have gone on the assumption that something good is happening, because remember, it's not just the trade deal with canada. it means that it might be an end to this trade war that president trump started. that wraps up this hour for me. a quick programming note. senator elizabeth warren will join ari melber on the beat on msnbc. i i will be back here at 11:00 eastern for the 11th hour. please join me. "deadline white house" with katy tur in for nicolle wallace starts right now. >> it's 4:00. i'm katy tur in for nicolle wallace. the white house is showing don mcgahn the door pushing out a central witness in robert mueller's justice investigation. he confirms imminent departure first reported this morning by axios. white house counsel don mcgahn will be leaving his position in the fall shortly after the confirmation hopefully of judge brett kavanagh to the u.s. supreme court. i have worked with don for a long time and truly appreciate

his service. only here's the thing. according to a new report from the washington post, though it was an open secret that mcgahn was preparing to leave the white house after kavanagh's confirmation process, mcgahn had never discussed his plans directly with trump, and he was not aware that trump planned to send that tweet before it was posted. according to a person close to mcgahn. mcgahn's anticipated departure is taking on a greater significance after a bombshell last week from "the new york times" underscored the extent of his cooperation with special counsel robert mueller. a report that rattled trump's lawyers who have admitted since to "the new york times" they don't know what mcgahn may have shared with mueller in testimony that is now believed to be critical to mueller's obstruction probe. the president nonetheless praising mcgahn this afternoon in the oval office. >> he's a good man, very good man. don? excellent guy. yeah, don mcgahn is a really

good guy. been with me for a long time. privately before this, he represented me. he's been here now, it will be almost two years and a lot of affection for don. he'll be moving on probably the private sector, maybe the private sector. and he'll do very well. but he's, he's done an exleapt job. >> any concern about what he said to the mueller probe? >> no, not at all. >> -- >> i knew he was going. i had to approve it. we didn't claim executive -- no, i don't have to be aware. we have -- we do everything straight. we do everything by the book. and don is an excellent guy. >> the president claims he's not worried, but, in fact, in his time at the white house mcgahn has been a central figure in flash points of trump's presidency. we now know mueller is closely examining, including the firings of james comey and michael flynn. attempts to fire robert mueller. pressure on attorney general

jeff sessions to retake control of the russia investigation. and concerns of witness tampering. in fact, mcgahn has long served as one of the guardrails protecting trump from his impulses to cross the line into the mueller probe by doing things like firing key officials. so it's curious timing that trump is nudging mcgahn out on the very day we're learning from the washington post that trump has recently revived the idea of firing jeff sessions, another key mueller witness. joining us now from the washington post white house bureau chief phil rucker and national political reporter robert costa, also moderator of washington week. and with me here at the table mimi rocca, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. and flugdrank figliuzzi, former assistant director for counter intelligence. frank, i want to start with you and i want to get a scene center. the president is pushing out don mcgahn who just sat for 30 hours

of testimony with robert mueller. don mcgahn, who was in the room or at least aware of all of these things regarding the firing of james comey, of mike flynn, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. don mcgahn, who was with him since june 2015, and the president says, no, i'm not worried. >> yeah, sounds good except it can't be true. you don't spend 30 hours being interviewed by the special counsel's office to simply shoot the breeze. this was the inside guy. this was the guy that tried to talk the president out of doing really stupid, possibly illegal things. what this provides to mueller is intention, intent to obstruct, why was it that he wanted the a.g. to recuse himself from the investigation? what was he thinking when he fired jim comey? is he dangling pardons before people and talking about it with mcgahn? this is the damage that he can do. >> is it better to have him in the white house still or to have him outside of the white house given all that? >> let's remember something.

