and enjoy the rest of your labor day. "deadline white house" starts right now. >> it's 4:00 in new york. i'm katy tur in for nicolle wallace. is this the time to confirm a new supreme court justice with the president facing growing accusations of corruption and obstruction and lingering questions of conspiracy? trump's critics say brett kavanagh's confirmation hearings should be delayed. at the heart of their complaints, two investigations converging on the president that both may end up before the supreme court. one in the southern district of new york where trump has already been implicated as an unindicted coconspirator by his former fixer michael cohen. the other robert mueller's russia investigation. the reality now donning on the

president and his legal team that trump would almost certainly be a target of that probe, if not for mueller's apparent belief that a sitting president cannot be indicted. those issues as well as questions of whether a president can be forced to comply with a subpoena could become the most significant matters on the supreme court docket during trump's presidency. especially if trump's attorney rudy giuliani gets his way. >> if you think they will subpoena, there will be a constitutional fight? >> well, there will be a constitutional fight. we'll win it. >> what happens if -- for example, what happens if mueller decides he wants to take this all the way and subpoena the president of the united states? >> we go to the supreme court and we find out if he can. never been decided. >> if confirmed in a process that begins tuesday, brett kavanagh would replace justice anthony kennedy who for years was known as the swing vote. now kavanagh could shift the

supreme court toward trump on cases against him and several democrats have called that a conflict of interest. >> i would suggest that an unindicted coconspirator to a crime should not be in the business of having the ability to appoint someone to a lifetime position on the highest court in our land, a court which invariably would hear the matters that are the subject of this very discussion. >> why was kavanagh chosen? because the thing the president is most obsessed with is the mueller investigation, and kavanagh is the strongest against such an investigation. >> he picked the one guy who has specifically written that a president, in fact, should not be the subject of a criminal investigation, which the president is right now. so this seems to be of all the people the most self-serving person he could choose to protect protect himself from the criminal investigation.

>> joining us is chuck rosenberg and did he table matt miller former chief spokesman for the justice department. jan palmieri former communications director for the obama white house and clinton campaign. charlie sykes for the weekly standard host the daily standard podcast. and jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press. all are msnbc contributors. matt, which case -- is there a strong case that one of these cases that donald trump is currently embroiled in, does end up before the supreme court? >> i think the most likely, if you look at all the legal problems he faces and there are a number of them, i think the thing most likely to come before the supreme court is if bob mueller decides he wants to issue the president a subpoena. if he doesn't agree to an interview which is clear he's not going to do and mueller decides he needs that interview with the president, he issues a subpoena, it will go all the way to the supreme court. brett kavanagh has written on this question. he has written about and spoken about whether a president should

be able to not just be subject to a subpoena while in office, but if he can even be investigated criminally while in office. so i think when he comes before the senate, one of the big questions -- you often see supreme court nominees who won't talk of cases because they might come before the court. because he's written about it and because of this, i think he has to answer whether he believes united states versus nixon would set a precedent, who have to turnover documents in response to a subpoena. whether that's settled law or up for grabs. >> whether documents is the same as testimony. the president actually sit for testimony. there are questions about that i know. jonathan, regardless, a subpoena from robert mueller, if the president decided to fight it, would go before a supreme court that would likely include kavanagh if the republicans vote as it looks like they are going to as of now. >> that's right. i know we just played those clips. democrats are suggesting the president is trying to stack the deck, put his insurance policy on the court if that is the path

this goes. rudy giuliani in that clip there also told me in some of our conversation h conversations that he does feel -- bring that on, that is a legal argument they will win even if it means having to go to the supreme court. if they feel like that is the natural outcome of this, that's fine. i agree with you this is becoming a stalling tactic on the interview. the parameters change seemingly by the day as to what mueller and his team would have to agree to in order for them to put the president willingly in front of these investigators. this is a tactic they are looking to stall. perhaps not just beyond the mid terms because they don't want to see mueller report come down to influence voters in november, but people have told me that if they look to push it -- trump allies told me if they extend this into next yeek, president trump is elected in 2016. this is 2019 in the scenario. he's about to start running for reelection and this is still hanging over his head. that is another argument to call this is hanging over his head, it needs to end. >> chuck, unindicted coconspirator. kamala harris said an unindicted

