♪ today's democrat party is held hostage by haters, absolute haters. left wing haters. angry mobs. deep state radicals and their fake news allies. those people. >> president trump hits the campaign trail in montana amid turmoil over an anonymous op-ed. he is accusing "the new york times" of treason and tells supporters it will be their fault if he gets impeached. plus, supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh faces lawmakers for a third day. this as previously secret e-mails from kavanaugh on hot button issues become public. remembering a hollywood

legend. oscar nominated actor burt reynolds has passed away at the age of 32. ♪ good morning, everyone. it is friday, september 7th. i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside frances rivera and louis bergdorf. what a week it has been. we begin with president trump who went to montana last night where he railed against an anonymous "new york times" op-ed. during a montana campaign rally, the president spoke about it at length, as you can imagine, after spending more than two minutes talking about impeachment. later, comparing the coverage of his administration to that of abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. >> i can never get a good story. i mean you look at this horrible thing that took place today. it is really -- is it subversion? is it treason? it is a horrible thing. you know the good thing about that? even liberals that hate me say, that's terrible what they did.

the latest act of resistance is the op-ed published in the failing "new york times" by an anonymous, really anonymous, gutless coward. >> they had me stomping around, screaming with anger up in my area of the white house where i live with my wife and son, barron. they had me screaming, shouting like a lunatic, and i had a television. i said, what are they saying? i had six people in my office. i was in the oval office and we were having a talk on trade. actually it happened to be trade with canada, they were telling me what is happening. they said, sir, you're not up there screaming, ranting and raving, you're here talking. that's how dishonest it has become. >> the so-called resistance is angry because their horribly des have been rejected by the

american people and it is driving them crazy. crazy. they're the ones, honestly, that have been driven crazy. >> and the white house continues to hunt for the anonymous senior administration official behind that scathing "new york times" op-ed. the times reports that white house officials have been calling around asking cabinet secretaries if they are responsible. so far, every cabinet official has issued a denial with the exception of chief of staff john kelly and attorney general jeff sessions referred nbc news to this statement from sarah sanders that calls the anonymous official a coward. sanders denies a report aides are printing out and delivering the denials to the president directly. senator rand paul though reportedly recommended members of the administration be subjected to lie detector tests. according to "the times", there was some discussion about it among the president's advisers. they reportedly discussed asking senior officials to sign sworn affidavits that could be used in court if necessary. one outside adviser tells the

paper the white house has a list of about 12 suspects. and republicans on capitol hill seem to be on different pages when it comes with how to respond to the op-ed. the chairman of the house freedom caucus and trump ally mark meadows tells "politico", quote, we're evaluating options on how to get to the truth of what happened here, mainly in the interest of protecting national security. here is what house speaker paul ryan said when asked if congress should investigate who wrote it. >> a role to investigate it? >> reporter: find out who wrote the op-ed. >> not that i know of. but, look, the person -- the person who works in the administration serves at the pleasure of the president. it is a person who obviously is living in dishonesty. it doesn't help the president, so if you're not interested in helping the president you shouldn't work for the president. >> were you surprised that someone would feel this way and

act that way? >> well, "the new york times" has big stories on the front page all the time based on anonymous sources, so i guess this is the most recent example of it. >> but it means that someone near the president is actively working against him inside the white house. are you surprised someone would do that rather than, say, resign publicly? >> i really don't have any further observations to make about it. >> a newly-disclosed e-mail shows supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh discussed whether the landmark roe v. wade should be considered settled law. kavanaugh advised against referring to the supreme court's decision on the case as the settled law of the land. at the time the e-mail was actually written, kavanaugh was revealing a proposed op-ed supporting one of president george w. bush's conservative appeals court nominees. the op said stated that, quote, it is widely accepted by legal scholars across the board that

roe v. wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land. he proposed deleting that line, referring that i'm not sure that all legal scholars refer to roe v. wade as the settled law of the land. still, his e-mail stopped short of saying whether he personally believed that the abortion rights precedent should be considered a settled legal issue. now, here is what judge kavanaugh had to say when asked about that e-mail yesterday on capitol hill. >> roe v. wade is an important precedent of the supreme court. it has been reaffirmed many times. i thought the op-ed should be accurate about what -- in describing legal scholars. >> now, the roe v. wade issue has put the spotlight back on a pro abortion rights. senators lisa murkowski and susan collins, neither senator has said whether they will vote to confirm kavanaugh. according to "portland press

