gear starting tomorrow. the day after labor day. msnbc will have complete coverage of the battle for control of congress from here on in. also, if you missed the last word on tv, you can get the show any time as a podcast. listen for free on apple podcasts now or wherever you get your podcasts. i'm in for nicole wallace. is this the time to confirm a new supreme court justice? with the president facing charges of corruption and obstruction and lingering questions of conspiracy, critics say brett kavanaugh's hearings should be delayed. at the heart of the complaints, two things converging that both may end up before the supreme court. one in the southern district of new york where trump has been implicated as an unindicted co-conspirator by his former fixer michael cohen. the other, rob mueller's russia

investigation. the reality now dawning 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 rudolph giuliani gets his way. >> will they subpoena him? will it be a sconce toogsal fight? >> if so i think we 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? >> well, we go to the supreme court and we find out if he can. never been decided. >> if confirmed in a process that begins tuesday, judge kavanaugh would replace anthony kennedy who was known as the swing vote.

now kavanaugh 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 co-conspirator 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 kavanaugh chosen? because the thing the president is most obsessed with is the mueller investigation and kavanaugh 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 can choose in order to protect himself from this criminal investigation. >> joining us is chuck

rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and former fbi official. with me, matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department, jen palmieri, director for the obama white house and the clinton campaign, charlie sikes, contributing editor for the weekly standard, and jonathan, 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? >> if you look at all the legal problems that he faces, and there are a number of them, the one most likely to come before the supreme court, if bob mueller decides to issue a subpoena. if he doesn't agree to an interview, which it is cheer he won't, and mueller issues a subpoena, that will certainly be litigate. the white house would protest it. it would go all the way to the supreme court and brett kavanaugh has written on this sub. 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 when he comes before the senate, one of the big questions, you often see supreme court nominees who won't talk about cases because they might come before the court. because he's written about it, i think he has to answer whether he believes the united states versus nixon which said a president had to turn over documents in response to a subpoena, whether that set a law. >> whether documents are the same as testimony and having the president sit for testimony. there are questions about that, i know. regardless, a subpoena from robert mueller, if the president decided to fight it, would go before a supreme court that would likely include kavanaugh if the republicans vote as it looks like they're going to as of now. >> that's right. and we just played the clips. democrats suggesting that the president is trying to stack the

deck. rudolph giuliani in that clip there but he's told me in our conversations, he feels like, bring it on. he feels like it is a legal argument they win even if it means having to run to the supreme court. if they feel like that is the natural outcome of this, fine. and i agree, it is clear this is a stalling tactic on the interview. just that the parameters change seemingly by the day as to what mueller and his team would have to agree to to put the president willingly in front of these investigators. this is a tactic that they're looking to stall. not just beyond the mid terms. they don't want to see a mueller decision influencing voters but some trump allies have said, if this is extend into next year. they have argument to say, look, president trump was elected in 2016. this is now 2019. best to start running for re-election and this is hanging over his head and that's another argument for it's too long and it needs to end. >> unindicted co-conspirator.

it was said that it shouldn't be allowed to choose the next person sits on the supreme court for the rest of their life. when you consider it in those terms, what is your opinion? >> well, there are two parts to what she said. i agree in some respects because the president is an unindicted co-conspirator, we're in uncharted waters and it seems odd that he would get to put someone on the supreme court but he is still the president. i'm not a fan but he is still president. the second thing is really important. it is for a lifetime appointment. 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, 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 is remarkably important and gives justices a lot of freedom. a lot of running room. >> but is this moment in time different? because you have a president who is demanding loyalty. you have a president who demands loyalty spoech at one point it is record that he even threatened to resingled gorsuch's nomination. this was from 2017. chuck talked about rescinding gorsuch's nomination and then reacted angrily after he was critical of the escalating attacks on the judiciary. the president worried that gorsuch would not be loyal and told aides that he was tempted on pull gorsuch's nomination, and that he knew plenty of other

