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mark the death of a former president. >> we will be spending three days of mourning and three days of celebrating a really great man's life. >> president trump just got back to washington, facing a government shutdown and a feud with the chairman of the federal reserve. and when it comes to policy fights, the president says his gut tells him more than anybody's brain. >> that's where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen. the gut. >> do a gut check of our own. how often is his gut actually right? it is sunday, december the 2nd, we are just days away from michael cohen's sentencing. >> i'm sad you're going to prison, michael. you were like a son to me. >> then why'd you make me do so much illegal stuff? >> because you were like a son to me. up with me this hour, mara gay, a member of the editorial board at "the new york times," noah rothman is at commentary magazine, and dan goldman is a former assistant u.s. attorney

now and msnbc legal analyst. let's go first to that breaking news i mentioned. new details overnight about the trump organization's plan to build a trump tower in moscow. president putin's press secretary telling nbc news new details about direct communications between michael cohen, who is donald trump's personal attorney, and the kremlin, saying there were inquiries made to the russian government, and then all of a sudden, they stopped. >> this is different. this is from the lawyer -- >> for us, it's not different. >> it's future president trump. >> huh? >> this is from a lawyer to the future president trump. >> this is different. for you, he is future president trump. for us, it's one of the applicants. >> nbc news has asked michael cohen and the trump organization for comment, but we have not heard back yet. on thursday, there was that blockbuster announcement, michael cohen had reached a plea deal with robert mueller's team after lying to lawmakers. the special counsel's office was looking into whether the lies or the cover-up were connected to an attempt by donald trump to

secure a real estate deal in russia back in june of 2016. that is something now president trump has denied time and time again. >> i have nothing to do with russia. i have no dealings with russia. i have no deals in russia. i have no investments in russia, none whatsoever. >> well, the commander in chief going on the offensive at his one-time lawyer, attorney, and fixer. >> he's a weak person. not a very smart person. so very simply, michael cohen is lying and he's trying to get a reduced sentence for things that have nothing to do with me. >> we're going to go first this morning to buenos aires. that is where nbc news correspondent keir simmons is standing by with the latest. he spoke with dmitry peskov on the sidelines of that g-20 summit. and i gather we're talking about two e-mails and a phone call. help me understand the significance of what you heard from vladimir putin's press secretary. >> reporter: yeah, that's right,

david. two e-mails and a phone call is the way that dmitry peskov characterized it. now, let's explain, dmitry peskov is very, very close to vladimir putin. he is -- he works in the kremlin. he is the russian president's spokesman. he is in many ways, his right-hand man. this goes back to 2016 and this allegation that he merged in those court hearings last week that michael cohen reached out to the kremlin, in fact, to dmitry peskov's office, to ask for help in building a trump tower in moscow. now, dmitry peskov actually showed me on his phone what he claims to be e-mails that were referred to in that court hearing from michael cohen. we have no way of verifying, of course, whether those were, indeed, the e-mails referred to in that court case. but listen to the way that dmitry peskov talks about this approach that he says happened from president -- the then mr. trump, now president trump's

former lawyer. >> you obviously realize that this was coming from the office of the candidate -- of a candidate for the american presidency. >> listen, every week. every week, dozens and dozens of foreign businessmen are approaching us. mentioning possible investments, searching for contacts. >> but this is different. this is from the lawyer -- >> but for us, it's not different. >> this is from future president trump. this is from a lawyer to the future president trump. >> listen, this is different. for you he is a future president trump. for us, it's one of the applicants. i mean, you have to understand that. you have to understand that. we have an open e-mail address that is public and dozens and dozens of applications are coming every week, from businessmen, from, well, whatever. lots of people are all over the place. >> reporter: and david, one of the fascinating aspects of all

of this is the way the kremlin's story has changed. dmitry peskov in the past has been reported as saying that they left any approaches unanswered. meanwhile, the president in the past few days has said that everybody knew about this project and characterized it as more or less an option that we were looking at in moscow. david? >> keir, appreciate the reporting this morning. thank you very much. keir simmons, our foreign correspondent in argentina at the end of that g-20 summit that took place there this week. so dan goldman, dovetail that with what we learned in that michael cohen criminal information this week. how closely does it hue to it? i was just struck, as i think everybody at the table was, by the performtive normalcy according to dmitry peskov, that this was just another businessman writing us for a deal. >> what you're seeing from peskov and trump is an incredibly literal interpretation of the facts. in other words, donald trump says, i never had any investments in russia. that is true. he also did not reveal that he

