"deadline white house with nicolle wallace" starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. former american presidents have used their bully pulpits to warn toward a lurch of imperialism and john mccain campaigned against american isolationism. they were correct to worry. if you ever find yourself worrying if you're crazy to think donald trump has changed not just the republican party, or the american presidency, consider this. last night, donald trump announced he's a nationalist. and enurcouraged his supporterso make nationalism, a word associated with racism, naziism, fascism, and isolationism, great again. >> a globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much. and you know what, we can't have that. you know, they have a word, it sort of became old-fashioned, it's called a nationalist.

and i say, really, we're not supposed to use that word. you know what i am? i'm a nationalist. okay? i'm a nationalist. nationalist. nothing -- use that word. use that word. >> former trump adviser and founder of breitbart, steve bannon, expressed glee to "new york one" reporter josh robin who tweeted, "i interviewed bannon tonight and he was very, very please ed trump used the word, nationalist." the "washington post's" robert costa tweeted, "the president's embrace of the word, national if ist, a label, at first he saw as a bannon breitbart thing, an odd fit for an ex-dem turned hawk. president trump waved me off when i brought up the term nationalism or populism." he hated them.

the "access hollywood," his misogyny, the national embrace confirms his commitment to isolationi isolationism. loudly rebuked by president and party leade erers who've come be him. >> we've seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. at time it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces bringing us together. we've seen nationalism distorted into nativism, for getting the dynamism that immigration has always brought to america. >> to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of national leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth, for the sake of some half-baked spurious nationalism, cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems, is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past. >> a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment

takes hold. and demagogues promise simple fixes. they start undermining norms that ensure accountability. and try to change the rules to entrench their power further. and they appeal to racial nationalism that's barely veiled. if veiled at all. sound familiar? >> we're going to get into all of this, but first, we're going to go to some remarks the president just made in the oval office. when he starts lying, not if, we'll break all that down for you with an all-star panel on the other side. let's watch. >> we may, it's being discussed right now, mike bolton as you know is in russia. talking about various things including the whole nuclear situation where we're not treated well for many years, it should have been done a long

time ago. i think something good could come out of that. i very well meet -- i think we probably will. it hasn't been set up yet, but it probably will be. >> mr. president -- >> confusion over your comments about what you mean when you say you're a nationalist. what does that mean? >> i love our country, and our country has taken second fiddle. if you look at the trade deals, nobody knows it better than me, i'm knocking out some of the worst deals i've ever seen. we're giving all of our wealth, all of our money, to other countries, and then they don't treat us properly. we're protecting other rich countries. very, very rich countries. including, by the way, a country that happens to be very much in the news, saudi arabia. immensely wealthy. and we're taking care of their military for a fraction of the cost. not fair to us. other countries also. immensely wealthy countries, and we have to get reism burmbursed that. we should not be the world's peacekeeper and not get

reimbursed. by the way, when i bring up to the heads of countries like japan, prime minister abe, a friend of mine, i bring it up, he looks at me and he goes, i understand. they understand it. nobody's ever asked him. i said, have you ever asked -- i said, you ever been asked, like, you have to be, like, help out? nobody's ever asked. so that's a pretty unfair thing. i'll get back to you. i'll get back to you. wait. wait. wait. wait. i'm going to get back to you. nice -- >> my -- >> no, not now. i'll get back to you, i said. >> all right. >> can't take the whole thing. wow ha you have a lot of other very fine reporters. go ahead, yes. behind you, please. >> mr. president, have you -- can you tell us what you think about what the turkish president did today ands a have you -- >> what presidenter erdogan sai? >> yes. >> he was pretty rough on saudi arab arabia, i would say. i haven't gotten a full recap. as you know, i have people in turkey and i have people in saudi arabia and other places and they're all coming back as

we speak. they're heading back. i'll know, i think everything, in a very short period of time. it's a bad situation, but certainly president erdogan was not complimentary of what happened. that was a terrible thing that happened. okay? yes, ma'am, go ahead. >> i was going to ask, do you believe him, what he said, believe saudi arabia -- >> i want to see the facts first. look, saudi arabia's been a really great ally. they've been one of the biggest investors, maybe the biggest investor, in our country. they are doing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investments and, you know, so many jobs. so many jobs. thousands and thousands of jobs. and if you look at other side, iran, you look at what they've done to people, vicious, horrible. and that's no excuse for what happened with saudi arabia. no excuse whatsoever. but you take a look, it's a rough part of the world. it's a nasty place. it's a nasty part of the world.

but if what happened happened, and if the facts check out, it's something that's very bad. at the same time, they have been a very good ally of ours. they've been helping us a lot with respect to israel. they've been funding a lot of things. i will tell you that russia and china would love to have that military order. i mean, i can say it to my democrat friends, too. i mean, they would love -- this is $110 billion worth of military. and russia would pick that up very quickly and china would pick it up very quickly and france would pick it up very quickly. france makes a lot of military equipment. it's very competitive market. i did a great job when i sold them -- that's why i went to saudi arabia first. i went to saudi arabia on the basis that they would buy hundreds of billions, many billions of dollars worth of things. and the ultimate number is around $450 billion.