herald" collins has not been swayed by the e-mail. >> marc kasowitz denied he or anyone at his firm has had contact with brett kavanaugh. harris grilled the supreme court nominee on whether he had any contact with members of kasowitz's firm recalling the mueller probe. in a statement to cnbc, a spokesman for kasowitz hit back at the allegations saying, quotes, there have been no discussions regarding robert mueller's investigation between judge kavanaugh and anyone at our firm. however, harris's aides told cnbc they had reason to believe a conversation happened and are continuing to pursue it. kavanaugh yesterday firmly denied he had any contact with the firm. meanwhile, harris pressed kavanaugh on whether he could recuse himself on cases directly affecting trump. >> will you commit to recusing in any case involving the civil or criminal liability of the president who appointed you or

nominated you? >> the independent of the judiciary requires i not commit on how to decide a certain case in either direction. so if i answer that question in either direction i would be violating my judicial independence. >> and coming up on "morning joe" more on the kavanaugh confirmation hearings. senate judiciary members will join the conversation to give their takes on what they've heard from the judge. joining us from washington, d.c., senior writer at "roll call" neils luzuski. let's talk about the anonymous op said. what kind of precedent do you think has been set for other white house staffers with that op-ed? >> well, i think the present

question is somewhat dependent on if we are able to quickly find out who the author is or not. obviously "the new york times" editorial board and the editorial page staff has no interest in that becoming public for good reason. they want to protect their sources. but the curious thing will be whether or not there are more of these to come and how senior -- senior officials are that are in these op-eds is going to be important as well. you know, i generally think that "the new york times" isn't going to accept an op-ed and call it a senior administration official if it is not really a senior administration official. but you don't necessarily know what else might be produced in other media outlooks. >> i wonder when they say senior administration official does it mean a household name most americans would know or is it someone in a slightly different department or agency within the

white house. >> the timing of that also curious to see. why now? niels, i want to turn to the kavanaugh hearings. we are talking about day three, the longest yet, just shy of 14 hours here. a lot of talking about roe v. wade and settled law. when it comes to those e-mails from 2003 about that, could that be what a confirmation hinges on? >> it could be, but i don't necessarily think that's going to happen because the explanation that judge kavanaugh gave yesterday about what that particular e-mail was referring to sounded to me like something is going to be believed by senators like lisa murkowski of alaska and susan collins of maine, the republican hospital have disparate positions from their colleagues in the republican caucus on abortion rights. so i don't necessarily think

that's the case, but what the real question here is why exactly was it teamed to be committee confidential in the first place. there was a bunch of the stuff that was coming out on thursday where we didn't really understand -- i didn't understand certainly why exactly this had not been in the public record previously. >> yeah, and the other e-mail cory booker that was referencing about race relations and police brutality as well. >> a lot at this moment as he put it. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> we'll talk to you in a little bit. i know you're going to stick around. turning from politics now, sad news out of the world of entertainment. one of hollywood's most popular leading men, burt reynolds, has died at the age of 82. the star of "deliverance," "smoky and the bandit" and others. he was a sought-after actor and notably turned down iconic roles

that made the careers of others including han solo, james bond, micha michael corleon, and richard gere's edward in pretty woman. he was expected to make his return in the upcoming film ""once upon a time" in hollywood." he is survived by his son quentin. here is what he had to say to me when i interviewed him for "access hollywood" in 2016. >> i had a great time and a wonderful career and great friends, wonderful friends. do i have any regrets? yeah. i probably hurt some people along the way. i wish i hadn't. i wish i could make it up to them. i'm trying now. i have fabulous son, he is a

wonderful young man. he's an editor, so i will get to close-ups if he edits one of my pictures or i'll take him out of the will. >> what a remarkable career. >> man. >> still a sense of humor, too. >> every time i see han solo, michael corleon and "pretty woman," it is hard to imagine. burt reynolds. wow. >> i heard yesterday he was at one point in 1978 in four different films that were all released at the same time. so there was at one point -- that's how prolific an actor he was. still ahead, the trump administration was heavily criticized for separating children from their parents at the border. now the administration is pursuing a new family detention policy. later, rudy guilliani appears to backtrack over whether or not the president will answer questions about obstruction from special counsel robert mueller's team. those stories and a check of our weather when we come right back.