coconspirator shouldn't be allowed to choose the next supreme court to sit on the court the rest of their life. when you consider it in those terms, what is your opinion? >> well, there's two parts to what she said. i agree in some respects that because the president is an unindicted coconspirator, we're in uncharted waters and it seems odd he would get to put someone on the supreme court. but he's still the president. i'm not a fan, but heeds still the president. the second thing she said is important. it's for a lifetime appointment and that lifetime appointment has always served as a great liberating factor for judges who become justices. matt miller mentioned the nixon case. that was a unanimous decision by the supreme court that nixon had to give over tapes and documents despite his claim of executive privilege. and he had appointed -- he, nixon, had appointed four justices to that court. one recused himself.

the other three sided against him. the same thing happened in clinton v. jones. president clinton had appointed two justices to the supreme court that ruled against him. both of his appointees sided against him. that lifetime appointment, katy, is important and gives justices a lot of freedom, running room. >> chuck, is this moment in time different? because you have a president who is demanding loyalty. you have a president who demands loyalty so much that at one point it's reported that he even threatened to rescind gorsuch's nomination. this is 2017 from the washington post. trump talked about rescinding gorsuch's nomination venting angrily to advisors after the supreme court pick was critical of the president's escalating attacks on the federal judiciary in private meetings with legislators. the president worried that gorsuch would not be loyal and told aides that he was tempted to pull gorsuch's nomination and that he knew plenty of other

judges who would want the job. and to add to that, kavanagh, chuck, was really fawning over the president when he accepted the nomination. let's play that sound bite. >> throughout this process, i have witnessed firsthand your appreciation for the vital role of the american judiciary. no president has ever consulted more widely or talked with more people for more backgrounds to seek input about a supreme court nomination. mr. president, i am grateful to you and i'm humbled by your confidence in me. thank you. >> chuck, he said throughout this process i have witnessed firsthand your appreciation for the vital role of the american judiciary. >> yeah, well, katy, look, there is a good bit of fawning in there and it is a little bit unsettling. the fact that the president, in

my view, is an unindicted coconspirator is highly unsettling. i still sort of come back to my original point, which is is that justices of the supreme court appointed for life often and early establish their independence from whoever appointed them. precedent matters a lot here. and remember those earlier decisions that i talked about where justices appointed by the very president under fire sided against him in both cases. so yeah, fawning absolutely. unsettling, you bet. but i still have a lot of faith in the rule of law. >> charlie, what do you think? >> well, yes, precedent matters, but so do appearances. this is one much those issues where i think the senate needs to question judge kavanagh very, very closely on this particular issue, try to get a read from him on whether or not he's going to rule that the president cannot be subpoenaed or cannot be investigated. but this is also one of those areas where republican senators, if they really want to draw a

red line, or if they really want to protect the mueller investigation, any two of them could basically say, look, lawyers on the panel can push back on me. suggest that judge kavanagh, in the interest of the institution of the supreme court, would recuse himself from any of these cases because of the appearance of the conflict of interest. this is going to be a constitutional crisis. it will be a credibly divisive moment. if donald trump has put the swing vote on the court, that will undermine the institution of the supreme court in a very damaging way and i'm guessing that justice roberts will be very, very concerned about this and this would be something that judge kavanagh who i think is a man of good character might want to actually consider. >> what do you think? >> it was like michael cohen got appointed to be nominated to be a supreme court justice. that's like what he sounds like in terms -- the problem is for trump, it's like what they're