judges who would want the job. and to add to that, kavanaugh, 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 am humbled by your confidence in me. >> chuck, he said throughout this process, i have witnessed first hand your appreciation for the vital role of the american judiciary. >> yeah. well, you're right. there's a good bit of fawning in

this and it is unsettling. the fact the president is an unindicted co-conspirator is highly unsettling. i still come back to my original point. that justices of the supreme court appointed for life often and early establish their independence from whoever appointed they will. precedent matters a lot here. and remember the earlier decisions that i talked about where justices appointed by the very president under fire, sided against anymore both cases. so yeah. fawning, absolutely. unsettling, you bet. i still have a lot of faith in the rule of law. >> what do you think? >> well, yes. precedent matters but so do appearances. this is one of those cases where the senate needs to question very, very closely on this particular issue. try to get a read from him on whether or not he will rule that the president cannot be subpoenaed or investigated. this is also an area where

republican senators if they really want to draw a red line or protect the mueller investigation, any two could say, look, the lawyers can push back. in the institution of the supreme court, would recuse himself from any of these cases because of the appearance of the conflict of interest. this will be a constitutional crisis. if there is this impression that 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 is something that judge kavanaugh, if he is a man of good character, might actually consider. >> what do you think? >> it was like michael cohen got appointed to be nominated. >> that's what he sounds like, right? >> you can't come fair two men in terms of their legal careers. >> the problem for trump is that if you, what they're saying with

how michael cohen is reacting to trump now. if you sidle up with somebody who is willing to compromise their principles, kavanaugh 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 principals, there's no telling what cavanagh will do when he is on the supreme court. perhaps he will revert back to dave time. i think he has picked someone who he thinks will side with him. that may not 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. when you're there and it is a lifetime appointment, it is a lifetime appointment. you know? you can vote to way your conscience or rule the way your conscience would normally rule.

according to the principles that you believe were laid out in the constitution. >> that's one of the problems. one of the principles he has questioned is this principle from the nixon case that presidents ought to be subject to subpoenas. that's one of the most revered supreme court cases in history. it was a time at a great national peril where the supreme court stood up and said the rule of law applies to a president too. it is very hard to find someone in the legal community who thinks that wasn't correctly decided of the he has come out and said maybe it wasn't. maybe he was being provocative. i think the point is, the old game that you see in the past, that doesn't apply here. 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 main stream. >> and let's be clear. he has written an opinion not for a court case and written an

opinion about whether or not presidents should be you understand criminal investigation. it seems like there was some regret there for what did he in the ken starr case. he took bill clinton away from focusing on national security. from making sure that osama bin laden was not a threat and a direct result of that was 9/11. given that opinion, doesn't that 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, i agree with you. he seems to think it is a bad idea. as a matter of law, he could vote very differently. let me go back to something charlie said. i think it was a very important point and i want to sort of reiterate it. in the nixon case, in that really important case, wasn't a 9-0 decision. it was an 8-0 decision. william rehnquist actually recused himself. he had worked in the nixon

department and had thought he should step aside. that could happen here. that would be up to justice kavanaugh to decide that. it might be a good haveavenue o. supreme court justices strongly adhere to precedent so i guess i don't share the same degree of alarm. >> chuck rosenberg, thank you very much. coming up, donald trump's lies. the "washington post" 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 the president's imaginary men. >> i have a friend, a very, very substantial guy. >> donald trump has repeatedly mentioned an unnamed friend, an unnamed ceo or other unnamed characters to back up his

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donald trump has a notoriously complicated way the truthful that is to say he lies a lot. it doesn't take a statistician to see his statements skew in one particular direction.

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 is well known that the incumbent president is very careless with the truthful telling the truth has been pretty deeply ingrained in me. and i think that makes it more deplorable to me to see that it's been abandoned by some people. >> some people would say that's politics. you have to tell a lie now and again and 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 and my presidency without ever lying to the people. making a deliberately false statement. and i think that would be a very worthwhile thing to reinsert into politics. >> it is far too easy to 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 gave alternative facts to that. >> 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 is 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. >> it is in the eye of the beholder. >> no. facts are not in the eye of the beholder. >> when you tell me that he should testify because he will tell truth and he should not worry, that's silly. it is somebody's version of the truth. not the truth. he didn't have a conversation -- >> truth is truth.

