks all across this state in red areas, blue areas, purple areas of this state who came together to elect me the democratic nominee for governor of the state of florida. that's the kind of grass root support and capacity that's going to lead us forward to victory on the 6th of november. >> you know, mr. mayor, ron desantes won the republican nomination for the senate race, he put out a statement saying that you were far, far too liberal to get elected in the state of florida. that sounds very familiar to what a lot of republicans were saying about barack obama in 2008, that he was the second or

third most liberal senator in the united states senate. there was no way he would ever be elected president of the united states. what do you say to ron desantes this morning? >> well, i'll say to florida voters and i think they know this and demonstrated this yesterday in the primary, what we've been talking about are the issues that concern everyday people. we talked about what it means to pay people a wage that they can live on. we've spoken about having access to health care as a right, not a privilege. we talked to them about real criminal justice reform. these were issues that showed up for us time and time again, education, florida right now average teacher pay in the state of florida is the 45th lowest. we're back of the pack on some of the most important matters that matter. ron can talk about race and liberalism and whatever else he wants to. i'm going to be clearly focussed on the issues that confront every day floridians. i honestly believe that will

allow us to carry this to victory on november 6th, is not by running to or from or left or right but running directly toward the people of our state. that's what i did in this primary and that's what we're going to do in the general. >> so, mr. mayor, every citizen of every state is concerned with many of the issues you just spoke about, health care, teacher salaries, good schools for their children, their children's future, every state like florida has a problem in terms of how do you maintain the fiscal health of the state. so what specifically are you going to do other than raising taxes in florida to maintain the fiscal health of your state? >> yeah. well, florida doesn't lack in many ways for the resources that we need. our problem is where we have decided to place those resources. whether we're going to continue to give major tax breaks to corporations and to very expensive luxury items or

whether we're going to invest that money in our children. are we going to realign the political system in this state to pour more resources into education over the incarceration of our youth? in this state, we spend about $7,500 a year in educating a kid. and north of $30,000 a year to incarcera incarcerate. there's a mismatch in priorities there. it's important to me that we look top to bottom at our budget. yes, we're going to ensure that everybody pays their fair share. regular, everyday working people of this state already pay our fair share. it's time to ensure that corporations also contribute to the pot in such a way that frankly enriches them. when we produce good, educated talent, that provides a great work force for them. when we pour into our next generation technology, that helps the corporations. we become a state that people want to locate in and corporations want to locate in when we produce good, solid, qualified talent to fuel our

work force. i think that's the vision we want to try to elevate, not a low-wage economy where people have to work multiple jobs in order to make ends meat. >> mr. mayor, sam stine here. congratulations on the primary victory last night. i saw you say some time last night in the euphoria that you didn't really talk a lot about donald trump during the primary campaign. i guess perhaps i'm sort of curious how that's possible because he dominates everything, but in reality, the truth is his fingerprints are all over our political system, obviously in your state, a huge population of puerto ricans have fled that island, for instance, because of the federal response to the hurricane there. so, as a general question, i am curious, a lot of trump voters are fully committed to this man and won't break with him over pretty much anything, but you do need to reach these people. florida is a very swingy state. you do need to reach these people. what is your message to perhaps the most committed trump voter, the person watching fox news,

probably seeing ron desantos on right now. what is your message to them why they should vote for you? >> i'll tell you, we believe we got to talk to floridians. and largely floridians who have chosen not to participate in this political process because they don't believe in it anymore. talking about donald trump and reminding folks of how bad he is and how unqualified he is for the job that he holds doesn't do anything to ensure that they're able to make ends meat. doesn't do anything to ensure that they get access to good health care and good education system and 21st century transportation and a clean and good environment. so we tried to talk about those things. but without a doubt, we know that donald trump looms in the shadows here. we know that for hurricane maria survivors who are largely in the i-4 corridor, they have felt completely disrespected by this president. for haitian/americans in south florida and all over this state who feel completely disrespected by the rhetoric of this

president when it comes to how he refers to their homeland. what we're going to do, however, is to stay very, very super concentrated on what are the experiences, the everyday living experiences of people in this state and what we as the next governor of the state can do to make their lives better. i would suggest that anybody across this country who is running in these races that we focus on the people first. they've been let down so many times by our political system. and in order for candidate like me to win, i've got to be able to turn out those voters who are highly skeptical of the political process. don't feel like it works for them anymore. and are looking for a champion, a voice they want to be seen. they want to be heard. they want to see themselves reflected. i think that's what we did in this primary race and that's going to be critical to winning in the general. that applies to rural florida, suburban florida, urban florida. if your kids are being high stakes tested, if you have to work multiple jobs, your number one concern is going bankrupt over an illness that could

impact you any day of the week, you want a governor like me who is going to focus on that. >> all right, major andrew gillum talking straight still to the voters. thank you so much. and the conversation has just started. we invited ron desantos on to talk this morning, but his schedule was little busy. his team said he couldn't make it. we hope to have him on some time soon. president trump is warning of violence if republicans lose the midterm elections. nbc news reviewed the excerpts of the closed meeting with evangelical leaders monday night. the gop loses in november, quote, they will overturn everything that we've done and they'll do it quickly and violently. i'll say that again -- they will do it quickly and they will do it violently. jeremy peters, this sounds an awful lot like what you were writing about a couple of weeks

back when you said violence actually seems to permeate so many of these gop ads. their messages and the messaging is so grim about violence, crimes, drugs and now you have the president of the united states actually warning evangelicals that if democrats win, they will resort to violence. >> it's like it's 1968 all over again, joe, in some of these republican ads. violence mobs are raging in the streets and the added element here, of course, is illegal immigration. the argument they're making is democrats will abolish i.c.e. and make your communities less safe, allow people like mollie tibbetts, the college student in iowa to be murdered. this is the kind of chaos they will bring. and by the way, they're also going to undo the election of 2016. and i think that's the ground on which a lot of republicans want

to fight this midterm election, to make it a referendum on 2016 all over again. will you elect democrats, allow them to win and then have them turn around and impeach president trump? this election was probably headed there any way, but with president trump's remarks yesterday about violence, i think he made it as clear as day that this is where they are going. this is as classic trump. my enemies are mean. they're mean to me. they're nasty people. and they're violent, which, of course p in isolated cases, yes, there have been protests with angry democrats or angry liberals, but to represent the whole democratic party this way is disingenuous and classically trump. >> well, and heidi, i don't understand actually why any republicans would follow donald trump down this rat hole because this is something that ed