the white house counsel works for us. you and me. doesn't work for the president. he's not his attorney. so in my opinion it would have been better to have him remain in place and continue to consult or be interviewed by the special counsel as opposed to having him now outside. i don't see the difference there. >> couldn't he -- i mean, go to mcgahn and say, hey, let's talk more about what you said in front of the special counsel. isn't it easier for the white house lawyers, for donald trump's lawyers to get to mcgahn if he's in the west wing still? >> well, mcgahn may very well have sent signals that he's not someone who can be gotten to and i think by going ahead and doing -- >> consulted at least, if not gotten to. >> right. but either way, i mean, mcgahn very likely was, you know, advised by mueller that he shouldn't talk to anyone about the testimony he gave. mcgahn is represented by bill burke who is a former southern district prosecutor and is very, you know, savvy and straight shooter. and my guess is told mcgahn not

to talk to anyone about his testimony. and so they probably wouldn't have given information, even if asked. and that may be why -- that may be one of the things that happened that mcgahn did testify for so many hours. you're not going to tell us about it? okay, see ya. >> robert, mitch mcconnell said it would be a sad day if it is true. it is true, the president tweeted about it. senator grassley also criticized the decision. he sent out a tweet, excuse me, saying i hope it's not true mcgahn is leaving white house counsel. you can't let that happen. so, robert, how did this all go down? >> there's a real sense of unease on capitol hill talking to my sources there in the last few hours because they see mcgahn as a link to traditional republicanism. he's a conventional figure inside of an unconventional white house. he's helped them stay steady as a party on one core area, on the judicial nominations even as there is disarray and

disagreement on the rest of the trump agenda. on that facet they've had agreement and he's had a close relationship with leader mcconnell and they've been able to get one and maybe even two in the coming weeks, supreme court justice nominees through. and now they're worried about how does that continue without mcgahn. >> how did it go down, though, in the white house? did mcgahn know -- it steams from the reporting mcgahn didn't know about this before it happened. >> that's correct. based on our reporting here at the post, mcgahn was not aware that the tweet was coming. it was well known that he would likely leave after the midterm elections, after kavanagh was confirmed, if confirmed in the coming weeks. the president has decided to do it on his own without consulting mcgahn first. but this is how the president often behaves and mcgahn's associates have been telling friends it's been death by twitter, announcement by twitter personnel wise for many people inside of this white house. and so it's not that surprising that's how it was for mcgahn. >> let us count all the folks that have been fired by tweets in this add mgts ministration s.

phil rucker, sarah huckabee sanders was asked if she knew this was happening and she said no. >> look, it's a question of whether there were plans, intentions for mcgahn to eventually leave at some point this fall after the midterm elections or after kavanagh. that was sort of the widely assumed and widely discussed inside the president's orbit. that's different than an actual departure announcement that the president tweeted. clearly the president decided to do that tweet on his own. he wanted to sort of leave his imprint on this personnel move. he doesn't like for people to leave on their own accords and their own time lines. he wants to be the one to show people to the door and we've seen it time and again. we saw it again today with mcgahn. >> so, phil, could this be the president being prompted by axios reporting and wanting to get a leg up on the idea that mcgahn might leave on his own accord? is this why his own white house communications staff doesn't even know about it? it seems like there are so often scenarios where we hear from

someone like sarah huckabee sanders or the like and the com staff, kellyanne conway, saying the president has confidence in somebody, or no, they're not going to fire a person, only for the president to send out a tweet a couple hours later. it seems like there is nobody in the loop in that white house except for the president and whoever he may be talking to from fox news. >> katie, i don't know what inspired the president to send that tweet this morning. he calls his own shots. the idea staff prepared these roll outs and have tweets draft ford him is preposterous. he sits there and decides sort of on a whim when he wants to make an announcement like this. that's what happened here. sure, it caught the staff by surprise. i don't think sarah sanders was doing anything intentionally trying to mislead the public or anything like that and saying this was not part of the plan. i don't think it was part of the plan until he decided to send that tweet this morning. >> let's talk about the intersection between robert mueller, jeff sessions and don mcgahn. we have this reporting from "the new york times" back in march. mcgahn carried out all the

president's orders and lobbied mr. sessions to remain in charge of the russia inquiry, according to two people with knowledge of the episode. mr. mcgahn was unsuccessful and the president erupted in anger in front of numerous white house officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect mr. -- protect him. mr. trump said he expected his top law officials protect him the way robert f. kennedy general did for his brother john f. kennedy and eric holder had for barack obama. then there was this idea that mcgahn was going to resign because the president was telling him to tell "the new york times" their reporting was not true and "the new york times" reported this very fact. >> right. so, you know, once again, trump is viewing his attorney general as someone who is supposed to protect him personally and he's viewing apparently the white house counsel as someone who is supposed to carry out his personal orders like this.