was seeking investments and deals in russia during the campaign. same with peskov. said, i never had returned the e-mail. peskov himself did not return the e-mail, but his assistant had a 20-minute conversation with michael cohen about this and it does appear from michael cohen's court documents that felix seder, the intermediary, was having additional conversations with peskov or the kremlin. so again, it's an overly literal evasion of the issue, when in reality what was going on, there was coordination between the trump organization and the kremlin to try to build trump tower in moscow during the time when he was the presumptive nominee. that was not disclosed to the american public and that's ultimately what the real issue is, with the lying to congress about -- >> just to put a point on it, the real issue is because he was negotiating this with a government official. his claim throughout all of this is, i didn't think i was going

to -- perhaps i wouldn't win this election, why wouldn't i keep apace with my business dealings? >> some of that remains to be seen. because robert mueller at some point needs to -- i believe he will link trump tower moscow to the campaign collusion investigation. and the reason i think that is that when you have -- when you charge false statements, as they did to michael cohen, there's something called a materiality requirement. it has to matter to the investigation. robert mueller is investigating the campaign. he is not investigating the trump organization's dealings in moscow. so i think that because of that requirement, at some point, he is going to link it back to the campaign. if donald trump had said, in june of 2016, we were looking at a trump tower moscow, but now that i'm the nominee, i'm going to -- we're going to cancel that deal, as everything has come out, they might have looked a little shady, but it looks so much worse now that he was clearly concealing and there was a sort of conspiracy to cover it up, that michael cohen admitted

in his sentencing memo, that he was coordinating with the white house to keep on message and the message was, no inquiry into any dealings occurred after february 1st, 2016. so there was an intent to cover this up and that's what makes it so alarming. >> i want to spend some time now on how the president's fates and fortunes may have change d as a result of what happened on thursday of this week. of course, he was asked about this on the south lawn before he left and the story followed him there to joint base andrews. oh, i get it, he wrote. i'm a very good developer, happily living my life, when i see our country going in the wrong direction, to put it mildly. against all odds, i decide to run for president and continue to run my business, very legal and very cool. lightly looked about building a building in russia and didn't do

it. witch hunt. >> that's yet to be seen, in terms of the politics of this. right? we should be thanking him, right? he's come and saved the country. that's certainly how some of his base feels. but in all seriousness, i think what's happening here is that the walls are closing in, or they're starting to. so that's why you're seeing increasing erratic tweets and behavior from the president. but also, there's going to be a moment at which reality catches up with this kind of political charade and narrative in which the president and some of his lackeys like rudy giuliani go on tv and say, well, you didn't really see what you saw. no, this isn't really a legal problem. mueller, it's just a witch hunt. and i think we're really starting to see that being torn apart, piece by piece, by robert mueller. and you know, i think the real test is going to be how congress responds to that. how is congress going to respond to what bob mueller finds? we know enough to know that there are offenses for which, i

think, a lot of people, you know, feel a president should be impeached already. a lot of people are waiting for bob mueller's report to have something to stand on, other than partisanship. but i think the real test is going to be how americans and how congress responds. >> you know, when you look at republicans and how they react to this, you got a guy who goes from donald trump to being the donald to being the president to being individual one now in this indictment. how does that change the picture? how does that change how his base, how republicans perceive him? seeing him named in an indictment like this? >> i don't think it changes anything. >> i think his political standing within the party is really strong. he's by far the most popular person within the republican party. there is no competitor within the gop. >> paul ryan running a close second. many tens of points -- >> retiring to a very quiet life. >> honest, the occam's razor

situation here, he didn't think he was going to win. and he was setting the ground for a post-campaign environment where he would have a lot of opportunities in places like russia and a media environment with a lot of exposure. so he allowed himself to be influenced by people like roger stone and jerome corsi, who may have had a line into wikileaks through russian military intelligence, through the kremlin. and that may not be malicious, but it could certainly be criminal. >> are we talking about just sort of the sanctity of the campaign? here you have donald trump drawing this distinction that there was campaigning and then there was the point of which you became president. a lot of people would say, you're running for the highest office in the land, you're saying "x," "y," and "z," we believe you have the best interests of the country. >> right, we assume a level of honesty, which has been challenged in a lot of ways. john oliver says this is dumb watergate. and i think there's the issue that everyone around donald trump, especially donald trump,