$110 billion for military. $150 billion. i think that's over a million jobs. a million -- over a million jobs. so, we do that, we're just hurting ourselves. we're just hurting ourselves. and i know that from a certain standpoint, you can also say, well, it doesn't matter because it is a terrible thing. but we would be really hurting ourselves. we'd be hurting our companies. we'd be hurting our jobs. and we'll see what happens. but i should have a pretty good report a couple seconds -- i should have a pretty good report very soon. yes, go ahead. >> mr. president, just to follow-up on your comments about being nationalist, there's a concern that you were sended coded language or a dog bhiwhis to some americans that what you really mean is white nationalist. >> i never even heard that. i cannot imagine that. you mean i say i'm a nationalist -- i never heard that theory about being a nationalist. i've heard them all. but i'm somebody that loves our

count country. when i say a nationalist, i don't like it when germany's paying 1% of gdp for nato, and we're paying 4.3%. i don't like that. that's not fair. i don't like it when as an example, we're protecting europe. and we're paying for almost the entire cost of nato. we're paying for a very, very substantial portion. far greater than what it should be. we have great respect for those countries, but on top that, i don't like it when they put up barriers to our farmers. where our farmers cannot sell into europe. they have trade barriers that make it, you guys know it better than anybody, they have trade barriers that are as severe as china's trade barriers. which were coming down. they want to make a deal very badly. they'll be coming down. but i am very proud of our country. we cannot continue to allow what's happened to our country to continue happen. we can't let it happen i'm proud of our country. and i am a nationalist.

it's a word that hasn't been used too much. some people use it, but i'm very proud. i think it should be brought back. i'm somebody that wants to help other countries of the world, but i also have to take a -- we have o take care of our country. we cannot continue to allow ourselves to be duped on military and also duped on trade. with the european union, as an example, last year, on trade, we lost $151 billion. on top of that, we lost hundreds of billions of dollars on protection, so we protect and we get killed. we do the trading and they get killed. can't do it. i want it to be fair. i want them to open their borders. i want them to make it fair for our farmers, our companies. our medical companies. they sell medical equipment. they just put restrictions on a year and a half ago where the medical equipment can't get into yum europe even though it's better

than what they have. they have to treat us well. all i want our country is to be treated well, to be treated with respect. for many years, other countries that are allies of ours, so-called allies, they have not treated our country fairly. so in that sense, i am absolutely a nationalist and i'm proud of it. yes? >> you said this weekend, and yesterday, that you were planning a tax -- >> yeah. >> a new tax project. >> we're going to put in -- >> explain what you mean by -- >> very simple. very simple. >> how this is going to work? >> if you speak to kevin brady and a group of people, we're putting in a tax reduction of 10%, which i think will be a net neutral because we're doing other things which i don't have to explain now, but it will be pretty much a net neutral. it will be great for the middle class. it's going to be a tax reduction of 10% for the middle class. business will not enter into it. and this will be on top of the tax reduction that the middle class has already gotten. and we're putting in a

resolution, probably this week, i think you nofolks know about . kevin brady has been boworking it really hard for a a couple months. we'll put that in and start the work some time after the midterms. >> wooefe'll get to the lies in second. we have to start with the incompetence. michael bolton is the singer, not the man donald trump dispatched to russia. that was john bolton. he should learn his name. he's been there a while. joining us from "the new york times," peter baker, 234knows t difference between michael bolton and the security adviser. former democratic congresswoman donna edwards. at the table, john than lemire for the "associated press." before question get to the president doubling down on being a nationalist, doubled down on being a proud supporter of people on both sides of charlottesville rally, the same way in tehelsinktell sinhelsink

friend vladimir putin and denials of election meddling in 2016. today he doubled down on being a nationalist. >> he is. the tweets you put up earlier from robert costa are right, this is an evolution for him. >> or devolution. >> perhaps. >> a phrase that at first he didn't want to embrace. a key moment was after the "access hollywood" tape, some who covered the campaign wail remember it. a week or so later he gave a speech in florida i believe. he was discredit against globalist institutions, afterwards, there was criticism that it felt anti-semitic. the tone he followed through the stretch run of the campaign and has now kept since. he's obviously withdrawn from a number of international agreements. it's very much a america first, but more than that. america first and last. it's only going to be self-interests, not, perhaps, honoring what this country's role around the world has been. now, in the oval office just now, we saw him splitting hairs a little bit. like he tried to suggest he wasn't even aware of the negative connotations of that term. >> because he doesn't know anything about history.