and neither of those things are true or the way that it should be. and the fact that both of these men -- whatever else you may agree or disagree they are doing or have done -- they both seem to be loyal to their office, right. sessions is no, i recused properly. this is what i'm doing. this is what the justice department guidelines require me to do. mcgahn is apparently taking the position that i am not going to carry out these, you know, ridiculous orders that trump is trying to impose on sessions to get him to unrecuse himself. and that's why one is sort of being forced out and one is likely to be fired. >> sessions is also somebody who is a witness in robert mueller's probe. it's not just mcgahn. >> yeah, so we're looking increasingly now at an unchecked president and no one left to even try to balance his actions out. and if that happens, the domino effect may start. so he's talking increasingly about getting rid of sessions. we're hearing prominent republican senators kind of

giving the blessing for that. and the danger signal to me is we're hearing people say, well, as long as he picks an attorney general who lets mueller finish. letting mueller finish is only half the equation. how you properly deal with mueller's report, mueller's potential request to subpoena the president for interview, mueller's potential request to indict a sitting president. if a new attorney general is there and he's a lackey for this president, look out. >> is it going to be a lackey for this president, phil? you already have senate republicans saying that sessions' firing is inevitable. what are the guardrails they are putting up to keep the president from putting in plagsce a lacke? i snow senatknow senator has ta it happening. ben sass says hold your horses, mr. president. >> it's all in the details. they have not revealed what the details of those guardrails. one point to add to what frank was listing was the issue of

resources, whether the new attorney general would fully fund the mueller operation, allow him to have the resources to have the staff and the researchability that he needs to complete his report. they can say they're going to let mueller complete the report, but then put up all sorts of obstructions to him doing the kind of work that he needs to do to finish out his mandate as the special counsel and there is a real danger there. and it's not something that very many of the senate republicans have articulated in full. you know, there is an expectation there would be a confirmation hearing for a new attorney general and i expect a number of these republican senators, especially sass, for example, to really drill down on this with the new attorney general and get them on the record on some of these points. but there is also speculation there could be a recess appointment, that trump could decide to replace the a.g. while congress is away during a recess before the elections or soon thereafter and therefore avoid senate confirmation. >> robert, what about this idea he has a new a.g. who doesn't

have to recuse himself? does that mean donald trump tries then to get rid of robert mueller and move this investigation into the d.o.j. proper? >> he could certainly move to get rid of the mueller investigation, but he's being warned by white house officials like mcgahn and members of the capitol hill republican party -- republica republicans on capitol hill to not do it before or after the mid terms. the president continues to vent behind the scenes to get rid of it. he wants more control, an attorney general who is not recused would give him that feeling even though that's not the reality. >> katy, we're one bad day and one bad tweet from a new attorney general who is going to try to dismantle everything mueller has done. i think mueller is increasingly sensitized to that. i think there are plans being put in place. what i call prosecutorial parachute with maybe sealed

cases tied up in those for certain state, u.s. state district attorney's offices and various u.s. attorneys around the states. the clock is ticking. something is going to happen. >> so they're going to pass things off you think maybe to places like the s.d.n.y.? >> i think that's the plan b. if mueller doesn't get sufficient time or he's so constrained that he can't do what he needs to do. >> does mueller take a hiatus the next two months before the elections? there's been debate about this. >> knowing what i know about mueller, having worked with him, he'll be sensitive to the fact that we have midterm elections coming, but he will not feel constrained by that. >> phil rucker, robert costa, thank you very much. mimi rocca, thank you as well. coming up, just hours after a stunning upset by a populist democrat in florida, his brand-new republican opponent, an accolade of president trump is already being accused of racism and what could end up being the most polarizing race in america. plus, legal advice foreign policy, the president could turn to his actual cabinet members