saying with how michael cohen is reacting to trump now. you saddle up with somebody who is willing to compromise their principles. kavanagh has walked back places where he has been prior on presidential powers from when he worked for ken starr. if you side with someone who is willing to compromise their principles, there's no telling what kavanagh is going to do when kavanagh actually is in the supreme court. and perhaps he will revert back to a different kind of viewpoint, but it's just -- i think he has picked someone who he thinks is going to side with him. that may not actually be the case once he gets there. >> and i think when you look at people whose goal it is to get to the supreme court, i imagine when you're on the precipice of getting there, you do what you got to do to get there and then when you're there and it's a lifetime appointment, it's a lifetime appointment, you know? you can vote the way that your conscience or rule the way your conscience would normally rule. according to the principles that

you believe were laid out in the constitution. >> but that's one of the problems here. one of the principles he has questioned is this principle from the nixon case, that presidents ought to be subject to subpoenas. that is one of the most revered cases in history, supreme court cases in history because it was a time at great constitutional crisis where the supreme court stood up and said the rule of law applies to a president, too. it's hard to find anyone in the legal kmunlt that thinks that wasn't a correctly decided case. he came out and questioned, maybe it wasn't. maybe he was just being provocative in those comments. i think the point is when he comes before the senate, the old game that you see nominees do in the past where they won't talk about cases, that doesn't apply here because of these unusual circumstances where you have a president appointing someone who may rule on this case involving him and where he has expressed an opinion so far out of the mainstream. >> let's be clear about something else he said. he's written an opinion not for a court case, but just written an opinion about whether or not presidents should be under

criminal investigation. it seemed like there was some regret there for what he did in the ken starr investigation because he felt like he took bill clinton away from focusing on national security, from making sure that osama bin lauden was not a threat. and that a direct result of that was 9/11. given that, chuck, given that opinion, doesn't it make it pretty clear that he would not be on the side of continuing this investigation if it came to the supreme court, if a subpoena came to the supreme court? >> as a matter of policy, katy, i agree with you he seems to think it's a bad idea. as a matter of law, he could vote very differently. let me just go back to something charlie said because i think it was a very important point and i want to sort of reiterate it. in the nixon case, and that really important case, it wasn't a 9-0 decision, it was an 8-0 decision because william ren quist rekwcused himself. he worked in the nixon

department and thought he should step aside from any consideration of the case. that could happen here. that would be up to justice, perhaps justice kavanagh to decide that. it might be a good avenue out. but the precedent here is very strong and supreme court justices strongly adhere to precedent. so i guess i just don't share the same degree of alarm. >> chuck rosenberg. chuck, thank you very much. >> coming up, tracking donald trump's lies. the washington post now puts his false and misleading claims over 4,000. but as the pace of those lies accelerates, is he winning his war on the truth? plus all of the president's imaginary men. >> i have a friend, he's a very, very substantial guy. >> donald trump has repeat lid mentioned an unnamed friend and unnamed ceo or other unnamed characters to back up his policies. well, you're never going to believe this, but it turns out

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donald trump has a notoriously complicated relationship with the truth. that is a polite way of saying he lies. a lot. look at the break down of his record over at politifact. doesn't take a statistician to see his statements skew in one

particular direction, and that is not lost on trump's predecessors. jimmy carter didn't mince words when he was asked about the president recently. >> i think it's well known that the incumbent president is very careless with the truth. telling the truth has been pretty deepen grained with me. that makes it even more deplorable to me to see that he's been abandoned by some people. >> some people would say that's politics, you know? you maybe have to tell a lie now and again, maybe even more than that, but you can succeed for your side and get things done. >> i disagree with that. >> i think i went through my campaign in my presidency without ever lying to the people or making a deliberately false statement. and i think that would be a very worthwhile thing to reassert into politics these days. >> it is far too easy to just say that president trump lies a lot. that's an oversimplification. the heart of the matter is this.