gillespie a man who served his country for decades and served it well, he was a conservative, yes, but he was respected by people on both sides of the aisle. the last two weeks he trashed his reputation. i'm sure he'll get it back, but last two weeks he trashed his reputation trying to be donald trump -- a donald trump figurene in virginia, talking about ms-13 and confederate statues and he got trounced at the polls. this doesn't work for people unless they are donald trump, does it? >> doesn't work in every election, although it's worked certainly for people like ron desantos. but with the invocation of the violence, joe, do you remember the rigged election? do you remember the entire run-up to 2016 when donald trump was talking about a rigged election? that was exactly what he's doing here, which is to excite his base, to stir resentment, to

make them feel like they have been wronged and that they're being cheated and he's doing the same thing in the run-up to this election except this actually is not the same donald trump in 2016 because he had a two-prong message. it wasn't just the racial resentment and the race baiting, he actually had a populist economic message, and we've seen that completely divorced from the donald trump that we see today. and so i think that's an important note to make for this reason because it cuts both ways. when we're talking about florida, races like florida, like michigan, he's going to go down there and his only message is stirring racial resentment and cultural division, what's that going to do? that is going to work on the other side of the ledger to reawaken -- >> oh my gosh. >> the obama coalition because that is what hillary clinton failed to do. she failed to put the obama coalition of young people and minorities back together.

if you looked at the exit polls in critical swing states like michigan, those populations didn't turn out. so if he's going to drop his economic message and simply stoke cultural divisions and racial divisions, he's going to ignite that coalition that was credit kal to past success for the democratic party. >> right. elise, we saw that in alabama in what's traditionally been called the black belt of central alabama, black voters came out in record numbers. i mean, in an off year -- it's one of the most extraordinary things i've ever seen in american politics. in an off year special election when voting is supposed to be extraordinarily low for minority voters, in alabama, black voters came out, they made the difference, elected the first democrat to the united states senate in a quarter vicinity. elise, when donald trump talks like this, all he's doing is revving up his base. it's just like i said yesterday, when he wouldn't lower the flag

for john mccain, all he was doing was burnishing john mccain's legacy. >> well, when i look at that meeting and think about it, it is just still absolutely shocking to me that he did this in front of an audience of evangelical leaders. i think it's significant because evangelicals have been incredibly disappointing to me how they've been willing to overlook a lot of president trump's personal indiscretions that they wouldn't feel the same way about and certainly did not feel the same way about when it came to bill clinton. so that increased tolerance for whatever donald trump does, justifying it as long as you get the supreme court justices, we see that being an on going -- that is where evangelical leadership overall with some notable dissenters, that's where they are right now. jeremy, i would just ask you, what are you hearing from

evangelical leaders that you're talking to these days? >> well, so far no major cracks in the coalition. and i think that you won't see something like that if things keep going the way they're going. it still remains unimaginable to me that evangelicals will break with him or that trump would do anything policy wise to allow that to happen because he knows there goes his presidency. so, i do think that evangelical leaders for the most part think that trump is -- this is what he's done. he's changed the way that evangelicals, a lot of them at least, look at their leaders in terms of the qualities they want. for the longest time republican politicians went to iowa and they said, you know, i go to church every sunday. i've been married to the same woman for 30 years. i can cite chapter and verse from the bible, elect me, i'm one of you. donald trump pretended to be

none of that. he won because he was a fighter, because they saw him as somebody who was willing to punch and hurt the enemy and they liked that. and i really think it's broken the model for them and they've been very satisfied so far because look all the policy goals and victories they've achieved. >> yep, yep, certainly it's really something that so many of these people were saying in the age of bill clinton, we can't have leaders that set bad examples for our children. apparently that's not a concern anymore. so long is the federal judiciary goes your way on a couple of cases. huh? pretty crazy what some people are willing to trade in for a few judges. still ahead on -- i mean, again, i'm not being self righteous, i'm just judging them by their own words, judging jerry fallwell, jr., by his own past words. judging franklin graham by his

past words, judging so many of these evangelical leaders by their own past words. i don't believe you should be self righteous. they certainly were, though, when bill clinton was president because of his moral indiscretions, but now suddenly it's just not a concern at all. you know what, i've always told my kids, i've always told politicians, there's no such thing as a free lunch. you always have to pay for it in the end. these evangelical leaders i think they're no exception to that rule. i think a lot of people in their churches four, five, six years from now are going to look at some of the things in the middle of trump and ask them serious questions about where they were and why they sold out for political power. the words pharisees, sajsys come

to mind. enough bab this talk this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump said he's smiling at senators who are pushing back at the white house trade policies. we'll ask senator chris murphy if the joke is on the american people. plus, the president revives the idea of firing jeff session. "the washington post" carol leonnig joins us with her latest reporting on that and whether sessions is really in danger of losing his job. you're watching "morning joe." we shall return. we shall return. ♪ let your perfect drive come together during the final days of the lincoln summer invitation event

get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus one thousand dollars bonus cash. how much more does congress need to see? donald trump has now been implicated in two felony crimes, and he's all but confessed to them on fox news.

no one is above the law, so we have to make sure this president doesn't use pardons to cover up crimes. if you agree that a president should not be allowed to pardon himself or his associates, join us at needtoimpeach.com. the washington establishment doesn't have the courage to act, but the american people can. doesn't have the courage to act, i was on the fence about changing from a manual to an electric toothbrush. but my hygienist said going electric could lead to way cleaner teeth. she said, get the one inspired by dentists, with a round brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's gentle rounded brush head removes more plaque along the gum line. for cleaner teeth and healthier gums. and unlike sonicare, oral-b is the first electric toothbrush brand accepted by the ada for its effectiveness and safety. what an amazing clean! i'll only use an oral-b! oral-b. brush like a pro.

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. now save $150 on this dell notebook at office depot officemax.