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68 days to the most consequential midterm elections in history. once again, florida is shaping up to be the epicenter of the political world. it is the most clear-cut referendum on donald trump november has to offer. a bernie sanders democrat named

andrew gillum and a donald trump republican named ron desantis. here's desantis today stepping in it as what many saw a racial dog whistle. >> he is an articulate spokesman for far left views. i watched the democrat debates. he performed bheter than the other people there. so we have to work hard to make sure that we continue, florida, going in a good direction. let's build off the success we've had on governor scott. the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. >> in response to immediate backlash, the desantis team said he was obviously talking about florida not making the wrong decision to embrace the socialist policies that andrew gillum espouses. to characterize it as anything else is absurd. it caused such an uproar fox

later made an on-air statement saying they don't condone that language. then last hour, gillum responded. >> that part wasn't lost on me. it's very clear that mr. desantis is taking a page directly from the campaign manual of donald trump. but i think he's got another thing coming to him if he thinks that in today's day and age florida voters are going to respond to that level of derision and division. they're sick of it. >> joining the table, journalist mara gay, member of the "the new york times" editorial board. rick stengel, under secretary of state for public diplomacy and jennifer rubin, opinion writer for the washington post also frank figliuzzi who is still here. fox news had to get on and say, hey, listen, we don't condone this kind of language. it's a pretty big deal when fox comes on and says that sort of thing. >> when you lose fox for a republican, you've gone around the bend. this is the problem with candidates like this and this is

why quite frankly i think it's wrong for us in the media to talk about these two candidates as if they're equal, one right, one left. desantis is a trumpite. he fans racial hatred, he fans fear of immigrants. and that i think is going to come out in the campaign because that's what these guys do and they can't help themselves. it is a question for the florida voters. it's a very diverse state, whether they're going to put up with this or not. women voters, college educated voters, i don't want that guy representing our state. >> do you buy the campaign's explanation this is not what everyone is thinking it is, it's absurd to think it could be racist? >> please, i mean, i think we're so far beyond that at this point. i think that it was clearly racist. the remark didn't even make any sense. it wasn't a rational argument or response to the conversation at hand, so it's almost like a colorful prosecutor throwing something out there and then the

judge having to say, please disregard that. yeah, right. it's already out there. and i just have to say i was shocked by fox news's statement. good for them. are we going to see more of that? i mean, they gave plenty of air time to president trump and his racist birther theory, so this is something new from them. but, you know, i think, frankly, pulling back here for a second, when all you have left to offer your constituents is racism, that's a disgrace. >> i think -- and this is interesting. i think what we should do is play the two ads between desantis and gillum and just look at the striking difference between the way gillum is trying to get his voters and the way desantis is trying to get voters. >> ron loves playing with the kids. >> build a wall. >> he reads stories. >> then mr. trump said, you're fired. i love that part. >> he's teaching madison to talk. >> make america great again. >> people say ron's all trump, but he is so much more.

>> big league. so good. >> my mother said the only thing in life you should ever ask for is a chance. so i want you know that if you give me the chance i'll not only be your nominee, but to be the next governor of the great state of florida that will make you proud every single day of the week. so i want y'all to join me on this mission and together we're going to take this state back, flip florida blue in 2018 and flip this country blue in 2020. >> rick, what do you think? >> well, i thought the desantis ad was a parody of what a saturday night live skit would be. you call florida the epicenter of american politics. it is the future of america. it is a purple state. it is diverse. what we have learned from donald trump is you can't play the game like you used to. gillum's ad is a little bit like a barack obama ad, a traditional