the president is engaged in a war on facts. just listen to how he and the people around him have fought tooth and nail to redefine the very nature of truth itself. >> sean spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. but the point remains -- >> wait a minute, alternative facts? >> just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. >> so i think it's very important to point out that in a situation like this, you have over time facts develop. that's what investigations do. >> if fact counting is anything, we've never had anybody with the level of audacity he has. we'll leave it there. >> it's in the eye of the beholder. >> facts not in the eye of the beholder. you're always welcome here. >> when you tell me he should testify because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't worry, that's so silly because it's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth. he didn't have -- >> truth is truth.

i don't mean to go -- >> no, it isn't -- truth isn't truth. >> the panel is still here. truth isn't truth. they are not weaponizing information. they're weaponizing lies and use ing it to explain away, to justify and protect this man at all costs regardless of the consequence for anything else. >> that's right. it dates back for donald trump to his prepolitical days back when he was a celebrity real estate guy. he would assert his version of the truth. remember, trump tower is 58 stories tall. he said it's listed adds 68. he listed it as 68 because it sounded better. this is not a new phenomenon for donald trump. you're seeing it on this stage, the president himself and others around him tell falsehoods, tell lies, miss report the truth. this ties into their fake news concept where they are trying to undermine negative stories, negative truthful stories about

him, and they have eroded the trust in public institutions including the media so much that a huge percentage of his supporters will believe him even if he is lying. >> it is completely short-sighted. donald trump is donald trump. he's been this way as you say for decades. jimmy breslyn wrote about him in the '80s. trump can't fail, heeds going to be on top. he created this person a. his entire being is built on exaggeration and lies. it's the people around him that are willing to take it as far as they have and willing to adopt it as their own personal mantras. >> and the voters, as jonathan points out. look, this is the annihilation of truth here. step back from donald trump for a moment. donald trump is who he is. he's not the first politician to lie. he lies a lot more. what's happening, though, is he's shifting the window and people are becoming numb to it or willing to believe the lies. gary kasperof made this point,

in an authoritarian regime, lies aren't deef signed to make you believe one thing or another, it's to make you doubt your critical sensibility to -- >> it's gaslighting. >> gaslight. we get to a point where i don't know what to believe, i don't know what is true. when he said the lester holt interview was botched or what was the term he used -- >> fake. >> it was not. but now he's planted the seed out there and is it conceivable 40% of americans might begin to say, well, i don't know what to believe. even if i see the videotape, i won't believe it. >> why is that there? why do americans say i don't know what to believe and as a default side with the president? >> because he tells them a story about america that they want to hear. >> which is? >> which is -- a friend of mine who is a republican who worked on one of the other campaigns said, in retrospect, we lost the republican primary the day that he -- you may agree with this -- the day that trump got in because when he said that mexicans were rapists and

criminals and some of them are good people, he to a lot of people, i don't mean trump supporters, he was willing to tell the hard truth about something that was happening in america even though he was going to get attacked for it. and once they bought into that and what the story that he told about america, that made their own lives made sense or perhaps gave them value, whatever it was they took from it, they were willing to believe anything he said. >> it wasn't the truth. >> i think the way -- we are being tested in a big way and i don't know if we're going to -- if our republic is going to survive intact and i don't know if the truth is ever going to matter again. the way politicians get passed that is you have to tell a story about america that's much bigger and further looking in a story where everyone can see how they fit in and isn't pitting people against -- >> are democrats doing that? >> this is what a presidential nominating process is about. >> let's read this from new yorker from susan glasser. it's true trump is lying more and he's doing it on purpose. the recent wave of misstatements

is both a reflection of trump's increasingly unbound presidency and a signal attribute of it -- single attribute of it. the upsurge provides empirical evidence trump in recent months has felt more confident running his white house as he pleases keeping his own counsel and saying and doing what he wants when he wants to. the fact that trump while historically unpopular with the american public as a whole has retained the loyalty of more than 80% of republicans, the group at which his lies seem to be aims, means we are in for much more. as the midterm election approaches that may determine whether trump is impeached by a newly democratic congress, at this point the falsehoods are as much a part of his political identity as his floppy orange hair and the make america great again slogan. the untruths, washington post fact checker glenn kessler told me are trump's political secret sauce. >> it's not just the lies that are a central part of his