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i decided that i wanted to go for electrical engineering and you need to go to college for that. if i didn't have internet in the home i would have to give up more time with my kids. which is the main reason i left the military. everybody wants more for their kids, but i feel like with my kids, they measurably get more than i ever got. and i get to do that. i get to provide that for them.

welcome back. the trump administration has announced a new rule over the detention of migrant children, adding another layer to the ongoing border separation crisis. the administration announced yesterday it will lift court-imposed restrictions on how long migrant children will be held in a detention center. the rule which goes in effect in 60 days will allow i.c.e. agents to keep children with their mothers in detention facilities indefinitely while asylum requests make their way through court. an official speaking on condition of anonymity tells nbc that the purpose is to interpret an agreement that said children could not be held in detention longer than 20 days. meanwhile, a new trump filing by the administration last night offered an update on the number of migrant children still separated from parents.

the filing said 416 of the more than had than 426 children are still in government custody. >> switching gears to a story making headlines. officials in five states are investigating decades-worth of sexual abuse claims in the catholic children. attorneys general in illinois, missouri, nebraska, new mexico and here in new york have asked local diocese for their records in an effort to unearth cases potentially covered up by the children. some states including new york issued subpoenas for documents for which most local bishops complied in new jersey. a criminal investigation has been launched. it follows an explosive pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed more than 1,000 victims accusing priests of abuse. pope francis faced railways simp for his knowledge and coverup of

a long-time cardinal's inappropriate behavior. some high-ranking catholics and parishners called for him to step down. a troubling story there. let's get a check on the weather with bill karins. you are tracking some flooding in the ohio valley this morning. >> yes, the big concern heading through the weekend will be flash flooding. i know a lot of people want to talk about florence and how it could impact the east coast, i will get back to that in the next half hour. what was left of tropical storm gordon and a depression still spinning over arkansas with heavier rains to the south here. there's a stalled front in the middle of the country and the combination of the two will lead to heavy rain. the worst of it is arkansas, missouri, illinois, indiana and into ohio, a portion of west virginia and northern virginia is under a flash flood watch. here is how much rain will fall. so the chart here shows you the green is one inch, two inches

the blue. when you get to the red, that's five inches of rain. the pink is seven inches of rain. the bulls eye is between st. louis and indianapolis, a possibility of getting a widespread seven to eight or nine in total. when you get this much rain in the mountains, that could be problematic, too. that will be one of the stories going throughout the upcoming weekend and that's not associated with anything to do with florence which you will see a lot of headlines about over the next week. new york, cloudy. still a little humid with a chance of storms in d.c. as far as the weekend goes, the flash flooding threat in the ohio valley saturday into sunday, it travels into pennsylvania. we will talk more about florence coming up. yes, it does look like we could have a hurricane along, near the east coast next week. i will talk about it coming up. >> thanks for that. still ahead, tigers in the lead. serena is one win away from making history and the nfl

season kicks off in the city of brother love. which team needed to reach into its bag of tricks to win. that's next in sports. back in a moment. ♪ but mania, such as unusual changes in your mood, activity or energy levels, can leave you on shaky ground. help take control by talking to your doctor. ask about vraylar. vraylar is approved for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar i disorder in adults. clinical studies showed that vraylar reduced overall manic symptoms. vraylar should not be used in elderly patients with dementia due to increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, which may mean a life-threatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be permanent. side effects may not appear for several weeks. high cholesterol and weight gain; high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death; decreased white blood cells, which can be fatal; dizziness upon standing; falls; seizures; impaired judgment;