feel good democratic ad. that's not how campaigns are going to be any more. i mean, ron claim did his guide to how do you debate in 2018 and 2020. it's not like let it fly by, i'm going to rise above this. you can't do that any more. you have to go right at people. i think this is a fantastic experiment of what the future of american politics is like in florida. and you know, i hope it turns out for the progressives. >> there are so many independents in florida now and i wonder how independents categorize desantis and whether they find gillum more appealing. it is the bernie sanders accolade versus the trump accolade. >> you and i and all of us who are in this washington bubble and new york bubble think a lot about ideology. we categorize people center right, center left. i don't think that's how average voters look at these candidates. we learned that in 2006. we've forgotten it. i think they look at these two

people. which person do i feel more comfortable with representing my state? when there is the next hurricane, who do i feel more comfortable who is going to be in charge of the rescue efforts? and i think desantis' play to, i wouldn't call it low information voters. no information voters and his really condescending tone. he really thinks the voters are morons is not going to hold up well. when people vote for their governor, it's a serious vote. it's not fun and games. they do a lot. they affect your lives in many respects more than the federal office holders from your state. i don't think that's going to fly very well with a lot of traditional republican voters, let alone independents. >> you know, i think something that is very exciting within the democratic party right now is actually this group of reformers that we're seeing and you saw that with alexandria casio cortez in new york. gillum was outspent i think by tens of millions of dollars. what's appealing about that to

independents, i believe, but also to reform-minded democrats is the fact that you have less big money in politics. >> true. a that's not nothing. >> that could be something. it's important to note that gillum was so low in the polls people didn't feel the need to go after him. so he went through a relatively unscathed primary in comparison to his opponents who were torn down. the other thing donald trump is doing right now, it struck me so interesting because it sounds like the 2016 campaign, he's trying to claim everything as rigged. everything that -- all the elections are rigged. at the end of 2016 he was saying the global elite is going to keep him out of office. watch out for your polling stations in philadelphia, it's rigged, rigged, rigged. that's because he thought he was going to lose and he was trying to place the blame elsewhere. when he was tweeting about google, google is rigged. the election could be rigged and warning of violence. he's worried about what's going to happen in november and he's trying to place the blame somewhere else.

>> what we're also seeing is a strategy of playing the victim. this is defd as victim. that's what he's laying the groundwork for. they're all out to get me. if you listen to a mob wire, you'll here the copo say, they're framing me. i'm being framed. so he's being framed by google, the department of justice, the state of florida, the fbi. >> the media. >> the intelligence community and of course the media. everybody is out to get him. >> his insecurity knows no bounds. that is something we haven't seen really in the presidency since richard nixon. there is nothing that he can do to fill up that lack of self-esteem that he has. he automatically blames other people. double bind theory. if i win i win, if i lose it's your fault. >> what's interesting is he appeals to that sense in his voters as well. they feel aggrieved. remember when republicans used to believe in personal responsibility? not any more. they feel aggrieved. they feel like the system is rigged so they have this mutual self-help society, i guess.

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he may have access to intel from over a dozen agencies at his fingertips, but there is only one source of information president trump needs. fox news. last night the president tweeted this. report just out, china hacked hillary clinton's private e-mail server. are they sure it wasn't russia? just kidding. what are the odds that the fbi and d.o.j. are right on top of this? actually a very big story, much classified information. exclamation points. if you're asking yourself where did donald trump get this? you were not watching fox. >> well, lunatics and dumb people in washington have wasted the last two years of your life in a frenzy over russia's supposed influence in our elections. lost in the hyperbole and commercial and hysteria has been

a real story, china's active pervasive and ongoing espionage against our country. now according to a new report by the daily caller, a chinese company successfully hacked hillary clinton's private e-mail server. >> this morning the fbi knocked down the report telling nbc news they have not found any evidence of clinton's servers being compromised. trump went on to tweet about that story and other quotes from fox five times between last night and this morning. with us now, veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike lupika joins the table. mike, what do you think about that, the president watching fox news all day and then deciding to either tweet or make policy based on what he's hearing? >> fox news is his happy place, katy. he gets to be the president. he sees himself as being -- that they see himself as being, and he's in this incredible echo chamber where they tell him constantly exactly what he wants to hear.