political strategy, but also the dee legitimatization, the undermining of anyone who could be an independent allison rosar. he attacked google and said google was biased against him, showing things that weren't true about him. the facts are not great for him so he always has to try to undermine, attack and dee legitimatize anyone that would show an alternative version of reality. the problem is trump is obviously the worst actor in this. this is a problem that the conservative side built a long time ago. fox news started telling you that the rest of the media you can't trust. they started telling you scientists you can't trust. they're telling you lies about climate change. they started to demon eyes and dee legitimatize institutions. you have donald trump who shows up and capitalizes on the opportunity they created in a much, much worse way than we've seen before. >> you wrote a brilliant op-ed about this a few years ago talking about how conservative radio did this. you asked for a bit of mea copa

for a role you played in it. i will leave us with this one story. i was in miami when donald trump was campaigning and i was talking to a gentleman who was telling me why he liked donald trump and he said it's he's going to be tough on immigration, he's going to deport all these undocumented immigrants. i said president obama has deported more undocumented immigrants than anybody. i mean, he's done it more. and the guy looked at me in the face and said that's not true, you're lying. i said, no, there are stats to prove it. what stats? and i pulled them up on my phone, pew stats. he looked at the empirical evidence and said, i don't believe that. >> that's the moment -- look, there is a legitimate criticism of media bias and i think what happened was that the criticism had morphed into this dee legitimatization of all fact-based journalism. i moved through this experience of pushing back. here's what's going on. i'm not going to believe it from this source, that source. when you could not breakthrough the alternative reality silo, that's the moment i went

through, oh, my goodness, we have de-legitimatized this, we are in a post-truth world. we get donald trump as president of the united states. >> on that, matt miller, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> pop quiz, president trump has -- one more time. pop questions, president trump has two other friends and ceo all get into an elevator. how many people are in the elevator? we'll try and answer that next. i don't keep track of regrets. i never count the wrinkles. and i don't add up the years. but what i do count on... is staying happy and healthy. so, i add protein, vitamins and minerals to my diet with boost®. new boost® high protein nutritional drink now has 33% more high-quality protein, along with 26 essential and minerals your body needs. all with guaranteed great taste. the upside- i'm just getting started. boost® high protein be up for life

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it is the political equivalent of, i have a really hot boyfriend, but he goes to another school. donald trump's friends, the people he repeatedly mentions in passing at rallies, no names, but they all have one thing in common. they really love donald trump. >> i have a friend -- he used to like friends -- used to -- and

he was going to france. every year he goes to paris. i haven't seen him in a while. paris, city of lights. for years he would tell me. i see him a month ago. i said, jim, let me ask you a question, how is paris doing? paris? i don't go there any more. paris is no longer paris. by the way, i have a friend, he hired three people, they were prisoners, pretty hard-line people. i can tell you, two of the three he said are unbelievably outstanding. i'm hearing from in one case a friend of mine, hired ten people. and of the ten people -- he didn't give me the exact number, but i will tell you, he said these are incredible people. i was with one of the greatest companies in the world, the chief executive officer, very short while ago, and it really affects him. he said, you know what? this does affect our company,

but, mr. president, keep going, you're doing the right thing. >> joining us now, mark leib vits chief correspondent for the washington times magazine, jonathan cape heart, both are msnbc contributors. mark, why don't any of these friends have names? >> he's obviously trying to protect their anonymity. he's very privacy oriented. >> are they anonymous sources? he hates those. >> i would never accuse him of making them up or anything. jim actually is someone who has a name. this is sort of a version of the many people are saying, or a lot of people are saying. this actually gets to a lot of people are telling him. and so, yeah, jim actually, i gets he should be lauded for a level of specificity he doesn't get into. there is -- these are straw men. these are people who make his point for them. it's actually -- it's not that many steps removed from what a lot of people -- a lot of politicians do, which is tell a story about a, quote-unquote,