this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. earlier this summer, president trump reportedly evoked pearl harbor as a negotiating tactic with japan. that's right. according to "the washington post," during a meeting with japanese prime minister shinzo

abe at the white house in early june, the president told abe, quote, i remember pearl harbor. evidently as a rhetorical bridge to set up a blistering critique of japan's economic policies and as a rational for japan to negotiate a new bilateral trade deal with the united states. japanese diplomat also tells "the washington post," trump frequently brings up japan's, quote, samurai past. a person close to the prime minister adds, that abe's aides, are, quote, resigned to trump now being uncontrollable. let's bring in with us member of the foreign relations committee, democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut. well, let's just add abe to the list of foreign leaders, allies, important allies, that this president has insulted. interestingly enough, abe was the first foreign leader to reach out to donald trump and come visit him after his

election. but apparently, senator, nobody, no ally is safe from being rebuked. >> president trump continues to be a diplomatic train wreck. abe, as you mentioned, is one of the few leaders who had been outside of trump's withering criticism. that was a relationship that seemed to be semifunctional and now it is in the trash bin like so many others. of course, there are major consequences here. trump has wanted to do a bilateral trade deal with japan. reports are that they are less willing to do that than ever before. they are readying sanctions to levy against the united states in the case that we restart talk of putting tariffs on automobiles. and of course, let's remember that just a month or so ago we were talking about the blossoming of a potential nuclear deal with north korea. the fact of the matter is that's on hold and you can't get

anywhere with north korea without japan. there's also reports, new reports that japan may be holding secret talks with the north koreans. why? because they don't think they can trust the united states to act on their behalf, to represent their interests in the conversation with north korea. they're preparing to cut a side deal which is very bad for the united states. very bad for south korea. one of the few relationships that seem to be half functional is no more. >> it's almost as if the theme is developing here, foreign countries don't trust donald trump. the japanese are cutting a side deal possibly with north korea because they don't trust the president's stability on the issue. the south koreans don't trust the president's stability on the issue and have also been unilaterally talking. and in talking about north korea, we now, i understand, military exercises, reports are that military exercises are going to be moving forward. it seems like donald trump's

assurance that we never had to worry about a nuclear north korea, that those days were over. that's been completely brushed aside and we're now in a worse position than we were when he went and met with kim. where are we? >> so kim effectively got everything he wanted, right? he got a photo op with the leader of the world's most powerful country, legitimized his regime in some way, shape or form in the world's eye. and he got a cancellation of military exercises. what he also got was a halt in some of the progress that was being made to build up multilateral international sanctions on north korea. trump and his folks had been doing a decent job in convincing some other countries to join us in sanctions and all of that momentum is stopped. now, the alternative, of course, is war with north korea. to the extent that there has been a general cooling of relations because of that conversation, you can't chalk up the entire experience to the

downside. but kim is celebrating because he's got less pressure on him militarily, less pressure on him economically and he's had to give up nothing as a trade-off. >> senator, we can go down the list of countries, allies and we just did go down a partial list, china, japan. now we can include, mexico, canada, half of europe in terms of nations that we deal with regularly in trade. and of course, you know, i know and all americans know because the president told us so, trade wars are really easy to win. we found that out. but i'm wondering, there was a small item in "the wall street journal" two days ago that indicated that the united states government is ready to disperse more than $4 billion to american farmers who have been hurt soy bean because of the tariffs on soy beans, over $4 billion to be reimbursed for a tariff policy that the president implemented

that he seemingly has no control of pulling in. >> yeah. this is just an insane way to run trade policy. it's akin to punching your neighbor in the face and then going to the store to buy him medication and band aids. you shouldn't have done it in the first place. that's what trump is doing to american farmers. he's hurting them with these sanctions. there is really no plan to ultimately win a trade war in the long run. and then he's trying to compensate them with payoffs in the short term. i would argue in large part to try to stem the political damage to republicans. i would be shocked if these subsidies ended up in a lot of states that have a bunch of democratic senators. so -- and i think by and large republicans and democrats recognized this is a pretty miserable way to run economic policy. >> senator, this is sam stein.

perhaps outside of that informal window where he is not supposed to present something before the election, has the senate or is there talk in the senate of sending mueller a formal request for that preliminary report? >> i have not heard any talk of making a formal request. i think that would probably have to come, you know, from the leadership or at least from a bipartisan group. the reason why i think it's important is that i get a little uncomfortable when we have these conversations about the ill legitimacy of a president because of a pending investigation. i think that congress has in its power the ability to do something about a president that we don't think can legitimately carry out the functions of that office, its impeachment. short of that it's hard to say

the president can do this but he can't do that. with the cohen indictment, the manafort conviction, i think the special counsel should think of showing us some of these cards. he clearly has other routes to go. his investigation is not done. it worries me a little bit that as the evidence mounts that there may have been some serious wrong doing in the white house. we'll have to wait another six months, perhaps longer in order to have a conversation what to do about it internally. >> senator, before you go, give us your take, if you will, on what's happening in yemen? it's an ugly war. the united states has been involved, being supportive of what the saudis are doing there. what should the united states do moving forward? >> well, i appreciate you asking this question because it's the world's worst humanitarian ka catastrophe. we're bombing the country leaving thousands of civilian deaths. two weeks ago, our joint bombing

campaign hit a school bus, 40 kids died. we talked about all the alliances that we fractured. interestingly, the one that has held together is the alliance with saudi arabia. it's stronger than ever before. trump has basically given the saudis a blank check to intervene in the civil war inside yemen supporting this bombing campaign that is getting more and more disastrous by the day and also making al qaeda and isis inside yemen stronger. they are growing stronger as the civil war gives them a vacuum to grow. so, i think there is growing resistance to the united states participating in this campaign in the united states senate. we have taken a few close votes to pull us out of this. and i expect that some time in the fall we'll have another weapon sale to saudi arabia that may not be able to get 50 votes in the united states senate. you have to ask, why is your relationship pulling apart with europe, with japan and holding together with saudi arabia?

is there another story there that we need to understand? >> all right. senator chris murphy, thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it. still ahead, at least one republican senator is wishing jeff sessions the best after news that president trump has revived talks about firing his attorney general. we're going to have that new reporting straight ahead on "morning joe." raight ahead on "morning joe." why did i want a crest 3d white smile?

dinner date...meeting his parents dinner date. so i used crest. crest 3d white removes... ...95% of surface stains in just 3 days... ...for a whiter smile... that will win them over. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life.

you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels

until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia.

i have total confidence in the attorney general. i think he ought to stay exactly where he is. >> so that's majority leader mitch mcconnell. at least he is voicing support for attorney general jeff sessions. but the lines are being drawn in the u.s. senate between president trump and sessions, with several republicans, including session's former home state colleague saying his time is running out. quote, nothing lasts forever, senator richard shelby of alabama told "the washington post." describing the trump/sessions dynamic as, quote, a toxic relationship. senator roy blunt of missouri said, quote, we wish the best for him but as any

administration would show, cabinet members seldom last the entire administration. and this is clearly not an exception. other republican senators are actually rallying around jeff sessions and they're urging him to stay on. nbc news is confirming a "wall street journal" report that five republican senators, including four members of the judiciary committee had breakfast with sessions at the department of justice just last thursday as the president launched a blisteringry new waves of attacks. meanwhile, "the washington post" reporting earlier this month that president trump privately revived the idea of firing the attorney general in a conversation with his aides and his personal lawyers. according to three people familiar with the discussions, trump's attorneys concluded that they have persuaded him, for now, not to make such a move while the special counsel investigation of russian interference in the 2016