>> no. truth isn't truthful. >> the panel is here. they're not weaponizing information. they're weaponizing lies and using to it explain away and to protect this man at all costs regardless of the consequences for anything else. >> that's right. it dates back for donald trump to his pre political days back when he was a celebrity real estate guy. he would assert his truth. trump tower in manhattan is 58 stories tall. it is listed as 68. he just invented ten extra stories because it sounded better so it could be the tallest building in the area. what we're seeing is on this stage where you're seeing the president himself and those around him tell false hoods, lies, misreport the truth. this ties into their attack on the media. the whole fake news could not semi. where they are trying to undermine negative stories. negative truthful story about

him. and they have eroded the trust in public institutions, including the media so much that there's a huge percentage of his support letters believe him even if he is lying. >> it is completely short sighted. donald trump is donald trump. he's been this way for decades. jimmy breslin wrote about him in the 1980s saying that he creates razzle dazzle saying trump will be on top. he created this persona. his entire being is built on exaggeration and lies. but the people around him who are willing to take it as far as they have and adopt it as their own personal mantras. this is the annihilation of truth here. step back from donald trump for a moment. he is not the first politician to lie. he lies a lot more. but he is shifting the window and the people are becoming numb to it or willing to believe the lie. gary kasparov made this point in

an authoritarian regime, the lies are not designed to believe one thing or another. it is to doubt that you know what the truth is. gas lighting. so i don't know what to believe. i don't know what is true. when he says the lester holt interview was botched, or what was the term he used? faked in some way? it was not. but now he's planted the seed out there. is it inconceivable that 40% of americans might 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 then as a default, side with the president. >> he tells them a story about america he wants to hear. 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, you may agree this, the day that trump got in. when he said that mexicans were

rapists and criminals and some of them i suppose are good people, to trump supporters, he was willing to tell the very hard truth about something happening in america even though he would 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, they were willing to believe anything he said. >> but that was not the truthful. >> we're being tested in a big way. and i don't know if we're going to, if republicans will survive. the way politicians get past that. you have to tell a story about america that is much bigger and further hook in a story where everyone can see how they fit in, and isn't -- >> are democrats doing that? >> this is what a presidential nominating process is about. >> it's true trump is lying more

and doing on it purpose. the reason wave of misstatements is a reflection of trump's increasingly unbound presidency and a signal attribute of it. single attribute. it provides empirical evidence that trump in reason months has felt more confident running his white house as he pleases. keeping his own counsel and saying what he wants when he wants to. the fact trump while historically unpopular with the american public has retained the loyalty of the more than 80% republicans. it means we are in for much more. as a memorial approaches, that may determine whether trump is meechd by a newly elected president. it is as much a part of his identity as his floppy orange hair and the make america great again slogan. the untruths, glen kessler told me, are trump's political secret sauce. >> it is not just the lies that

are a central part of his political strategy but also the delegitimization. undermining anyone who could be an independent arbiter of the truth. not just the media, the fbi, the intelligence committee. last week he attacked google and said google was showing things that were not true about him. the facts are not great for him so he has to undermine and attack and delegitimize anyone who 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 that started telling you the rest of the media, you can't trust. they're delegitimizing institutions. and then a much, much worse way.

>> you were talking about conservative radio. you asked for a mea culpa. >> i was miami when donald trump was campaigning and i was talking on a gentleman who was telling me why he liked donald trump. he said he'll be tough on immigration. he will deport all these undocumented immigrants. and i am, president obama has deported more undocumented immigrants than anyone. he's done it more. and the guy. that's not true. you're lying. i am no. there are stats to prove it. what stats? and i pulled them up on my stats. stats, stats, stats. he looked at the empirical evidence and said i don't believe that. >> that's the moment. there's a legitimate criticism of media bias. and i think what that was that the criticism had morphed into this delegitimization. and i lived through this experience of trying push back and say, here the facts. people said, i won't believe it from this source, that source, that source. when you could not break through this alternative reality.