real person. many times over the years they've been found to be similarly dubious as far as people actually existing. maybe they're composites. they stand for something. donald trump seems pretty egregious in doing this. >> they're composites and there is a moral -- i guess you could say there is a moral to donald trump's stories. there was -- there were so many instances on the campaign trail. remember he was talking about the reporter in the red dress who said so many nice things about him? we went back and looked at the pictures from that day. there was not a single reporter in a red dress. >> he had a statement where he said reporters were calling the white house sort of agree with his take. the interview was too hard. jim is my personal favorite. paris is not paris any more according to jim and we have heard him time and time again. but yes, most of these people they're just donald trump. they're him voicing his own opinions or he wants to get some viewpoint out there and he puts it in someone else's mouth, an anonymous person's mouth. it is a column ski rhetorical

trick but it's one he's fond of. >> let's listen to bloomberg. trade represents the largest businesses and ceos have almost universally opposed his approach to trade. a person invariably supports trump's position. this is bloomberg trying to find out who this mystery man is donald trump won't name. i did some reporting to find out who this person is. >> what's the question, katy? i mean, my god, he's so exhausting and tiring. the idea that we have to pretend like he knows what he's talking about, that he has any -- there is any real authority behind anything that he's saying about this friend, about jim. why not just say, this is what i think. >> i need to clarify something, though. i really did have a hot girlfriend in high school who lived in colorado for the whole

four years. >> sure. >> and i would have actually introduced you to my friends, but she was eaten by a bear. true story. >> i think jim might be a real person. i think jim is the one person who might be a real person and he probably -- >> hold on, hold on. >> remember he even loves paris. but it's somebody like, what has happened, why have i become this vessel for him to express all things in the world? >> we have a real person that he actually has named once. let's tell you what happened when he named somebody. first this story because this is a real gem. this is trump talking about voter fraud and he uses his friend bernard langer. mr. trump said he was told a story by the very famous golfer bernard langer who he described as a friend. the witnesses described the story this way. mr. langer, a 59-year-old native of bavaria germany, a winner of

the masters twice and more than 100 events on professional golf tours around the world was standing in line at a polling place at his home in florida on election day. when an official informed mr. langer he would not be able to vote, behind mr. langer were voters who did not look as if they should be allowed to vote, mr. trump said. according to the staff members, but they were nonetheless permitted to cast provisional ballots. the president threw out the names of latin american countries the voters might have come from. mr. langer who he described as a supporter, left feeling frustrated, according to a version of events later contradicted by a white house official. just one problem. mr. langer, who lives in boca raton, florida, is a german citizen with permanent resident status in the u.s. bhos by law barred from voting according to mr. langer's daughter christina. this is not the topper.

bernhard langer came out and said, this is not true. >> what did i say in response to your last question, katy? >> when he doesn't name them, you can't find them to confirm the veracity. when he does name them -- >> bernhard didn't even try to vote. >> i don't know. who knows. >> who is near a polling place? >> it underscores what he was saying which is there was massive voter fraud in the country because people who don't look like americans are allowed to vote. >> voter fraud would have been enough to tip the popular vote his way over hillary clinton. it's always some sort of angle to make himself or his viewpoint look better. i'm sure jim voted for him. >> and you know what, that reporter in the red dress. >> her, too. >> i don't have -- i have no words. so, why don't we go to the next block. when we come back, mark's new book big game.