and, you know, we've all been reading these stories about how the only cabinet that matters is the one at fox news, and every time i read those stories, i think, well, if that's true, we're screwed. >> let's read that story. washington post. many of trump's cabinet secretaries and senior advisors have a cable news shadow. dobbs might be considered trump's television treasury secretary. hannity is chief of staff and carlson his secretary of state. fox news jeanine pirro serves as a de facto attorney general railing against sessions and the special counsel's russia probe. while regular fox analyst pete heg seth was under consideration to be the actual secretary of the department of veterans affairs. guys, someone jump in. >> just want to say one thing trump has always -- i think you'll bear me out on this, frank. he's always not understood about the intelligence community. the intelligence community is not giving you facts. they're gueiving you the best

intelligence to say, we have a high degree of belief in this, a low degree of belief in this. we're not saying you should believe this. he feels the intelligence community is trying to persuade him something he doesn't think already. >> does he listen to the intelligence community, does he have his pdb, he's tweet building south africa because tucker carlson is doing a segment on it. call up your secretary of state, listen is what tucker carlson saying on fox news true, is that what's going on? if it is, let's do something about tfrmt >> he doesn't want to believe it's not true. >> it's not fitting his narrative. when intelligence and briefings don't fit his narrative, he doesn't want to hear it. >> is it his narrative or is the only way he's able to consume it through a segment on television? >> perhaps his morning brief should be done through a tv network during his executive time in the residence. >> that's what's happening. a lot of these aides go on television to talk to him. aides try to influence the cable news host who influence the president when treasury secretary steve mnuchin led a

delegation to china in may, he announced on "fox news sunday" that the united states was putting the trade war on hold, but soon after others in the delegation including china hawk peter know vara owe found an alternative audience with dobbs to criticize man uccellini in's message. then dobbs's criticism was picked up on fox and friends the following day by host brian kilmeade. before long and on the basis of those media messages, the president made an abrupt change in policy. >> well, this is huge governing problem. it's also a fascinating phenomenon. the other people in this fox bubble, of course, are his supporters because that's their sole source of news in many instances. anything that's real does seem fake. it's completely out of the blue. he never heard about this before. can't possibly be true. so together they're in this collective never-never land as they construct these formulas, these narratives that go on and on. why do they think that immigration is a huge problem that millions are pouring over

the border when we have net immigration going towards mexico? because it's on fox news constantly. it's either illegal immigrant hurting someone, and we do know that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates, or -- >> than people born here. >> that's the universe they inhabit. not only does he not read and we know that, and does not -- we now know that they basically reduce everything to a bullet point. if the bullet points are too long, he won't even read that. so he doesn't absorb information very well at all, let alone reading it. but i think the bigger issue is he doesn't want to live in the real world. the real world doesn't think he's a good president. the real world sees he's messing up right and left. the real world sees he's committed crimes. >> the fact he watches so much fox news and parrots what they say on television shows he's in touch with americans and the way americans consume information and the way americans thinks. >> that shows he's in touch with

his base of americans. i think frankly his ego can't handle any kind of reality. and so we saw that -- what better example is there than the flag fiasco with senator john mccain? i mean, how small of a person do you have to be, truly, to not honor that man who served this country honorably, first in vietnam and then in the senate? because he was -- had political differences with you. >> before that, he said he wasn't a war hero in 2000 when he was talking, i believe it was 2000 when he was talking to tim russert. that thing that he said in 2015 wasn't, wasn't -- did not come out of the blue. >> same fragile ego. >> mike, i want to let you jump in. >> no, and who is he talking to and who is he listening to? this world of the league of aging angry white guys. you just want to say to him sometimes, mr. president, dude, this stuff is going to rot your

brain. catch a ball game once in a while. go to a movie because if you constantly listen -- >> does he like sports? >> he used to like football. he used to like football until they wouldn't let him into the nfl. now he's on record as hating it. >> oh, gosh. one more thing. frank figliuzzi, the fbi came out and had to rebuke the president and said, nos that is not true. that doesn't happen often. >> it doesn't. it's a refreshing sign. equally, i'm still depressed because it means the president isn't paying any attention to findings that came out long ago about hillary's e-mails. there was no evidence or conclusion -- >> up next -- i don't know, soccer, soccer is good. up next, the man once known as john barron now calling out anonymous sources. you can't make this stuff up.