peter bake e do you think he knows some of the great nationalists of all-time included hitler, every dictator pleaded for their constituents, if you can call them that, their subjects in the case, and others, to sort of harken to their nationalist impulses. >> well, you know, i think what he -- there's a reason other presidents don't use the phrase, nationalists, to describe themselves. they use a safer term, patriot. patriotism is something mostly people can agree on is safe politically, a more unifying word than nationalist. nationalist, obviously, as you say, is through history. we've seen with the president before, he doesn't care what history says. >> does he not care, peter baker, or not no? dou do you think he has any idea the history of world war ii or naziism? >> let's look at the phrase, america first. the america first he might not have known at first was associated with the pre-world war ii isolationists and nazi

empathi empathizers. it didn't matter to him. it conveyed wa he wanted do conv convey. the phrase, enemy of the people, uses that against us, may not have stalin as the mass murders. he must have read that someplace. doesn't matter because it conveys what me wants it to conv convey. he doesn't care what history conveys -- maybe it does, it's okay with him because the message he's trying to get out is one that says he more than anybody else is standing up for the united states. it resonates with the crowd last night in houston. i was there. they loved it. they booed the word, globalist, they cheered the word, nationalist. when he said, i'm a nationalist, they chanted, usa, usa. this is a galvanizing language for his core supporters going into a midterm election two weeks f weeks from now. >> i watch enough history channel to know they cheered at hitler, too. nationalist isn't divorced in the capacity to cheer a crowd. it doesn't make it right,

doesn't make it american and doesn't mean donald trump isn't totally ignorant of the history of the word, nationalist. >> donald trump doesn't read books. i don't think any of this stems from donald trump studying the history of naziism or charles lindbergh or any of these other hateful trends. i think this comes from two places. one, is he's got steve bannon on his shoulder whispering in his ear and breitbart and steve bannon have been longtime tribunes for white nationalism. and trump has never hesitated to separate himself from those. remember, he was questioned probably three years ago about david duke. and whether or not he would disavow duke and the kkk and sort of backed away from that. the other thing to remember is he has a long history of race baiting. going back to the 1980s. during the central park jogger case. he jumped into the middle of that. he took out big page ads in "the new york times," sensationalizing race to insert himself in a high-profile moment and make hay off it by sensationalizing race and being a racist.

i think now he's going into the midterms. he understands that the base that got him elected in 2016 is still the base he needs now. and that is precodominantly whi, predominantly male and non-college educated and doing racist dog whistles to it appeal to them. >> it's not a coincidence this comes as he doubles down on the hard-line immigration rhetoric. the embracing of the word nationalist, here, he's making the closing argument of the republican midterm strategy, this caravan. and coming up toward america. and trying to fortify the borders and sending the military down there and keeping the other out. and that is how, why he's grabbing nationalism now, too. >> let me defend dog whistles. they're silent. these are loud. let me read this to you. the woest woe"washington post" by claiming to be breaking a taboo by using this particular

n-word, trump confirmed it without saying it out loud. you're onboard with that analysis, donna? >> that's exactly right. some people described this as an overtone or undertone. it's not. it is the tone. the president of the united states, the only thing that was missing from that speech in houston last night was the tiki torches and khakis because the president of the united states understands what he believes he needs to turn out his base. he's using that. it's xenophobic, it's racist. that coupled with the caravans and even the defense of brett kavanaugh, the beleaguered white man under assault by the rest of america. all of these play into what trump sincerely believes is a way that his voters are going to turn out and it is the worst possible thing and so the president is doing this on purpose. and i think we shouldn't get, you know, fooled into thinking, well, maybe he doesn't understand what he said. he understood full well what he said. and he meant it. >> charlie sykes, let me show