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with severe eosinophilic asthma. don't use fasenra™ for sudden breathing problems or other problems caused by eosinophils. fasenra™ may cause headache, sore throat, and allergic reactions. get help right away if you have swelling of your face, mouth, and tongue, or trouble breathing. don't stop your asthma treatments unless your doctor tells you to. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens or if you have a parasitic infection. fasenra™ is a targeted treatment for eosinophilic asthma. that's important. ask an asthma specialist about fasenra™. welcome back. time now for sports. with the official start of the nfl regular season between the eagles and the falcons was delayed last night after poor weather in philadelphia pushed back the action by about 45 minutes. once the skies cleared, the eagles finally got a chance to fly the team's very first superbowl championship banner,

illuminated in the rafters of lincoln financial field in a pregame ceremony. as for the game, it was a largely-uneventful first half and atlanta headed into the break with a 6-3 lead. out of the gate in the second half, philly turned to its bag of tricks to turn things around, running a variation of the trick play that helped the eagles beat the pats in the superbowl last year that helped get the game's first touchdown on this one yarder from jay ajayi. in the fourth just before the two-minute warning, he found the end zone once again, putting the eagles ahead for good. philadelphia wins a wild opener, 18-12. turning now to protein tennis a the u.s. women's semifinals in flushing meadow where 23-time major champion serena williams is one win away from matching the career grand slam singles title record, advancing to her second great grand slam title

with yesterday's dominating victory. saturday's women's final won't be all-american however as madison keys is eliminated by naomi osaka whose straight head win last night makes her the first japanese woman in history to reach a grand slam. congratulations to her. moving on to the pga in the first round of the bmw championship where tiger woods is in the lead after day one in newtown square, pennsylvania, making seven birdies and an eagle while carding his lowest opening round in almost 20 years with an 8 under 62. woods shares the spotlight atop the field with rory mcilroy who also shot a 62 in yesterday's round. i think tiger, guys, is making a comeback here in his career. looks like. >> i think it is safe to say. definitely so, right? >> want to see it more. >> absolutely. >> time and time again. >> thanks, louis. still ahead, we have much, much more from the supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh's third day of heated confirmation

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♪ good to have you back with us. i'm frances rivera alongside ayman mohyeldin and louis bergdorf. let's get started with the morning's top stories. president trump's attorney rudy

guilliani appears to be backtracking on comment he made about the president and the mueller probe. in an interview yesterday he said president trump will not answer federal investigators questions in writing or in person about whether he tried to block the probe into russian interference in the 2016 election. he said, quote, that is a no-go. that is not going to happen. there will be no questions at all on obstruction it later when asked by nbc news guilliani said those questions are, quote, not ruled in or out. he told nbc, quote, we have said we would agree to written questions on russia after we review the questions, but no further commitment on interviews. after we finish this, we will assess it with any agreement. guilliani added for now there's, quote, no commitment on obstruction which are post-presidential matters but says the legal team will agree to talk after the collusion prepresidential questions are over. the attention on the senate

judiciary committee spilled sb a third days as senator cory booker announced he would violate senate rules and released e-mails from kavanaugh marked confidential. >> i'm going to release the e-mail about racial profiling. i understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the senate. if senator cornyn believes i violated senate rules, i openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that e-mail right now, and i'm releasing it to expose that, number one, the e-mails are being withheld from the public have nothing to do with national security. nothing to jeopardize the sank at thsank -- sanctity of those i hold dear. >> anyone who exposes the business and proceedings of the committees, subcommittees and offices of the senate shall be liable if a senator to suffer

expulsion from the body and if an officer or employee to dismissal from service of the senate and to punishment for contempt. >> bring it. bring it. >> i would correct the senator's statement, there is no rule. there is clearly a rule that applies. >> apply the rule and bring the charges. bring it. >> mr. chairman. >> so booker released documents touring the hearing related to racial profiling. however, the attorney overseeing the release of kavanaugh's records if his time in the bush white house, bill burke, told "the washington post" yesterday, quote, we cleared the documents last night shortly after senator booker's staff asked us to. we were surprised to learn about senator booker's histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. when asked if booker knew that the documents were released this morning, a spokesperson for the senator told nbc news, quote, cory and senate democrats were able to shame the committee into agreeing to make last night's documents publicly available, and cory publicly released those