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donald trump, the man who started the obama birther conspiracy thanks to a tip from an extremely credible source, apparently doesn't like anonymous sources any more. this morning he tweeted the fact is that many anonymous sources don't even exist. they are fiction made up by the fake news reporters. he added later, when you see anonymous source, stop reading the story. it is fiction. speaking of fiction, trump used to go by the fake names john barron and john miller to spin negative stories and shop positive stories about himself with new york news newspapers. the panel is still here. mike lupika as well. we've seen so many instances of this. this is the i'm rubber and you're glue theory of donald trump politics. it's projection. whatever he sees, whatever he does himself, he assumes other people are doing. he lies, he used to lie to reporters, so he presumes all

reporters are lying. rick, what do you think? >> well, having grown up here and read the tabloids my whole life, you can actually go online and listen to trump pretending to be his own publicist. that's john barron or john miller. you know what he'd call up about? he'd say every girl in new york wants to date donald trump. he's the most handsome guy, the most popular guy. you'd hear him in his own voice saying this. it is really extraordinary. what you also saw by the '90s, nobody would do any story involving donald trump because he was ran anonymous source abot himself telling how great he was. >> do you want to hear him doing this? we have that sound byte. here is john miller talking to people magazine in 1991. >> a lot of the people you write about are really are -- they call, they just call, actresses, people you write about just call to see if they can go out with him. by the way, i'm sort of new

here. >> what is your position? >> well, i'm sort of handling p.r. because he gets so much of it. >> mike lupika, i guess he's sort of trying to change his voice in that, but it certainly still sounds like donald trump. >> no, katy, maggie haberman tweet ed about this today. the great pete hamil was my editor at the daily news back in the 1990s and apparently donald didn't think of himself as an anonymous source when he would call up as john miller. he saw himself as a non-anonymous anonymous source where he tried to convince everybody women walking down the street would begin throwing articl articles of clothing at him. another thing pete said, never use irony in an under developed country. in this case it's washington, d.c., because when he said that about anonymous sources today, i wanted to say that's a good one. oh, wait, you're serious? >> not only anonymous, fake source. he is fake news in that. >> and this is going on at a

time that the white house is briefing on background and won't let any other white house be a rather normal briefing that you would attribute to actual people. they insist that it be anonymous. >> they don't want to be seen talking to reporters. >> in the briefing room with several people, they each have positions. it's anonymous. it can't be attributed to any one person. so perhaps the white house press core should stop taking people on background. make them go on record. >> that wouldn't be a bad idea at all. >> there are reasons to be on background and the reasons are you have a responsibility to get accurate information to the american public. and if you trust a source and these things are built on relationships, then that's something that we feel we're compelled to report. obviously the first choice is to get people on the record. there are certain cases when that's not possible. >> let's be clear about something. it's not just anonymous people calling up and saying, hey, i've got a hot tip on the president. let me tell you what happens

going on. these are people who name themselves. you build a rapport or trust with that person and you decide whether or not their information is legitimate or is trustworthy and you can back it up with other sources that you go to. they're not anonymous people. they're named people. they're just unnamed in that article. >> and those people are doing so in many cases because they simply can't take the injustice they're seeing any more. they don't trust anyone in leadership to do the right thing and they feel compelled to tell the story. they're doing it for the right motives. >> in the case of this white house, they're trying to undercut everybody else because it's a viper's nest. >> to your point, katy, one of the things journalistic organizations should do is be transparent about anonymous sources and nonbackground. instead of saying an anonymous source, in a briefing set up in a phone call at 3:00 p.m. that lasted three minutes x or y, parts of the problem is people -- regular people like --