you republican ads. they're not exactly running on hope and/or change. >> as a rapper, antonio delgato gave voice to extreme new york city values. he'd vote the same way in congress. >> working to infiltrate congress. he's used three different names to hide his family's ties to terrorism. >> what is abigail spanburger hiding? she doesn't want us to know she taught at an islamic school nicknamed terror high. a terrorist breeding ground. selling out americans, can't be trusted. >> i'm old enough to remember when it was controversial to have an image of ground zero in a political ad. what was that? >> well, that's the politics of fear. certainly not the politics of hope. but, you know, i mean, this is who donald trump is. this is the kind of campaign that got him elected. we shouldn't be surprised. you know, with egoback with go back to the use of the

word, nationalist. donald trump, does he he not know, does he not care? that word can mean a lot of different things. the context of donald trump, it means, b what is donald trumpian nationalism? when, we've seen it in the past. the transactional nature, america first. the focus on spreading fear of the other. this notion that he knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. but i don't know that at this point, donald trump is really telling us anything about himself that we have not seen over and over and over again in different contexts. but, and i think that this -- this campaign, his use of the caravan, the kind of rhetoric that he's using, is not only indicative of exactly the kind of politics he represents, but what we can expect between now and 2020 as well. >> peter baker, the white

house's embrace of this message, we're going to talk a bit about this in the next block, either had its genesis in fox news or the president's fwtwitter feed,t usually comes from fox news, making the caravan an issue, talking about middle easterners being amid the caravan, the threat of terrorism. fewer middle eastern terrorists, the caravan which is being followed with drone cameras by fox news is probably a bad place to hide. but talk about them settling on this as a message. >> well, look, you know, he's trying, obviously, to get a reason for conservative voters to come out to vote. all year, democrats have been more motivated by their anger at trump's administration. their anger at the president. and he's trying to find these touchstones in his last few weeks of the campaign. brett kavanaugh was one. the caravan is another now. he said this on the campaign trail, this is going to be the election of kavanaugh and the caravan and law and order. he's using this phrase, "jobs, not mobs." re he he recognizes simply bragging or boasting on the record of

whatever he can talk about he's done so far isn't going to be enough for people to come out in a midterm election where they're less motivated in the first place. he has to give reason for anger, for fear, for something that might be lost if they don't turn out. what they might lose in the way he's presenting it is their view of america. one thing he's talking about is socialism. you hear him a lot talk about that on the campaign trail. today the white house council of economic advisers released a study saying socialism would be a cost to the united states. that's a fairly unusual thing, nicolle, as you know, for them to weigh in on that sort of political kind of argument. that's also something trying to motivate people who otherwise might not show up on november 6th. >> dondonna, i want to talk abo the word, mob. the mobs i see are people who go to trump rallies and mock when donald trump mimics an alleged victim of sexual assault. the mobs i see are people who cheer when donald trump trots out the word, i'm a nationalist

and tells people to ignore the negative connotations, lessons of history of what that's associated with. the mobs are the people who think they're faceless, but we see their faces. it's what you said, people who take the mask off and are defending and cheering these really unprecedented comments that until trump were so far out of the mainstream, not only would you not see them at a televised political rally, you wouldn't acknowledge them as part of a political coalition on either side. >> the mobs i see are the ones the president, himself, encourages and incites. he likes to see that. in fact, if you look at what goes on both in his white house but also out on the campaign trail, he likes the sort of get in there and rough it up. he talks that tough talk. those are the mobs that i see. what i saw in washington, whether it was from the supreme court hearings or out across the country in rallies, these are people expressing their 1st amendment rights saying we want some check on this trump administration, and on this president and if anything, the

president of the united states has been the one actually encouraging and inciting violence and it's actually pretty frightening, but he's decided that his tact to win this election is to govern by anger and by fear. and he's doubling down on it. >> and charlie, let me give you the last word. e he hasn't just turned his mob on the democrats. he started by calling the american intelligence community nazis. he now wages a war from the safety of his handheld device on his own republican-led department of justice. he's been skeptical of the assessments of the intelligence community, believing the leaders of saudi arabia over what he must have been hearing from his own intelligence community as his close allies in saudi arabia muddled through with lie after lie about the death of khashoggi. his mob hasn't just been turned against his political opponents, it's been turned against his own government. >> no, it's really been a rather concerted assault on american intelligence, meaning that in a number of different contexts.