documents as well as other documents today. the confirmation hearing for president trump's nominee brett kavanaugh is set to resume later this morning and the judge is facing accusations of lying under oath. patrick leahy questioned kavanaugh for a second day in a row yesterday over his role in the so-called memo gate scandal. the senator presented newly-produced e-mails showing exchanges with an aide that stole and spread thousands of documents from the democrats between the years 2001 and 2003. he claims six e-mails from kavanaugh during that period for which he was serving in president george w. bush's administration directly contradict sworn testimony kavanaugh gave at his confirmation hearing for his federal judgeships in 2004 and 2006. kavanaugh argued he had no reason to suspect the information miranda sent him was obtained illegally, saying

democrats and republicans frequently exchange information. coming up on "morning joe", more on the kavanaugh hearings. senate finance committee members will join the conversation to give their take on what they've heard from the judge. joining us from washington, d.c. once again we have senior writer at "roll call" nie niels lesnewski. let's talk about memo gate for a moment. could memo gate be the moment democrats is been waiting for that somehow up ends kavanaugh's confirmation, maybe convinces susan collins and lisa murkowski to say, wait a minute, something is not right here? >> i don't necessarily think that's going to be it. i think that the question really if you are talking about memos or talking about e-mails that were about whether or not brett kavanaugh's views on roe v. wade is settled precedent, i don't think any of them are clear

enough to cause someone like susan collins or lisa murkowski to come out against him, but it is certainly going to increase the advertising pressure at least. so in maine, for instance, there's been another $500,000 that naral, who is obviously an abortion rights group will be putting in against kavanaugh to pressure collins in maine. it gives them more ammunition but i don't think any of the e-mails that have come out in the last 24 hours are game changers. i want to turn to the mueller investigation especially when it comes to the president and answering questions. we had that back and forth with rudy guilliani, no-go, and now he has teased that the deal is nearing with the office regarding the written questions submitted by the president. when it comes to the timing of this, do you see the clock ticking when it comes to the probe ending by the mid terms here? >> i don't know what mayor

guilliani's television schedule or interview schedule is for today, so we might -- this may all be moot by the time the sun rises this morning. but i don't think that there's anyway this ends by the mid terms. i don't think there's any conceivable notion of that, partly because at this point in time we're nearing the point in the clock where the justice department guidelines would probably direct them to do nothing in terms of making an announcement of charges one way or the other. so i think we're definitely going past the mid terms. the other thing is there's already trials going on and there's plea bargains being reached. you know, some of those are probably not going to be resolved before the mid terms and who knows what someone might come out and say as part of those proceedings that could, you know, potentially implicate the president or someone around him. >> i'm personally shocked rudy guilliani would send out contradictory statements about this, telling -- >> never happened before.

>> telling two news organizations very different answers. >> whether it is questions, no questions, written, follow-ups. >> exactly. >> thank you. former president barack obama is headed back to the campaign trail and on a mission to focus his party's energies on the midterm elections. since leaving the white house, obama has taken steps to stay away from political quarrels, but later today he will hold a major address in down state illinois, less than 100 miles where he launched his bid for the white house more than a decade ago. aides say he intends to frame it as a inclusive or fearful america. obama will follow his speech with a campaign rally in southern ra ra. later this month he will campaign in illinois and also in pennsylvania to raise money for the national democratic redistricting committee.

democrats in the state of tell au wear voted to no, ma'am nay u.s. senator tom carpenter for a fourth term, this as a vigorous fight by harris. >> more polling has shown republicans are struggling in states where president trump win. the nbc marist poll in tennessee says that found the state's former goff bredesen is back by 48%. marcia blackburn is only getting 46%. donald trump won tennessee by 26 points back in 2016. meanwhile, the race for georgia's governor is a dead heat. a new poll from "the atlanta journal-constitution" and channel 2 action news found republican secretary of state

brian kemp and ex state legislator stacey abrams at 45% each. you got about 8% of likely voters in the state remain undecided. 51% of likely georgia voters disapprove of the job president trump is doing. 42% approve. the race in the big state of texas, you have texas democrat being forced to back peddle unapproved text messages sent out to voters by, quote, an imposter. o'rourke learned of the breach wednesday. a staffer claims the messages were sent by a volunteer under a fake name. that person's real identity is being investigated. one of the unsolicited text messages urged illegal voting. it reads, quote, we are in search of volunteers to transport undocumented immigrants to polling booths so that they will be able to vote. would you be able to support this grassroots effort?