unlike us, don't have media literacy about this. they don't know that's how it operates. people think it's a shady person. >> trump doesn't have media literacy. when he goes out and attacks the media for things he thinks are unfair, he taps into that with the american public. it can seem somewhat legitimate or familiar. >> and what's interesting is i think we all, at least in the print media, have changed it. we will now gibegin a story, th is based on conversations with 22 white house officials and formal officials. we do want to give the public a sense we're not just sitting making stuff up. there are real people. that's what our reporters do all day long, they get on the phone, they go visit people, they talk to people. i think it is a healthy thing. i love your idea. but at least to give them a frame and start describing the numbers and the source of people that you're talking about and washington post is starting to do that. >> journalism should starting a mandatory class, mandatory

civics in elementary school all the way through high school. that's my opinion. mike, last to you, and i want to read this tweet. this is donald trump in 2012. an extremely credible source has called my office and told me barack obama's birth certificate is a fraud. we still don't know who that extremely credible source is. i think it might be john miller. >> hey, katy, what's the history of this country over of the last 40 years if people had stopped reading when carl woodward and bernstein stopped using deep throat as a source? >> good point. thank you very much. up next, arizona honors john mccain as his republican senate colleagues have second thoughts on how best to pay permanent tribute in washington. >> tech: at safelite autoglass, we really pride ourselves on making it easy for you 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 ♪

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today is the first of two days of services in arizona honoring late senator john mccain where his family, friends and constituents were able to say their good-byes. meanwhile in washington, the call to rename the russell senate building after mccain is facing some backlash among his former republican colleagues. senator purdue said of richard russell, who the building is currently named for, this is a guy who was a giant of the senate, so this renaming thing because of one issue, you know, is somewhat troubling. the fact that it's been brought into this john mccain thing i think is inappropriate. that one issue that perdue

mentions, russell was a segregationist who led southern opposition to civil rights. jennifer rubin, you were on fire about this today. you said republicans can't agree to take a segregationist's name off a building. one wonder whether these republicans are listening to their staff-written speeches lionizing mccain. they obviously haven't learned a damn thing about mccain, especially his insistence about protecting the dignity and worth of every human being. >> exactly. they're all getting up there now and spilling crocodile tears. but in fact i think what we see here is the heavy strain of raci racism, racial politics, now these people don't even hide it anymore. they are advocating to keep the name of a segregationist on a federal building, on a senate office building. you can't make this stuff up. and i think if ben sasse for one says, oh, mccain wouldn't want his name on a building, i don't know that they asked him. if they did, i think he'd probably suggest not only put his name on a building but pass

some legislation that reflects his values. >> did you think this would have been a slam dunk? for republicans to rename this building after mccain? >> i think unfortunately what republicans have learned with donald trump is that there are still segments of the population among whom race baiting is effective. >> so is this that his colleagues actually didn't like him or is it because they're worried about making him seem like a hero or bigger than they want to make him out to be because they're worried about alienating voters? >> richard russell was a white supremacist. it's like having a confederate war memorial in the capitol rotunda. oh, wait, jefferson davis is in the capitol rotunda. they have actual confederate generals in the capitol. >> who was a traitor to this country. >> the hypocrisy here is astounding. of course they should change it to the mccain building and he would have loved it. >> what do you think, frank?

>> i think they're upset about alienating this president. if you put somebody like mccain who was the maverick, who spoke out freely against the president and now you've named a senate office building after him, you incur the wrath of the president. >> mccain is getting the last word in who he's choosing with barack obama and george w. bush but a russian padissident is a pall bearer as the final dig at putin and at trump going out as only john mccain would. we'll be right back. ly jn ohmccd we'll be right back.

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pleasure filling in for nicolle, so thank you so much. good to see you in person. >> great to be here. >> finally. that will do it for this hour. i'm katy tur in for nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" with the great chuck todd starts right now. chuck, i'm giving it to you two seconds early. >> thank you. that nicolle wallace is in so much debt she had to take a vacation. >> i know. >> that's how much debt she is into the "mtp daily" time slot. if it's wednesday, the stage is set for a 2020 proxy war in the biggest battleground state of them all. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. of course my heart is always in the state of florida, and that's where we'll begin mtp tonight. we begin with a trump clone battling an anti-trump progressive in the ultimate