but, listen, i do want to throw out the context here that democrats have to be careful not to overplay the hand. the people who go and yell at ted cruz, or yell at mitch mcconnell in restaurants, are not helping the cause. they are giving donald trump exactly what he wants. they're giving him the images. they are giving him the talking points. so it is loathsome what was done to nancy pelosi the other day. it is politically extremely distasteful what was done to mitch mcconnell the other day. i do think there's a moment step back, if you want to counter trumpism, don't adopt trumpian tactics. >> let me give donna the last word because he invoked democrats. >> all i can say, i think i agree with you, charlie. i think the way to fight donald trump is for voters to show up at the polls on election day on november 6th. early voting has already begun. because it's really important to send a message that we want to put a check on this president. >> and his conduct. when we come back, is donald trump simply proving he can sow

discord all by himself without any help from the russian troll farms? is he picking up where the russians left off when it comes to fermenting divisions in the days before a u.s. election? and joe biden with a passionate plea to democrats to take back their country by getting out to vote. and another brawl fit for a barroom that went down just outside the oval office. brand-new reporting about two men with a penchant for scuffles. all those stories still coming up. avel site? at hilton.com, i get the price match guarantee. and i can choose from their 14 different hotel brands, so i get the right hotel for every member of my family. like a doubletree for my cousins who love their warm chocolate chip cookies. a homewood suites for my uncle who likes a long stay. a hampton for my sister and her kids. that's a lot of syrup. and the waldorf astoria beverly hills for me. but i thought your family vacation was in miami? it is. i hear they're having a great time. book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. if you find a lower rate, we match it and give you 25% off that stay.

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i'm not letting them in. they're not coming in. all right? they're not coming in. we're going to do whatever we have to. they're not coming in. >> to try to stoke fear -- >> not at all. >> i'm a very nonpolitical person. >> that was donald trump moments ago doing the work that we now know the russians did for him in 2016. sowing discord. and exacerbating divisions among cultural lines. typically around questions of race or the debate over immigration. his number two got in on the propaganda and lies as well.

>> immigration's become a major issue. the president keeps talking about this migrant caravan. and he references middle easterners that are part of this caravan without evidence. why is that? and where is the evidence, if any? >> well, it's inconceivable that there are not people of middle eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people. advancing toward our border. >> what? what? >> every large group has lots of middle easterners in it, right? that's good math. the thing that you're seeing with pence, i was thinking when charlie was talking earlier about we're not going to learn anything more about donald trump, that we're seeing donald trump revealed, actually what we're going to learn about is ourselves. what we're going to learn about in the age of trump is whether or not the gop has political courage. we're going to learn about -- >> i can answer that, they do not. >> okay. whether the opposition can counter this message in a constructive way. because clearly the kind of race

baiting that trump engages in, and the kind of, you know, routine serial lying that he engages in, bleeds down into his administration. and so you have a nice churchgoing man like mike pence who's comfortable sitting there lying. >> what we're seeing there also is a continuation of a pattern where trump will say something without basis and fact, and the rest of the administration, rest of the white house scrambles to try to make it so. the lie comes first then they try to justify it. we've seen that with small things like sarah sanders at the podium and bigger things when donald trump -- >> the size of the inauguration crowd. >> totally. donald trump lost the popular vote by 5 million, 3 million people. suddenly, it's the same number that was of illegal voters, therefore, we have to put up a whole commission to study it and, of course, there no sign of -- >> i want to get to a piece peter's colleague wrote today on this topic. the things grown men do in response to a tweet from donald trump. "the new york times" reports today on the source of the president's scam about the caravan. she writes, "like many of the president's tweetstorms this one

appears to have inspired at least in part by a report on fox news. included attacks on democrats, immigrants and foreign countries. that's the media-run state for you once again." peter, there are so many examples of this and julie's piece today is fantastic at diagramming where this started, where it went when donald trump started tweeting about it and just to pick up on jonathan's point, how the government, how the state, tried to make this fox-inspired conspiracy theory true. >> well, that's exactly right. look, we've known now, almost two years in ausoffice, the president does not get information the way his predecessors did. the predecessors looked at the morning intelligence briefing, consulted with agents of government which are experts on these things. they collected as visors around them who were knowledgeable about these things. in this case, we have a president who tends to pop off depending on what he saw on television, whether he did anything to verify it or not.