election is continuing. let's bring in right now the investigative reporter for the washington post and msnbc contributor carol leonnig. carol, so tell us about the meeting. donald trump back and forth, back and forth. he wants to fire sessions. then he backs off. based on your reporting, it sounds like he was ready to pull the trigger again but was dissuaded by some people very close to him. take us behind the sacenes. let us know what happened. >> that's right, joe. it feels like summer 2017 is all over again and 2018. you may remember that there was a weekend late july 2017 where the president was almost taunting jeff sessions to quit, trying to humiliate him publicly. now here we are in late august and the president is also tweet scolding at the attorney general again. what we learned, my colleagues and i at "the washington post"

and reported last night was that the president has raised this issue again, that he desperately wants to fire sessions. he's sick of him. he's tired of him and he's called him some names behind the scenes. and his lawyers have tried to talk him out of this and believe that for now they've convinced him to hold back. but as my great colleagues also discovered, there are a lot of senators now that have basically resigned themselves to the idea that the president is going to act. and some of them are just praying that they can hold him back from firing sessions until after the midterms. you may remember that lindsey graham really raised some eyebrows last week when he said this is pretty much going to happen after the midterms, i hope. >> jeremy peters with the new york times is with us and has a question. jeremy. >> good morning, carol. i think it's a sign of how tribal this republican party has become that just a year ago when

trump was threatening to fire jeff sessions or tormenting him on twitter, republicans, conservatives, evangelical leaders wrote a letter, no, president trump, don't do this. this is a line should not cross. obviously that support has significantly eroded. i'm wondering what you're picking up the extent to which sessions is trying to build a network of support, people who -- lawmakers, religious leaders, allies of the trump movement to protect his job and whether or not those are just falling on deaf ears at this point. >> you know, it's interesting, jeremy, your question because i think the sea has shifted so much since last summer. and even since earlier this summer the wall has essentially crumbled and jeff sessions is telling his wonderful defenders at one point earlier this month that he's demoralized and

looking for a graceful exit. so, he's holding on but barely and the people who you would have expected to be to be again president's move are saying that they can't hold on any longer. i find it interesting that senate republicans who had wanted to protect sessions are now giving up and his lawyers are the ones who are trying to protect the president himself, not sessions and basically say it's not okay to just hold off until after the mid terms. you have to hold off until the investigation is concluded. remember that this could be interpreted according to rudy giuliani's warning to the president -- this could be interpreted by robert mueller as another effort to thwart a probe. there is no secret the president is angry with jeff sessions.

it is because he recused himself and didn't take control of the russia investigation and he blames him for the ongoing endless investigation. >> obstruction of justice, the firing of an fbi director because of the russian investigation and the firing of your attorney general because of the russian investigation. that is pretty strong evidence. thank you so much. jeremy peters, we appreciate you being with us. coming up, did the president trade his early morning executive time for some late night tv viewing? a story on fox news last night inspired the president to go after china. this morning beijing is responding. we'll talk about that ahead on "morning joe." that ahead on "morning joe."

at at&t innovations, we give you more for your thing. here were adding tv and movies from our unlimited plan to the powerful new samsung galaxy note9... ...the perfect device for entertainment & productivity. so, it's essentially the ed helms of devices? how so? well he's both very entertaining and very productive. you think? yeah, i do. and that's my completely unbiased opinion. buy a galaxy note9 and get one free. more for your thing. that's our thing.

"have you lost weight?" of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go. at national, i can lose the wait...and keep it off.

looking good, patrick. i know. (vo) go national. go like a pro. (vo) ovewhelming air fresheners can send you running. so try febreze one. with no aerosols and no heavy perfumes. so you can spray and stay. febreze one.

this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today.

do you think that hillary clinton would have gotten away with the same stuff that donald trump has gotten away with in terms of the controversy? >> i think if she became president i think she would get away with a lot more because she would be the first woman president. people would bend over backwards to help her i am sure. i would be one of them. >> just like -- everybody just was so easy on hillary clinton, weren't they? >> it's not like we still aren't talking about her e-mails to this day almost two years into donald trump's presidency. that is absolutely ridiculous. you look at what donald trump is getting away with on a daily basis just in terms of his own family operating from the white house and that he stopped construction on the new facade of the fbi because he didn't

want it to effect the view of the trump hotel in washington, d.c., that they are still raking in members of the trump family millions of dollars from that hotel, not even counting the other various interests and there are plenty of them. conflict of interest is something that this administration and connected to the trump family is not shy on. it is absolutely ridiculous to think that hillary clinton would have gotten a pass because she is a woman. >> it is staggering what donald trump is getting a pass on when you talk about that story about his trump hotel. we are talking about that next hour. also, hillary clinton in my life at least -- i have lived 55 years. i have never seen a former presidential candidate continue to be skewered and treated as badly as hillary clinton still is almost two years after that election. so i'm not exactly sure what

alternative history oren hatch was looking at but he is way off. we are live with the reaction that two of the most watched races in the country and the results were unbelievable including we are talking about the two women vying to represent arizona in the senate and an upset in the primary battle for governor of the state of florida. that one shocked even democrats in that state. "morning joe" will be right back. "morning joe" will be right back.

♪ call on me brother ♪ when you need a hand ♪ lean on me, when you're not strong ♪ ♪ and i'll be your friend ♪ ♪ i'll help you carry on ♪ ♪ lean on me ♪ mmm... ♪ lean on me... ♪ mmm... ♪ lean on me.

if you look at a real catastrophe like coot cokatrinau look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds of people that died, what is your death count

as of this moment? >> 16. >> 16 people versus in the thousands you can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. 16 versus literally thousands of people. everybody around this table and everybody watching can be very proud of what has taken place in puerto rico. >> it's important to remember, it was obviously a world ending tragedy for the families of the 16 or 17 people who died. according to the president, a death toll in the thousands would be shameful, he said. we now know that 2,975 people died on that american island following hurricane maria. plus, the president was once again up after midnight tweeting. he was tweeting about the fbi

once again that official statement was apparently based on something that he had seen on fox news. and bob mueller wouldn't be the special counsel if president trump had not fired jim comey. so what is the consolation prize to sacking attorney general jeff sessions as the president has been discussing? i don't know that the president wants to know that. good morning and welcome to "morning joe" on this wednesday. we have mike barnacle, politics editor for the daily beast sam stein. and former aid to the george w. bush. steve kornacki is here. he has a forthcoming book, "the red and the blue" coming out october 2. also in washington, former chairman of the republican national committee michael