o'rourke's campaign believes less than 1,000 texans received the message. >> it makes he wonder when something like that is written so explicitly how it is not immediate bells that something is not right. >> and that race with the viral photos going around. >> sab absolutely. still ahead, controversy over crowd size. the new documentary over how big president trump's rally was. >> twitter suspends alex jones from its site. bill karins is back with us with another check on your weekend forecast. stay with us. let's begin.

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(music throughout) welcome back, everyone. twitter has permanently suspended the accounts of info wars founder alex jones for abusive behavior, actually it

cited. the decision came one month after apple, facebook, youtube and others banned jones' conspiracy theory content and only one day after jones accosted twitter ceo jack dorsey along with reporters and senators on capitol hill and broadcast the exchanges on twitter's livestreaming site. dorsey appeared before congress wednesday to account for twitter's plan to keep bad actors off the platform and his approach to moderate and conservative content. jones sat in the audience during both of the sessions. dorsey originally overrode his employees decision to ban jones and info wars according to "the washington post." the company only temporarily suspended jones' account despite public outcry. according the "new york times" jones' audience was cut in half before twitter's announcement. a lot of people were saying it is only when he accosted the ceo of twitter and made it person to

him that the same stuff he had been doing for months and years, everyone is saying it should have been done a lot time ago. it seems a bit of contradiction there. i'm asking everybody to dig back into time. the first controversy of the trump administration, remember that one, on the size of the inauguration crowd. >> seems like a lifetime ago. >> doesn't it? newly-released documents obtained by "the guard wrash showed official government photographs were edited to make the crowds look larger after the president intervened. according to the documents, trump complained to the head of the national park service that the initial images showed a lot of empty areas showing his crowd size was smaller than that of president obama's first inauguration. then white house press secretary sean spicer -- >> that i remember. >> remember? he spent the day calling the national park service in pursuit of nmore flattering photographs.

eventually a government photographer edited the picture to crop out areas not filled with members. the details were not included in the inspector general's report published back in june 2017. are we going to hear about it from the president again? >> i suspect we could expect a tweet. >> we'll be watching it. >> not that surprising. let's get a check on the weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins. bill, everybody wondering what is going to be the path of hurricane florence and what will be the impact on the east coast? >> yeah, impacts we'll have to be patient on and wait for next week, but it will be a story that will gain traction. you will be hearing a lot about it because we still have six days to go until any direct impacts are felt. here is the latest from the hurricane center. florence jumped up to a category four and was sheered apart by strong upper level winds. it is now down to a tropical storm. it is so far away the intensity doesn't matter now. it only matters what it is when it gets to us. this is the new 5:00 a.m.

forecast. they have it becoming a hurricane over the weekend. notice by monday up to a strong category two. by tuesday a major category three, 125 miles per hour winds. as of now it looks to go south of bermuda. yesterday looked like a closer call for bermuda. so it is a better forecast for bermuda. you don't like the direction it is heading when you see eastern north carolina sticking out like a sore thumb. this is our american model. come thursday morning, it has it dangerously close to mid atlantic and southern new england. the european model has it along the carolina coast. anywhere on the east coast is subject. we will look at the spaghetti lines, over the next week we will look at these. had is the american model. we tweak it because we don't know the atmosphere perfectly. these lines show potential paths. the american model is a little further off-shore. unfortunately the spaghetti lines for the european model are almost all into the east coast. we will see how it plays out,

but this weekend time to prepare and get to the store for your hurricane supplies which you should have had at the beginning of the season anyway. >> i always ask this, which has more accuracy rate, the american or european model? >> the european model. their computers are stronger. >> brace yourself on the east coast. thanks, bill. still ahead, mattis makes a surprise visit to troops in afghanistan. plus, what the caution to moscow could mean about the next steps in that country's civil war. this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service.