you have whole scenarios play out in which the president asserts something and the rest of his government, in fact, does, as we were just saying, has to find some way of fitting the facts around it to make it look like it was justified. the caravan is another example of that. so, you know, i think people have become accustom to it, but it is an unusual way to govern a country. >> charlie sykes, sally yates writes there's something else that separates us from an autocracy, that's truth. there is such a thing as objective truth." pick up on tim o'brien's point, do republican -- i don't think republicans can anymore. are there enough republicans to sort of form a coalition with democrats in defense of the truth? >> well, you would hope so because, you know, truth is really the oxygen of democracy. and what you're seeing here is more than just a blizzard of lies. it's almost as if the fact that the president is lying has become normalized. that we are used to it. and, you know, his point is not necessarily, i mean, you know, gary casperof has talked about this. the point is not to advance his

agenda. it's to break down america's critical thinking capabilities. it is the annihilation of truth. and this -- what we are watching is extraordinary. and i know we've talked about this before, and there's kind of a numbing effect, and so people go, oh, my goodness, you know, the president seems to be lying at an even faster rate because the president realizes that if he floods the zone, if he just follows one lie up after another, we don't know how to handle it. we don't know how to keep pace with it. neither the media nor his political opponents. >> well, we do. we do, charlie. come on. we do. we do a pretty good job. let me ask peter and jonathan lemire to prespond to this, joh bolton in moscow today speaking of the annihilation of truth and russia's to-do list for donald trump. >> president putin said in the opening of the meeting today when press was there that in his words now, it would be useful to continue a direct dialogue with the president of the united states.

primarily on the fields of international events that will take place in the near future. for example, in farris. of course, if the american side is interested in these contacts, president putin said, i said yes, in fact, president trump would look forward to meeting with him in paris. so we will make the precise arrangements on that, but it will happen in connection with the 100th anniversary of the celebration of the armistice that the french are hosting on november the 111 1 november the 1111th. >> it appears h he meets with putin more often than he takes a spin class. >> he's had very few bilateral meetings since helsinki with other foreign leader, yet here we are again having another putin meeting. >> has he had any? >> one twor two in the white house. >> has he traveled to any? >> he's not made an international trip since returning from finland. there had been talk that he might meet with putin on the sidelines of the g20 in argentina. this meeting here comes a couple days after the midterms when so much of donald trump's immediate political future will be

determined. you know, he will then fly to paris for the celebration. that's fine. we know he loves a parade in paris. >> he loves a parade, yes. >> this suddenly takes on significantly more meaning. isn't going to be 36 hours of photo ops near the eiffel tower. could be a significant meeting in part two, let's remember, these two men met in private for two hours in helsinki and det l details of meeting still remain mysterious. afterwards, the president with the world watching decided to side with vladimir putin as opposed to the u.s. intelligence agencies when it came to russian election meddling. he's certainly given no indication since that this coming meeting will be any different. >> peter baker, two men you know very well, vladimir putin and now you cover donald trump. u.s. government's position now is that when it comes to the midterms, or when it comes to meddling, china is a far worst offender. i'm not sure what on china's agenda has been carried out under trump's watch. certainly much of what's gone on in terms of divisions being

exacerbated is what russia wanted. what do you think russia wants to sit down with putin so close after the midterms before we really had a chance to conduct an after-action report and gauge the scope of any russian interference two years after their big effort in 2016? >> well, that's a great question, of course. robert mueller just indicted the other day a russian in connection with meddling in this midterm election. not the election from two years ago but this midterm election. we know it's still going on. to have this meeting immediately after that midterm is curious timing. the thing i don't really sort of understand yet is what it is that they think they're going to accomplish. what are these meetings supposed to be leading up to? at the moment there doesn't seem to be a joint goal here beyond, you know, establishing a friendship and a comrade cause they have now on the verge of getting out of ronald reagan's inf treaty from the 1980s, there's no agreement clearly on syria, what to do there. there's no agreement on any future of ukraine or what anything like that.

and there's a continuing dispute over the poisoning of the former russian spy on british soil. so what it is this meeting is supposed to accomplish still remains kind of a mystery. >> tim? >> well, i think -- i think, you know, sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one. and i wouldn't be surprised if he simply sees this as a way to thumb his nose at bob mueller. that after everything that's gone on and all the criticism he's gotten about his connections or lack thereof to russia, that he's going to march over there and take a meeting, mueller be damned. i think that's the only, you know, peter's ticked off a long list of possibilities that he doesn't think is going to come out of this. i think peter is right. why do it? i think for him it's ego and strutting on the international stage and if he wants to meet with putin, he will. >> and mueller has a nexus to the president's travel calendar as well. >> that's right. >> i think the july indictments of the 13 russians for election meddling came on the eve of the president's trip to helsinki. >> it did. >> we know how that ended. peter baker, thank you for spending so much of the hour

with us. after the break, joe biden lays out the stakes in the upcoming midterm elections in the starkest terms yet. take back your country, he urges. i know that every single time that i suit up, there is a chance that's the last time. 300 miles per hour, that's where i feel normal. i might be crazy but i'm not stupid.