steel. why don't we start with yesterday's important news out of florida and arizona where they held their primary races. in florida, tallahassee mayor andrew gillum narrowly won the nomination for governor. what an upset that was. i saw commercial after commercial after commercial for all the other candidates. he actually becomes the first black major party candidate for governor in the state's history, in florida history. gillum will be facing off against the trump backed congressman ron desantos. think about how that will set up. steve kornacki, what an upset this was. if you were down in florida -- i

was down in florida and saw ads for a couple of weeks -- you didn't see his ads. you saw ads from everybody else. how did this happen? where did he come from? let's just talk about the battle lines that have been drawn in two deep south states where i have lived, georgia and florida, both states you have black democrats, medicare for all, progressive candidates going against hard core right wing trumpistas all the way in for donald trump. how does that set up for the fall? >> each base you look at, each got what it wanted last night. one thing that is staggering to me is all the votes -- even at

that point last night there was something close to 1.5 million votes cast in the democratic side in that primary. that was up from somewhere around 850,000 last time. there were more than 1.6 million on the republican side. i was going back. i could not find an example where you had the turnout in both parties that high over 3 million combined votes at least cast between the two paerrties. how did the gillum thing happen? the money wasn't there for him. the polls weren't there for him again. he was never in first place or second place in any polls. the energy was there. the grass roots energy was there. this is somebody who ran to the left and positioned himself to the left. certainly the left of graham. she followed the traditional model of florida politics. she tried to position herself a little more in the center with

an eye towards appealing to the swing voters. gillum ran to her left. he talked about impeaching trump and abolishing i.c.e. bernie sanders came and campaigned for him. there was energy there. when you looked at it last night the political geography of the victory for gillum. he was winning in south florida and miami dade and some of the rural panhandle areas where graham was supposed to be winning. he was rolling up numbers in jacksonville and orlando, tampa, all around the state he was showing strength last night. >> if you looked at the amount of money that green put into that race, he spent millions and millions. so many democratic party insiders were sure he was going to buy that election. the polls looked like he had a chance. they get to the voting booth and it seems like democrats knew

what they wanted and what they didn't want. talk about how november is going to set up here. this is cliff diving for both democrats and republicans. we can have the first two black governors elected in deep south states. douglas wilder won in virginia. in the deep south we can have two progressive black governors in deep south states where george wallace did great in '8 8 and '72 or you can have a massive victory for donald trump in both of those states where two people that have totally bought into the trump personality cult, even dressing their babies in make america great again t shirts and

bragging about it and whisperring build that wall to their young infants, that is about as stark a contrast as you can get. >> you are so right. you can't set this baby up any better than that. it is going to be a barn burner of an election across the deep south in georgia and florida. and then you have to also look at maryland where you have another african-american male progressive in ben jealous running against incumbent republican larry hogan in a state that is 2-1 democrat. hogan is sitting with 70% plus job approval. you see the dynamic where voters will have to make real stark choices. what i find interesting about this is what bernie sanders and the bernie sanders team just put it large nationally has been able to do. they try to identify candidates, definitely progressive, very clearly stated, no holding back

and running to the left of the democratic party and is pushing the party and forcing its hand as we saw with the race in florida to come to grips with having to rally around a progressive agenda that writ large again a lot of democrats may not be sold on. that is an opening for republicans. you will see the narrative emerge. gillum is someone people do not know across florida outside of maybe strong democratic circles necessarily. so there will be a lot of examination about him which would make this a very interesting race. >> let's go to arizona. it is on the cusp of electing its first female senator in a race to fill jeff flake's u.s. senate seat. congress woman won the democratic nomination.

martha mcsally defeated former state senator kelly ward and sheriff joe arpaio. trump posted to twitter at 12:44 a.m. washington time martha mcsally running in the arizona primary for the u.s. senate was endorsed by rejected senator jeff flake and turned it down, a first. nbc news captured video of mcsally reading and reacting to the president's tweet in which he appears to say oh, no. earlier she refused to comment on flake's service to the state. >> you are looking to replace jeff flake. he wins and represented the state for 18 years. what do you think of jeff flake? >> today is about the next senator for this state. you guys can make the

comparisons. you guys can sort that out. >> so let's -- heidi, obviously the republican party has changed a great deal since donald trump started running, since donald trump got elected. that is the sort of thing you would never see in the past where a candidate wouldn't talk about a man who served the state honorab honorably. talk about arizona and how arizona may have avoided -- the arizona republican party -- may have avoided a disaster in the fall and actually moved away from the person who was desperately trying to tie herself to donald trump. >> this is the best possible outcome for republicans. if anyone showed us how to walk this tight rope of trying to not completely embrace donald trump but trying not to alien ate it

was martha mcsally. she did not endorse him when he was running for president. she did not alienate him, either. she tightened her position on immigration. she will be running against sinema who is a moderate. i think this race will be a very good test of whether or not someone like martha mcsally can survive in the end having somewhat aligned herself with trump in this race because it is so close. i think it will expose one of the really under covered stories of the 2016 election which was just how close the democrats came in some of these traditionally red states. in arizona hillary clinton only lost by about 3.4 percentage

points. if the democrats can do a good job of tying martha mcsally despite her efforts to walk the tight rope to trump and really gen up the turnout it is possible they can pull off an upset even though prognosticators are saying given traditional patterns mcsally may have the early advantage. >> we will be circling back to where we started, the devastation in puerto rico. nearly 3,000 people are dead in the wake of hurricane maria. that, according to a new research report out of george washington university. we will show you how the white house is reacting to that shocking report. first, here is a check of the forecast. >> you ever hear urban heat island? look at the heat index in new york city. it feels like 87 degrees to start the morning. washington, d.c. at 85. all the pavement and buildings, the temperatures don't cool that

much. new york city didn't go below 80 degrees last night. it broke the record for the record high minimum temperature. usually a 78 is the highest it had been at nighttime. all of this leads to a very hot condition this afternoon. boston this could be the hottest day of the summer, 99 degrees with a heat index of 101. everyone in the southeast is above 100, too. the only one getting relief is chicago towards kansas city because of thunderstorms. flooding in wisconsin yesterday was horrible. now we are watching thunderstorms rolling through southern illinois. a lot of lightning in central missouri. yesterday we had a lightning fatality with a fishermen. your travel map is hot and sticky in the northeast. i haven't mentioned much about the west because it is nearly perfect today and tomorrow from denver to san francisco. everyone is looking pretty nice for all your travel needs.