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and at expedia, we don't think you should be rushed into booking one. that's why we created expedia's add-on advantage. now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. ♪ add-on advantage. discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. only when you book with expedia. the nfl's regular season kicks off this week and we know just how much trump loves attacking players who kneel during the national anthem. sports illustrated's list of the ten things that will define the league this season puts politics at number one. and our guest mark leibovich acknowledges the collision with football in his new book. big game, the nfl in dangerous

times. he writes, politics always seemed to be intruding somehow. this was very much a product of donald j. trump and his ability to swallow up as much attention as possible from this bizarre american moment he was leading the nation through. why should football be safe? mark, you're back with us. the book is, i imagine, going to land like a bombshell much in the way this town did, which is for the nfl. you had covered politics for so long, covered washington for so long. you took a break to go cover the nfl and suddenly in the middle of it you find yourself writing about both at the same time. >> yeah, so much for that. maybe the next book will give me a break from politics. essentially, this is this town for the nfl. i mean, it wasn't my original plan, but i do sort of i guess gravitate to empires that are very powerful, seem like they're going to last forever and try to do a deep dive into an embattled institution. the nfl has been, you know, for

better or for worse it's gone from being one of the uniting institutions from the country to being one of the most poll allison rosa -- polarizing sports brands we have. donald trump has a way of using these things to get as much attention. it has been a spectacle of american life and basically donald trump gave them a run for their money as a rival reality show. he cannonballed into the contained pool and he's in the middle of this season, too. >> you write about colin kaepernick and say he's perfect for donald trump. trump's campaign was predicated on many of the cultural generational and demographic cultures. kaepernick was a trumpian villain straight out of central casting, big fro, swarthy skin and san francisco jersey. if kaepernick did not exist,

some ingenious russian troll bot would invent him. >> yes, it's true. colin kaepernick, when he started kneeling on the side lines and he sort of brought politics large into football, i knew that my respite from u.s. politics was just over forever. i mean, one of the things i tried to do is just sort of get access to a lot of the people who had run this thing. the national football league is filled with very, very rich, very, very nervous people. and for better or force worse, there is a same coastal verse heart land, trumpian divide you see in our politics. people just sort of -- there is a sense of no one understanding each other. so one of the things i tried to do is just try to basically tell a story of america through its most popular game. >> this league, mark, makes a ton of money, a ton of money. they have so many resources at their disposal.

why do these owners end up caving to donald trump? why is there so much capitulation to this rhetoric? >> it is amazing. as part of our reporting, ken bell son, my colleague at the times, we had sort of a cassette or a secret tape of a secret meeting between a bunch of owners and players last october during the height of the anthem thing. what really jumped out to me during just in hearing that audio is just these billionaires who have -- who are sitting on this cash cow are just flipped out by what's donald going to say next? how do we avoid triggering him next week and the week after? and you do get a sense of even though donald trump has tried to buy into the nfl for four decades, even if he can't get into their most exclusive club in the world, he certainly is living in their heads now. i imagine that's very satisfying on a lot of levels. you know as we get closer to the midterms and we get closer to the season, donald trump is going to be jumping back on the issue again. >> donald trump is using

kneeling saying the players don't respect the flag. in order to play football in this country, you need to respect the flag. then we have what happened with john mccain and the flag at the white house, just the other day. general michael hayden said this. remember this image the next time the president talks about disrespecting veterans. that's a flag at full staff a day after john mccain died. is hayden right? is this going to follow him? >> it ought to. i'm sorry. >> this was the virtual patriotism that donald trump wants to exploit as opposed to the real patriotism that he showed so much disrespect for earlier in the week. but, you know, as a cultural wedge issue, this is irresistible to him. i can't help think of rick wilson's book, everything trump touches dies. i love the nfl. i love the green bay packers. i want to have a season where i can step away from politics and not have it be polluted by this

kind of -- this kind of cultural warfare. but in the trump era, there's no escape. >> well, let's remember why colin kaepernick was kneeling in the first place. and also remember why americans revere athletes. they are role models and people look to them to use their platforms for good. and what better good is there than to draw attention to the fact at the time that unarmed african-american men were being shot and killed by police. and kaepernick started first sitting on the bench. a week after philando castile was killed in st. paul, minnesota, this was a very real issue to millions of americans, not just african americans, who were trying to understand and come to grips with what was happening. and he decided to sit. another fellow, former member of the nfl who is also a member of the military, wrote an open