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he plays football, huh? yeah. believe it. geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. ladies and gentlemen, it's about time. it's about time we begin to tell the american story. it's about time we lift our heads up. get the hell up and take back the country. it's about who we are. it's about dreaming again. dreaming again. it's about possibilities. remember, this is the united states of america. unlike any country in the world. and that's not hyperbole. so let's take it back. take it back and lead the world. >> straight out of an aaron sorkin movie. i got chills. joe biden doing what he does best, adding oomph to the democratic messages now two weeks short of the midterms. as we get into crunchtime, a few

bits of good news for the democrats. for starters, it seems republicans are resigned to losing the house. axios reporting, "despite seeing positive signs in polling and enthusiasm after kavanaugh's confirmation, republicans' behavior in the last few weeks shows how nervous they are about keeping control of the house. between the line, the lack of confidence is showing up in where gop groups aren't spending money and how the republican blame game is unfolding between trump and gop operatives. all in anticipation of losing the house." and the numbers bear that out. the cook political report today says, democrats have a clear advantage in 17 gop-held seats and republicans have an a advantage in two democratic-held se seats. democrats would score a net gain of 29 seats, 6 more than the 23 they need to retake the majority." jonathan and tim are here, donna and charlie are here. carly, i talked to three republican pollsters yesterday who said losing the house is is a fore gone conclusion for republicans. and that it doesn't matter in

terms of control whether democrats win by 1 or 30. >> well, anyone who says they know what's going to happen on election night two weeks from now i think is probably being somewhat -- somewhat disingenuous. i think this a very, very uncertain environment here. and i do think that the overconfidence would not be a good strategy for the democrats. particularly as you see republican enthusiasm ticking up. now, again, what we don't know are about these -- these voters who may be coming to the polls for the very first time. this may, in fact, make a lot of the public polling we're seeing completely obsolete. but i'm -- i don't know. i mean, i feel that this is going to be quite a barn burner. there's a lot more uncertainty than i would have said, say, a month or so ago. >> donna edwards, let me show y so you some of the democrats and their closing messages, connected to what we're seeing in early turnout in these state. >> what my grandmother was

communicating to me, it wasn't just about me. it's about all of us. in trump's america, we've been led to believe we got to step on our neighbor's shoulder, their face, their backs in order to get ahead. i reject that. we have an opportunity on november 6th as a collective, as a state, to say we deserve better. >> is that the theme of our campaign? our voices. say our voices. >> our voices. >> our voices become our vote. say our votes. >> our votes. >> because this is our time. say our time. >> our time. >> our voices. >> our voices. >> our votes. >> our votes. >> our time. >> our time. >> let's go get it done. >> and we at this moment, the country's never been more divided, more polarized, bipartisanship and bitterness and smallness. be the big, bold, confident, strong, courageous, answer to all that. we're going to bring this country together through our leadership here in texas. >> donna, i don't know how any of the races are going to turn out. to say the democrats don't have a message would be a falsehood. they have the same message biden

has aboutspeaking to our better angels. john meacham has written one book about that in terms of our history. i don't know why democrats are getting kicked around so much. they seem decidedly on message and the right one. >> i agree. i think what you just showed was the future of the democratic party and andrew gillum and stacey abrams, beto o'rourke, who are really inspiring people to show up to the polls. and the key, of course, for democrats is going to be get your turnout. you know, make sure your voters show up to vote. we've already seen some indications that, you know, voting is going to be on par to a presidential election. and this is a time where democrats need to just be focused on the goal. and never mind all this national conversation, but a real positive message going into these next two weeks, and turning voters out and i think that you're going to see not just the house flip, but i think a lot of these senate races, in fact, are going to be closer than we've seen. >> tim, one of the greatest mythologies of the trump era is the size and power of his base.

they were not big enough for trump to write a speech for the possibility that he would have won on election night. >> right. right. and he's done nothing to extend his reach beyond that base because his comfort zone -- >> no, you don't think the caravan and white nationalism is -- >> no, that's not going to do it. beyond those guys. he's stuck -- >> you think the bleep was the cap? >> that was shuper narrowing, particularly in the suburbs. i think we know why the women have turned out. it's curious to me that younger voters and hispanic and latino voters don't seem to be as incentivized as female voters on the democratic side of the ledger. >> they're not regular voters. >> they're not regular voters, particularly at the midterms. but i also think there's some recognition within those cohorts that the democrats still aren't speaking to them. i think that's something the democratic party has to fix. if it wants to widen its base. the interesting thing with trump