that was the moment i am, oh, my goodness. we have delegitimized all of this. we are in a post truth world and we get donald trump as president of the united states. >> pop quiz, president trump, his friend jim, two other friends and a ceo, all get into an elevator. how many people are in the elevator? we'll try and answer that next. elevator we'll try and answer that next

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it is the equivalent of i have a really hot boyfriend but he goes to another school. donald trump's friends that he repeatedly mentions, no name but they have one thing in common. they really love donald trump. >> i have a friend. he used to like france.

used to. and he was going to france. every year he goes to paris. i investment seen him. paris, the city of lights. paris, paris. i see him lying month ago. and i am jim, let me ask you a question. somehow paris doing? paris? i don't go there anymore. 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 am 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 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 me now, the chief national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine, and jonathan cape hart, "washington post" opinion writer, both msnbc contributors. why don't any of these friends have names? >> he's obviously trying to protect their anonymity. he is very privacy oriented. >> are they anonymous sources? he hates those. >> i would never accuse of making them up. jim has a name. thisversion of a lot of people are saying, this actually gets to a lot of people are telling him. so yeah. i guess he should be lauded for specificity that he doesn't get into. these are straw men, people who make his point for them. it is not that many steps removed from what a lot of

politicians do. tell a story about a quote/unquote real person. many times they've been found to be similarly dubious as far as people existing. maybe they're composites. maybe they stand for something. but donald trump seems pretty egregious in doing this. >> you could say there is a moral to donald trump's stories. there were so many instances on the campaign trail. remember the one where donald trump 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. >> recently he said reporters were calling the white house that agreed with his take that the interview was too hard. jim is my personal favorite. paris is not paris anymore. most of these people, they're donald trump. they're him voicing his own opinions or he want to get some viewpoint out there and he puts in it an anonymous person's mouth. it is a very clumsy rhetorical

trick. >> trump didn't identify his supporter and the white house won't say who it is. trade groups representing the largest u.s. businesses and ceos have almost universally opposed trump's approach to trade. but the person fits a model. an anonymous figure, important and powerful who supports the president. >> what's the question? >> i mean, he is so exhausting. and tiring. the idea that we have to pretend like he knows what he's talking about. that 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. >> i really did have a hot girlfriend in high school who lived in colorado for the whole

four years i was in high school. and i would have actually introduced her to my friends but she was eaten by a bear. this is a true story. >> i think jim might be a real person. i think jim is the real person who might be a real person. >> hold on, hold on. >> even -- >> i remember that, he even loves paris. he's like, why have i become a vessel for him? >> we have a real person. let's tell you what happened when he named somebody. first this story. 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 bernhard 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 major professional golf tours around the world, was standing in line at a polling place near his home on election day. the president explained, and when an official informed mr. langer he would be be able to vote. and behind mr. hanginger were voters who did not look like they should be allowed to vote. according to the staff members, but they were nonetheless permitted to cast provisional ballots. the president threw out the names of latin american countries that the voters might have come from. mr. langer whom he describe 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 who is by law barred from voting, according to mr. langer's daughter christina. this is not the topper.

bernhard langer came out and. this is not true. >> what did i just say in response to your last question? >> i mean, when he doesn't name them, at least you can't find them to confirm the veracity. >> so he didn't even try to vote. >> i don't know. who knows? >> he was near a polling place. >> but this underscored what he was saying. there's massive voter fraud because people who don't look like americans are allowed to vote. >> and the amount he estimated voter fraud was just enough to tim the vote toward hillary clinton. i'm sure jim voted for him. >> and you know what? and that reporter in the red dress. i have no words. so why don't we go to the next block. when we come back, the new book big game. ew book big game this is your wake-up call.