letter to colin kaepernick, what you are doing is disrespectful. they said, let's meet. as a result of that meeting, kaepernick learns the respectful thing to do was to kneel. that's what members of the military do to honor the fallen. that is -- that has all been obliterated and erased thanks to donald trump. he has turned it into reverence for the flag. you're not respecting the flag when what colin kaepernick was doing was respecting the lives that had been lost at the hands of police and wanted to bring it to national attention. that's an american thing to do, a freedom of speech thing to do. and the president, as has always been the case, has ruined it. >> we're going to hold this right here and continue this conversation. the issue of nfl -- of the nfl and players kneeling might propel what could be one of the biggest upsets come november. stay with us.

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peaceful, nonviolent protests, including taking a knee at a football game to point out that black men unarmed, black teenagers unarmed, and black children unarmed are being killed at a frightening level right now. and so nonviolently, peacefully, while the eyes of this country are watching this game, they take a knee to bring our

attention and our focus to this problem to ensure that we fix it. that is why they are doing it, and i can think of nothing more american than to peacefully stand up or take a knee for your rights any time, anywhere, any place. >> congressman beto o'rourke, a texas democrat, challenging texas senator ted cruz on an issue trump sees as red meat for his base. so is beto o'rourke the obama-like answer to trump in 2020? the "vanity fair" is posing this, guys. here's a little more from that piece. whether he wins or loses his race, and, yes, even if he loses, o'rourke should be included in every conversation about the 2020 democratic primary. that's because unlike most of the paint-by-numbers politicians in his party, o'rourke actually understands how politics should be conducted in the donald trump era. authentic, full of energy, stripped of consultant-driven sterileity and waged at all times with a social mif

media-primed video screen in mind. mark, what do you think? >> i think that it's true but i think that's a few steps ahead of ourselves here. beto o'rourke obviously has succeeded in exciting the liberal base, the democratic base. a lot of people in texas, a lot of donors across the country and that video went instantly viral and has got a great following. but the bottom line is he's got to get elected to the senate in texas, which remains until we see otherwise a very conservative state and exact ly the kind of state where colin kaepernick and kneeling during the national anthem is not going to play well. so i would say that it's obviously a very, very good moment for beto o'rourke, he's clearly raised a lot of money and gotten a lot of people's attention out of that, but it's unclear whether it's going to help him get elected in the state of texas. >> is this maybe playing not

quite as well locally? >> it has gotten 44 million views, which is remarkable. that's almost as many people as voted on one side of a presidential election. so he has -- and i think that he -- i think that peter hamby that wrote that piece is right in terms of how beto is running his race and that there's no pollster and there's no consultants and it's all very close to the ground. i think that is the way people should run in 2020 as well. i'm not a big believer in polls. i'm not a big believer in paid television media after my experience in 2016. but he needs to prove that he can win over republican support, so we have yet to see if that happens. but, you know, he is a real talent for sure. he should be on 2020's list. >> i wonder what he would be like, though, in the face of donald trump. my questions remain on how do you as a democrat or anybody, republican, independent, run against somebody who's willing to take a metaphorical hammer

and pound you over the head over and over again. >> there's no line he won't cross. there's nothing he won't say in order to prove a point or levy an attack or whatever. that includes this national anthem issue where he has conflated this, deliberately so, to make it a protest of the flag, of the anthem, when that is not what it is. it's about police killing unarmed black individuals. but it is something that trump is doing and we have reported since the spring he has told people around them he was eager for the nfl to start up so he can bring this back to the headlines. he thinks this is an absolute winner for him. >> he thinks the culture wars are a winner. we'll be right back. e option like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma

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my thanks to mosark leibovi. his new book "big game" comes out soon. jonathan cape hart, jen, charlie, thanks. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts now. if it's monday, it's the unofficial end of summer, which means the official start of the midterm season. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to a special labor day edition of "mtp daily." you're already been to the picnics and now you're home watching this. welcome to a day that all but starts the final run to the midterms. no matter what happens these midterms of going to make history because they aren't