and his narrow casting is he only has one game and only has one message. it's about himself. it's about white guys. it's about fear of the other. and around all that, he'll bake this halo of bogus facts. >> real quick. and trump likes it that way. >> that is what trump likes that way. the white house is projecting some confidence here. they feel like they're going to hold onto the senate for sure. yes, they know the house is an uphill climb but they're not ruling it out entirely. >> all right. donald trump has a long history with the wwe, but i'm not sure he envisioned his west wing as an arena for fights like the one reported in today's "the new york times." that's next. >> oh, here we go. >> hey! >> oh, my god! mcmahon just got shoved on his billionaire butt. can be relentless. tremfya® is for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. with tremfya®, you can get clearer. and stay clearer. in fact, most patients who saw 90% clearer skin at 28 weeks stayed clearer through 48 weeks. tremfya® works better than

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it's time for them to give back by helping all of us to fix our homeless crisis. with more affordable housing... expanded mental-health services... clean restrooms and safe shelters. vote "yes" on c. it helps all of us. unreported fight that "the new york times" now details. quote, an argument last february between the white house chief of staff john kelly and corey lewandowski, former adviser to president trump, turned into an altercation that required secret service intervention just

outside the oval, according to half dozen people familiar with the event. the brawl which mr. kelly grabbed mr. lewandowski by the collar and tried to have him rejected from the west wing came at a time the chief of staff faced uncertainty over how long president trump would keep him in the job. joining us for more is katie rogers. tell us about this brule. this is the second fight involving john kelly we heard about in less than five days. >> i think it's important to note that this came during a period of a lot of unrest in the white house. this was in the midst of the rob porter resignation scandal, which john kelly, if you remember, was initially reluctant to let mr. porter go. and everything i know from reporting this particular story out is that the more somebody like john kelly faces frustrations, the more likely he is to take it out in this sort of way. >> katie, i read your story last night when it showed up online and the first thought i had was corey lewandowski's history of

roughing up michelle fields and what we read about john kelly most recently, about him getting into a very heated debate just outside the oval office with john bolton. what did you uncover in reporting about the president's either appetite for or tolerance of such physicality? >> yeah, well, it's certainly tolerant of because john kelly is still on staff after a series of these sort of escalating fights in the west wing. what we know about the president is that since he was a businessman, he enjoyed sort of pitting his own aides against each other and that has followed through to his time at the white house. corey lewandowski is, of course, an informal adviser who gains access to the west wing, has the president's ear. there are several west wing aides who do not agree with this, who try to keep him really contained. on air force one i have seen aides try to contain corey lewandowski when he's running around the plane. >> really? >> yeah. i think there's a lot of tension

between informal and formal aides to the president, and the president tolerates this, i will stop there. >> tolerates. i wonder if we will find out that he enjoys it at some point. katie, we're lucky to have you, i want to can you about something that just happened in the oval office. let's watch it and talk about it on the other side. >> they had a very bad original concept. it was carried out poorly, and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups. >> katie, that was the president talking about the saudi efforts to cover up, bad cover up in his words, the death of "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. your paper has the headline, saudi account of khashoggi killing is one of the worst cover-ups in saudi history. that's quite an analysis. >> yes, and it's something saudi analysts were saying last week the president appears to have adopted but i think given the president's comments last week

in the oval with my colleagues saying the president captured the imagination of the world seems to tell it's not about the loss of human life at the consulate, it's about it's a shame this got out of hand. >> i think katie's analysis is exactly right and i thought since i read that interview that he's more upset that the bad press m.b.s. got than the gal act of dismembering a journalist. >> that's right, his relationship with the united states and saudi arabia, in the ap interview as well, he was giving an idea about a rogue killer which the conversation flies in the face of what u.s. intelligence was telling him. certainly he tough anticipated his rhetoric. he suggested the cover-up he found here unacceptable but at the same time he seems unwilling to change anything. he also in these remarks talked about the huge arm sales of saudi arabia. as much as he does not seem to make changes with that relationship or perhaps call for m.b.s. to be sliended. >> katie rogers, thank you very

much.

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>> my thanks to donna and charlie sykes. that did is it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mpt daily" starts now. hi, chuck. >> hi, nicolle. a lot of people love you out here in tampa! >> i love tampa! i'm jealous. >> she's an old floridian. you know, she's an old floridian, right, by transplant. >> that's right. >> anyway, florida says hi, nicolle. >> have a good show. >> you got it, thank you. >> well, if it's tuesday -- florida, florida, florida. well, good tuesday. i'm chuck todd. welcome to "mpt daily," and the third stop in our immediate the midterms road trip. we're coming to you live