new york city 96 degrees was our hottest temperature on july 1. we have a chance of equaling or beating that. hottest day of the summer possibly. you're watching "morning joe." you're watching "morning joe." ♪ it's the final days of the ford summer sales event. ♪ there are only a few days left to take advantage of great deals like zero percent financing for sixty months on the built ford tough f-150. so hurry and save big on ford, america's best-selling brand. get zero percent financing for sixty months plus twenty-eight hundred bonus cash on a 2018 f-150 xlt equipped with 2.7 liter ecoboost.

ayep, and my teeth are yellow.? time for whitestrips. crest glamorous white whitestrips are the only ada-accepted whitening strips proven to be safe and effective. and they whiten 25x better than a leading whitening toothpaste. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life. (door bell rings) it's ohey. this is amazing. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, are you okay? even when i was there, i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira can help get, and keep uc under control when other medications haven't worked well enough. and it helps people achieve control that lasts. so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure.

before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, control is possible. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected.

and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. it's been almost a year since hurricane maria left puerto rico absolutely devastated, wiped out. now a new study estimates the death toll is much higher than initial government numbers. the report from george washington university estimates that nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath of the storm. that's dramatically higher than previous official counts. the last one was just 64. the storm ripped through puerto rico last september destroying homes and leaving so much of the

island without power for months. with us now from san juan, puerto rico nbc news correspondent. can you tell us more? >> reporter: we are here outside of puerto rico's main morgue. the government had brought in refrigerated trailers here months ago to hold dozens of unclaimed bodies. this study from george washington university basically confirmed what many people here in puerto rico had known for a very long time that the government count of just 64 dead from this hurricane just wasn't enough. instead now governor just upd e updated the figure following the release of the report to 2,975 estimated deaths. that makes hurricane maria the deadliest u.s. natural disaster in more than 100 years. we have spoken with several families that talked to us about how in the weeks and months following the storm their loved ones were trapped without power. that is some of the things that

this study took into account. here is katrina, one of the women we spoke with about losing her mother weeks after the storm after she went to a local e.r. >> she asked me to send her one of those battery fans if i could get it to her from here. i said okay. i will, i promise. she died two days later. i wanted an autopsy because i knew that she died because of the neglect. >> reporter: if you recall, president trump visited puerto rico just a few weeks after the storm and rated the federal response a ten at the time and also said he was proud of what was happening here in puerto rico. the white house released a statement after the release of this george washington university report last night saying the president continues to be proud of the federal

effort here and will be a part of puerto rico's recovery. the mayor of san juan has been an outspoken critic of the federal response here. that did not sit well with her. take a listen. >> shame on the white house and shame on the president. all he had to say is i'm sorry that 2,975 of you died. that's all he had to say. he is incapable of doing that. >> reporter: today happens to be the 13th anniversary of hurricane katrina. now with this updated death toll it is 60% higher or so than the death toll back from hurricane katrina. still a lot of outrage here almost a year after hurricane maria. the power has been restored. it was just restored several weeks ago to the entire island. still a lot of outrage following the release of this report. >> thank you so much.

coming up on "morni ing joe" president trump was up late tweeting about election meddling, not about russia and his campaign but rather about china and hillary clinton. what inspired the early morning rant from the president? take a guess. we'll tell you next. esident? take a guess. we'll tell you next. hey allergy muddlers. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it's starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®.

to me, he's, phil micwell, dad.o golfer. so when his joint pain from psoriatic arthritis got really bad, it scared me. and what could that pain mean? joint pain could mean joint damage. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, helps stop irreversible joint damage, and helps skin get clearer. enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common, or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. since enbrel, dad's back to being dad.

visit enbrel.com and use the joint damage simulator to see how your joint damage could be progressing. ask about enbrel. enbrel. fda approved for over 15 years. (vo) ovewhelming air fresheners can send you running. so try febreze one. with no aerosols and no heavy perfumes. so you can spray and stay. febreze one. when did you see the sign? when i needed to jumpstart sales. build attendance for an event.

help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage. and got them back on track. get started at fastsigns.com.

a new theme song for donald trump. it is after midnight. that is because donald trump was awake and tweeting again after midnight in the white house claiming without evidence that china -- so there was a fat guy in jersey in his mother's basement that donald trump said was hacking hillary clinton's e-mails. of course, you had his intel agencies telling him russia hacked the e-mails. now donald trump without evidence suggesting that maybe china hacked hillary clinton's e-mails and the president actually demanded that the fbi

and the d.o.j. better make a move or their credibility will forever be gone. the president's tweet appears to be in response to a daily caller report that received coverage last night on fox news. in beijing the chinese foreign ministry responded saying that it is not the first time we have heard such accusations. i don't know how many times donald trump's intel chiefs have to tell him, dan coats, the director of national intelligen intelligence, wray running the fbi, you go down the list, they have all told him the same thing. our democracy is in the cross hairs because of russian interference in our elections. everybody in his government says

it's the russians. and he is saying maybe it is the chinese. >> joe, it is almost like he is really desperate for it not to have been the russians who hacked the election and who interfered in the election. i don't know why he has such a chip on his shoulder about it being the russians and he would far prefer it literally be any other country on earth. >> it is unbelievable. mike barnacle, this is a president who knows it's the russians. everybody in the administration says it is the russians, intel agencies warn him it is the russians. the united states military warns him that it is the russians. the intel community warns him that it is the russians. he goes from a fat guy in jersey to the chinese. it's sad and it is pathetic. i wonder at what point do people who support donald trump say

wait a second, not only do i not like the guy's tweets, but i hate the fact that america's national security, america's democracy is in the crosshairs of russia and vladimir putin. >> the odds on that happening are zero because there has been enough opportunities for republican members especially of the united states senate -- let's forget the house. republican members of the united states senate to stand up in the face of something obvious that has been pointed out by everyone. this country has been under attack with russia. russia has declared war on us. it is a cyber war but they declared war on us. what we see here again in that late night tweet from the president of the united states is the continuing distance that he takes in driving down the road with normalcy in the rear

view mirror. and it just continues day after day after day. >> we will be getting live reports from two key battle ground states, arizona and florida. we have kasie hunt and alley vitally joining us with new reaction to the primary results. "morning joe" will be right back. lts. "morning joe" will be right back. are you taking the tissue test?

yep, and my teeth are yellow. time for whitestrips. crest glamorous white whitestrips are the only ada-accepted whitening strips proven to be safe and effective. and they whiten 25x better than a leading whitening toothpaste. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life.