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welcome back. defense secretary jim mattis is in afghanistan on an unannounced visit, along with chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are meeting with army general scott mill here took over nato troops in afghanistan last sunday. president trump has yet to visit troops fighting in afghanistan, nor has he visited any soldiers in a combat zone. and nikki haley talked about the u.s. envoy, and jim jefferies says lots of evidence syria is preparing a chemical weapons attack for use in assad's regime offensive on idlib, the last remaining province under rebel control. also said the new policy, keep

u.s. forces in syria to ensure the defeat of isis in addition to iran's exit from that country, which comes as iran's president, rouhani and erdogan are meeting to discuss the syria war. targets began to be bombed in a city deemed a de-escalation zone under a 2016 agreement. those signed agreements have been routinely broken. a statement put out yesterday warning of the devastating impact the assault on idlib province could happen with 3 million civilians living there including 1 million children. other cities including aleppo and most have been displaced from other areas destroyed by the civil war. still to come, axios' mike allen has a look at "one big

thing" and coming up on "morning joe," at arms about the op-ed. >> president trump rails last night raising false claims of treason. how some are reacting on capitol hill as the white house races to find the author. "morning joe," everyone, just moments away. this is important for people with asthma. yes. it's a targeted medicine proven to help prevent severe asthma attacks, and lower oral steroid use.

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time for a look at ax ix a.m. and joining us from washington, the co-founder of axios, mike allen. what did you have as far as the "one big thing" this morning? >> happy friday, francis. >> what a week. >> and a great weekend ahead. axios's "one big thing" mueller's moment of truth. earlier on the show you were talking about the back and forth, the rudy giuliani, that rudy giuliani has had over exactly what his limits will be with robert mueller, but here's what matters. the president's team is basically daring mueller to issue them a subpoena.

rudy, by ruling out some of these conversations from an interview with the president is gambling, we're told by sources close to the president's legal team, that mueller is not going to have the heart for a court fight. that he's not going to issue a subpoena and the result of that would be an incomplete report that would avoid some of the most troublesome issues for the president. >> let me ask you this. what does that admission, mike, by giuliani mean for trump's legal team strategy in negotiations for a trump/mueller sitdown? is it even a legal strategy or just a p.r. strategy? >> a great point and more a p.r. strategy. sources close to the team tell us that the strategy's very much focused on bullying mueller, trying to tear him down as much as they can, trying to weaken his public image. of course, we've seen polls right here on "morning joe" that show that, that isn't working, that the public still supports

mueller investigation, but the president's legal team is trying to, by bluster, at least buy some time, hopefully cause mueller to back off. the president uses this is one of his key tools. we're see shortly this morning the president taped an interview last night in montana where he says that what the "new york times" did in printing than anonymous op-ed, he said, virtually it's treason. an astonishing word for the president of the united states to use against the country's world's leading newspaper. >> when it comes to that op-ed we're hearing calls for lie detector, polygraphs, signed affidavits when it comes to finding out who mister or miss anonymous is. what are you hearing about the hunt for find hoog wing who was it. >> crazy inside the white house, this will show.

the guessing game, that amazing graphic you have of the 27 senior administration officials who issued denials using that drastic in axios a.m. such a totem of our times. and we're told that very quickly inside the white house it's shifted from the guessing game to people using this to knife people they didn't like anyway. so people are using this to go after their rivals and enemies and whisper, ah, did you know, like, maybe it's them? so throwing names into the speculation as a way of hurting them internally. >> what a week it has been. right? the hunt continues. >> we still have the entire day of friday left to see what will happen and develop today. >> a lot can happen. >> mike allen, thank you. >> happy weekend. thanks for a great week. >> of course, reading axios in a little bit. viewers sign up for the newsletter at signup@axios.com.

that does it for us. "morning joe" starts right now. the president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence of anything. quite the contrary. >> i'll tell you what, this man has fought in more ways than one for your sake. he has fought for your state. greg gianforte is a fighter and a winner. he's a winner! >> the score, waiting for your decision about health care and the bill just came out, we'll talk to you about that later. speak with shane, please. >> all right, but -- >> i'm sick and tired of you guys! the last guy that came in here you did the same thing. get the hell out of