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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 ten things will define the nfl season puts politics at number one. and mark acknowledges, that 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 but just for the nfl. you had covered politics for so long. covered washington for so long. it took a break to cover the nfl and then suddenly you find yourself writing about both. >> so much for that. mabel the next book will give me a break from politics. this is this town for the nfl. it wasn't my original plan but i do sort of gravitate toward empires that are very powerful and seem like they'll last forever. and do a deep dive into thence

constitution. for better or worse, it has gone from being one of the most uniting institutions in the country to being the most polarizing sports brand we have. donald trump has a way of finding these things on get enough attention if more so on him. and pro football has been a spectacle of american high of and donald trump gave him a run for the money as a reality show. and lo and behold, he sort of cannon ball bood the pool and now he's right in the middle of this season, too. you write about colin kaepernick. it was predicated onle of the demographic tensions that football had incubated for years. it was only a matter of time before trump served up kaepernick as red meat to his base. kaepernick was a trumpian villain straight out of central casting. 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 sidelines and he brought politics in, i knew my respite from u.s. politics was just over forever. one of the things i tried to do is just get access to a lot of the people who ran this they know. and the national football league is filled with very, very rich, very, very nervous people. for better or worse, there is a coastal versus heartland trumpian versus anti-trumpian divide that you see in football and in politics. there is a sense of no one understanding each other. i tried to tell the story of america through its most popular game. >> so this league makes a ton of money. they have so many resources a

their disposal. why is there so much capitulation to this rhett sflik. >> it is amazing. as part of our reporting, we had a cassette of a secret meeting. what really jumped out to me in hearing the audio is just these billionaires who have just, who are sitting on this cash cow, just flipped out by what is donald going to say next is how do we avoid triggering him next week and the week after? you do get a sense that even though he tried to buy into the nfl for four decades, even if he can't get into the most exclusive club in the world, as we get closer to the mid-terms and the season, donald trump will be go jumping right back into this issue again and again.

>> so donald trump is using this to say they don't respect the flag. in order to play football, you need to respect the flag. then we have what happened with john mccain. remember this time the next time he talks about disrespecting veterans. that's a flag at full staff a day after john mccain died. is he right? will this follow him? >> it ought to. >> sorry. go ahead. >> this is 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 thinking about rick wilson's, 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. in the trump era, there is 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. people look to them to use it for good. what better is there than to draw attention to the fact unarmed african-american men were being shot and killed by police. and kaepernick start first sitting on the bench a week after fernando castillo was killed in st. paul, minnesota. this was a very real issue to millions of americans. not just african-americans who were trying to come the grimes with what was happening and he decided to sit. another fellow, a former member

of the many of, wrote a letter and said what you are doing is disrespectful. and kaepernick says let's meet. they meet and as a result of that meeting, kaepernick learns that the respectful thing to do was to kneel because that's what members of the military do to honor the fallen. that has all been obliterated and erased, thanks to donald trump. he has turned it into revv renls for the flag. you're not respecting the flag. what colin kaepernick was doing was respecting the lives that had been lost at the hands of police and wanted to bring to it national attention. that's an american thing to do. a freedom of speech thing to do. and the president, as has always been the kargs has ruined it. >> the issue of nfl, the nfl and players kneeling might propel what could be one of the biggest upsets come november.

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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 senator ted cruz on an issue trump sees as red meat for his base. so is beto o'rourke the left's 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 sterility and waged at all times with a social-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 exactly 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 an example of

something playing really well on social media, but 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.

let's reflect back to his relationship with the truth. 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. get ready to hear a lot of it ahead. >> he thinks the culture wars are a winner. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. whoa. this looks worse than i thought.

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his new book "big game" comes out soon. jonathan caphart, jen, charlie, thanks. that will do it for this hour. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts now. good evening. thanks for being with us tonight. i know it is labor day. i hope you got some time off. but the news does not rest. so here we are. more than a month after the trump administration was ordered by a federal judge to reunite the families the administration had split up at the border, nearly 500 toddlers and little kids are still being held by the u.s. government apart from their parents. when the trump administration started this policy of ripping kids away from their parents and not giving them back, we now know that they thought no one would mind that they were doing it. one current administration official involved with the policy telling jonathan blitzer