we really pride ourselves on making it easy for you >> tech: at safelite autoglass, to get your windshield fixed. with safelite, you can see exactly when we'll be there. saving you time for what you love most. >> kids: whoa! >> kids vo: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪

so president trump weighed in just moments ago on last night's primary results. he tweeted big election wins last night. the republican party will make america great again. it is happening faster than anybody thought possible. it is morphing into keep america great! with us now to talk about the president's tweets in last night's elections in phoenix,

kasie hunt. and in orlando, florida msnbc political reporter alley vitally. florida more of an outright win for donald trump. his candidate won. in arizona, i guess you can call it a split decision. the candidate that was most identified with donald trump along with joe arpaio both lost. >> reporter: they did both lose. if it had been just one of them it would have been a much closer race. this morning it is more about the president's sour grapes than about the win. martha mcsally last night was reading the president's tweet about her. it was focussed on the fact that in the president's tallying she rejected the endorsement of senator jeff flake. flake did not endorse in the race. he said he was going to support mcsally. he knows and has said that no

republican wanted his endorsement in the race. when she was asked about it she said it was up to the media to sort out whether or not she was going to say she admired jeff flake's service. clearly the president's focus is on how critical flake has been of him. he called him a reject. flake decided he couldn't win this republican primary without running in a way he felt wasn't true to himself mostly over issues of immigration. the president still dominating out here. i think the big question going forward, mcsally will face a very tough race and a tough competitor in sinema. all of those national issues we talk about every day will be on sharp display here as the senate race unfolds. >> it will be fascinating. thank you so much. in florida yesterday it was a clear cut win for the president. ron desantos clothed his baby in

trump clothes and read bed time stories about building walls to his toddlers. the man could not have embraced donald trump any tighter. he beat a guy who had been a political icon in the state of florida for two decades. >> reporter: that's kind of why it felt a little like the republican primary of 2016 to me as i was down here. you had a relative outsider in ron desantos who spent a lot of time on fox news getting the attention of the president. don jr. and the president campaigned for him. both are setting the tone. ron desantis said he thought andrew gillum was way too liberal for the state. take a look at what he had to say last night on fox. andrew gillum responding with you guys. >> mayor of tallahassee, his tenure has been disastrous.

tallahassee is one of the most crime ridden city in all of florida. he is embroiled in a lot of corruption scandals. this guy can't run the city of tallahassee. there is no way voters can entrust him with 94 tientire st sdplmpt with. >> what we have been talking about are issues that concern every day people. we talk about what it means to pay people a wage they can live on. we spoke about access as a right and not a privilege. we talk about real criminal justice reform. these were issues that showed up for us time and time again. education. florida right now average teacher pay is the 45th lowest of all 50 states. we are the third largest state in america and back in the pack on some of the most important issues. ron desantis can talk about race

and liberalism. i will be focussed on the issues that face every day floridians. i believe that will allow us to carry this thing to victory on november 6. >> reporter: look, in conversations i had it sounded like they were prepared to go against graham. polls don't always bear this out. the gillum team had said to us that they were seeing a surge and clearly they were right. >> they clearly were. what a shocker in florida. thank you so much. ca kasie hunt, thank you. let's bring in the editorial director for the washington examiner and nbc news' katy tur. the paperback version of her book "unbelievable" is out now. my front row seat to the

craziest campaign in american history and the craziest 18 months that followed the craziest campaign in american history. there are a lot of people that have been wondering. one political analyst said the matchup between donald trump and bernie sanders would have been far more interesting because you would have had working-class voters on the left and working-class voters on the right and working-class voters in the middle picking from two populist messages. here it looks like we may have that matchup in florida with a trump apostle and a bernie apostle. >> i think that is absolutely right. i think that there are a lot of people who supported bernie sanders who felt cheated of their candidate. now there is the opportunity in florida. andrew gillum is clearly to the left. he campaigned against i.c.e. he has strongly redistributive

policies. on the other hand desantis who beat mr. putnam by 20 points is very much embracing donald trump. he has the advantage of the fact that president trump is more popular in florida than many other swing states. even though i think he has problems against gillum and embracing trump not as great as if he were in other swing states that president trump won in 2016. >> it was unbelievable when you covered it, the trump campaign. it was unbelievable when you wrote the book about the trump campaign. it is still unbelievable -- >> is that clever? >> part of the thing the entire trump element that i think is really truly astounding and unbelievable is the depth to which donald trump has managed to change the branding, the nature of an entire political party. >> i think you have hit the nail

on the head. i think what is so striking when you look back at 2016 when you read the book and it is all in real time is how uncomfortable the republican party was with donald trump during 2016, how uncomfortable they were during the primaries when donald trump was going after their establishment, going after john mccain and ted cruz and going after marco rubio. the name calling, the way that he didn't know anything about policy, what he was willing to say unabashedly on stage. they were deeply uncomfortable with it until he got the nomination. then you saw a lot of republicans finding a way to justify support for him. even then the access hollywood tape came out. everybody said we can't have this. you have to look back on the time. 50 former and current lawmakers said they wouldn't vote for him or they would just stay home.

and now today what you seeing is this full throated embrace of donald trump by the vast majority of the republican party. he is more popular than george bush was after the invasion of iraq. he is not only -- the people who were pushing back against him are people who are leaving the senate. there are profiles in pretreat. the republican party is the party of donald trump especially when you look at what lindsey graham is saying about jeff sessions. last year you would never hear that from lindsey graham. grassley is saying we will make time for hearings to talk about a new a.g. that is completely stunning. >> it extends into these view points. for instance, the republican party is predominantly a free trade party but then with trump it sort of morphed into a party

that is fine or comfortable with the concept of tariffs. we will entertain the idea of having government regulation of social media giants. it has created i think a kind of discomfort i think among the intellectual wing of the republican party including newspaper columnists in your own publication. for them they remain largely committed to these philosophical ideals. the party itself seems to be gravitating towards the president. >> i think what is happening here is there are newspapers like my own which support free trade and think that the president's trade policies are misguided and not huge supporters of the deal that was just announced and think there needs to be a trilateral deal including canada. at the same time on the conservative and republican side -- i make a distinction between the two things, i think one of the reasons why there has been an embrace of trump over

the last 18 months is the relentless campaign against trump. i don't believe as i think a lot of critics do that it is simple electoral cynicism even though the president is powerful in giving his endorsement. it is also the sense that the president is under siege and he is attacked. >> you do realize the republican party holds all the power. he might be under siege by some people but he has all the power. >> the way that donald trump is going after google right now and the democrats saying the democrats take over the house in november and will reverse all of donald trump's policies and he is warning against violence. it sounds like the end of 2016 when he was claiming there was a global conspiracy that was out to rig the elections by the elite and by hillary clinton and by the bankers around the world and who knows what sort of veiled message he was trying to

send although we think we know. it sounds like then. he was doing that back then and talking about rigged elections in pennsylvania and warning people off of it because he was scared he was going to lose. what he was nervous about was looking like a loser. he was trying to push off all the blame to another area. that is what is happening it seems to me right now. he realizes that november or at least believes that november will be bad for him. it will be bad for the republican party. what he is doing, he is trying to place the blame on everybody else. >> i want to follow up with something you guys said. so much of donald trump's power, so much in the power of republican candidates comes not from their defense of donald trump, but comes from anti-anti-trumpism. we were both lawmakers in the past, both run the ballots. right now this is just my

opinion, not as somebody with a political show. if i were running in 2018 as a democrat i wouldn't talk about donald trump because that is what -- i wouldn't put trump supporters in a corner. i wouldn't say if you support trump. you talk about the issues. you don't give them the opportunity to play the anti-anti-trump against you. you talk about the issues and say i'm concerned about illegal immigration, too. i don't think his policies is going to help out. i'm concerned -- you go down the check list and you don't act like the world is coming to an end even if you believe it is. i'm talking pure political cynicism. you make it about the issues. you ignore donald trump. i think you win elections that way. >> that's exactly how we won in 2010. a lot of folks if you go back and pay attention to what we

were saying, that election was not about barack obama. it wasn't fire obama. it was fire pelosi. it wasn't about barack obama being a muslim or being born outside of the united states. it was about health care. to your exact point, making the conversation about something that is closest to the people where you don't raise the visceral protective instincts particularly among democrats to protect the democratic president or among republicans to protect the republican president but rather speak to their self interests. donald trump is all about himself. that's exactly what he is doing right now. he is using the pieces on the chessboard to protect himself. he doesn't care about the congress flipping to republicans. he didn't care about what happens down the road. he is concerned about this moment right now and the embarrassment that comes from

it. that quick question to you, what do you find to be so still unbelievable after two years of donald trump in office? >> i think it is unbelievable that he still is able to, i think, get away with what he does, it's maybe not the right way to describe it. but he hasn't hit any sort of wall where there are consequences for his actions or for his words. i mean, we saw the flag controversy the other day. the american legion coming out and pressuring him to lower the flag again. but that's something that's just going to be forgotten in the next few days, once the mccain funeral is over. everything is immediately forgotten within the next few days and he seems to plug away and his approval ratings are still high. so, for me, i think, michael, all of the controversy and drama of 2016, if you read the book,

it's exactly what's happening today. >> buy that book. >> all right. katy, thank you so much "unbelievable is now out in paperback and we'll see you also at 2:00 p.m. eastern weekdays on msnbc. and one more thing, i talked about how politicians should respond to donald trump in 2018. again, following up on what hugo said, it is so important that the media follows the advice of "the washington post" and don't go to war over the next two months. just go to work and report the facts as they are. coming up next, devin nunes doesn't have the best relationship with america's intel community. and apparently, it's not much better with foreign spies either. and those details, next, on "morning joe." ght? wrong. your insurance company is gonna raise your rate after the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen.

maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different insurance company. for drivers with accident forgiveness liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty ♪ sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. and now, all beds are on sale. it's the last chance to save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends labor day. my mom washes the dishes... ...before she puts them in the dishwasher. so what does the dishwasher do? new cascade platinum does the work for you, prewashing and removing stuck-on foods, the first time. wow, that's clean! new cascade platinum.

if your moderate to severeor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. tell your doctor if you have an infection experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio®. if your uc or crohn's treatment isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio®.

entyvio®. relief and remission within reach. mom: okay we need to get all your school supplies today... school... grade... done. done. hit the snooze button and get low prices on school supplies all summer long. like this case of paper for only $29.99 at office depot officemax. so, there's some interesting news and some new reporting from natasha bertrand at the "the atlantic" about about house intel committeeman devin nunes. nunes went for intel on chris steele. natasha reports that he requested meetings ahead of three british intel agencies but they never met with him. they were wary that he was, quote, trying to stir up

controversy. and with the justice department's go-to man against russia's organized crime. bruce orr who donald trump has targeted for firing. the president has repeatedly targeted orr in his attacks against the doj. yesterday, orr spent eight hours testifying behind closed doors in the gop probe into origins of the investigation. and paul manafort in a deal with his upcoming second trial but the talks broke down. now, a delay in the trial as some questioning whether a deal can still be in the works. we're joins by msnbc analyst dan danny sa syvelle lows. >> and quietly the lawyers are still talking behind the scenes trying to make this happen. manafort, his trial has been delayed for a week. what's the possibility they're still talking?

>> it's possible, on the one hand, after a trial like manafort just went through, the attorneys are exhausted. it is all-encompassing. it's the only thing you do, 24 hours a day, while you're on trial. so, it's not surprising that the same attorneys might ask for a continue wans ance or an adjourf the next trial. on the other hand, they may be discussing plea talks. manafort may simply want to plead guilty and maybe knock off a few charges in his washington case. and the government in the form of mueller some having that or they're playing hard ball because they know they can. they've got contradictions under heir belt. they know manafort is losing the war his sources are deleted and mueller has the high hand. in this case, manafort may be

looking to plead guilty or straight up. or, he's looking for a cooperation agreement, but that would require weeks if not months for the government to vet. >> i can't imagine how exhausted manafort and his attorneys are, what they've just been through, facing a washington trial. then facing the possibility of a retrial on those ten charges. i think this is -- and trump dch may pardon him for one crime or two crimes. you get the sense the feds will just keep coming at him because he has so much. he has a rich body of work that federal investigators will always be interested in. so, we were talking earlier alise, about donald trump perhaps one of the swampier stories that's not getting too much attention. and that is, donald trump using his power as president to stop renovation at fbi headquarters because he didn't like how it might look from his trump hotel. >> well, joe, i think this is a story that has the potential to

be pretty explosive as more details come to knowledge. just that donald trump was personally involved in discussions about the future of the fbi headquarter. and the fbi had been arguing that they

it's not good for the presidency. it's not good for the country. but it seems to be the way that it's going. so, danny, you know, i keep up,

i admit i keep up with what's going on by watching great minds like you but also by reading things like law fair to try to figure out exactly where we are in this mueller probe. where do you see us, from 30,000 feet? >> that's a hard question. but the manafort verdict and the grants of immunity last week were c changing moments for me. i see the mueller team looking somewhat at russia, but trump, his team, his functions and those around him. >> all right. thank you so much for being with us, danny. we'd like to thank the entire panel. and most of all, we'd like to thank you for watching. as i always say, thank you for your patience, greatly appreciated. stick around, though, chris jansing is with us. and she's reporting on the election results from last night, chris. wow. >> yeah. >> setting up pretty extraordinary races this