has been incredibly dishonest. so the kind of culture of lying. but i think you're right, he didn't think he was going to win. i think the stakes of those lies have gone up dramatically. and for somebody who's forever been on television, it's continually shocking that he's surprised there's this thing called the tv, where you have tapes that you can show that you can hear him saying, never russia, nothing russia, absolutely no russia. and there's a time for many americans who now say, you've been saying nothing, if it's not a big deal, why keep denying it? the denials were so vociferous and ongoing. the culture of dishonesty, suddenly there's stakes around it. one reason he hates the press, there's a kind of ongoing attention when you're the president that he never anticipated. he's actually being asked to revisit important, meaningful events that for his entire life he's been able to lie and move and lie and move. now he's lying and the lies is just keep returning and the panic is setting in. >> and the next question is, the real question is, why is

everybody lying, right? and it's -- you know, rudy giuliani is out with a tweet this morning saying, oh, thesis are process crimes. lindsey graham has said, these are process crimes. this is a talking point to minimize what has thus far been primarily false statements, crimes, that robert mueller has charged. but when you start to look at one, two, three, four, five, there are a lot of false statements being made to federal officials in violation of the law. and people don't lie for no reason. they generally lie in their own interest, which is why, when donald trump says michael cohen is lying by admitting to crimes, as a prosecutor, we always generally believe people lie in their interests, not against their interests. so the open question right now, and what i think we will learn about a fair amount this upcoming week, when there are several court submissions required by robert mueller is, what is everyone lying about? we know what they're lying about, but why are they lying?

>> we'll be looking for those court filings this week. as you say, a number of them coming down on michael cohen's certainly chief among them. when we come back, one warned of american carnage while the other spoke of a thousand points of light. while the death of george h.w. bush marks the end of an era and cementing president trump and all that comes with it. with less of the sugar you don't. [grunting noise] i'll take that. 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. in two great flavors. you might or joints.hing. for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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after a ten-hour flight home from argentina. in the not-too-distant future, he faces a divided congress and the specter of more uncertainty and bad news from special counsel robert mueller. as the nation mourns the passing of president george h.w. bush, this image lingers of the pivotal role he played on the world stage ending the cold war. that stands in stark contrast to this moment from the g-20 summit. that was president trump in the background as president putin and saudi arabia's crowned prince mohammad bin salman greet each other effusively before meeting. two presidents that the president has refused to condemn directly. as jonathan allen puts it, rather than condemn them on the public stage, president trump chose to maintain his distance with them. president trump will attend the funeral for president bush this week in washington, but this is what he said in buenos aires

when a reporter asked him about what he has said about 41. >> do you regret any of your comments about president bush in the past? >> thank you very much, everybody. thank you very much. >> his statement yesterday, president trump nodded to president bush's signature phrase, a thousand points of light, to pay tribute to president bush. that happened just five months after he made fun of that statement. >> we are finally putting america first. we're putting america first. and by the way, you know, all the rhetoric you see here, the thousand points of light. what the hell was that, by the way? a thousand points of light. what did that mean? does anybody know? and it was put out by a republican, wasn't it? >> joining us now is pulitzer prize-winning historian jon meach meacham. let me start by asking you about the column you wrote for "the new york times" yesterday. you describe the great tensions that george h.w. bush faced, between competitor and conciliator, between being a gentlemen and politician.

i look at president trump and i see a lack or a lack of interest in exploring that kind of tension. >> well, george h.w. bush's life was driven by these competing impulses. he desperately wanted to serve. he also wanted to succeed in the arena. he was one of the most competitive men who ever drew breath. would be the first to tell you that. i remember asking him once what had driven him, because if life were all about service, he could have just opened a soup kitchen. and he raised that big left hand. he always talked with his left hand, big fist. and he said, it's be number one. it's be the captain of the team. it's whatever you're in, you know, do well. and that's perfectly fine. it's perfectly natural. the great thing about him is that once he had power, once he did succeed in the arena, he deployed that power against his own interest in many cases.

he opposed the 1964 civil rights act, when he was running down in texas for the senate. but once he had congressional power, when he was in the house four years later, against the will of his constituents in houston, he voted for fair housing. went to a huge meeting down at memorial high school in houston, where the crowd was against him. and he quoted edmond burke saying, sometimes a representative owes you his best judgment, not simply a reflection of your will. the epic moment, which in many ways helped shape where we are today politically, in 1990, when he decided that the fiscal health of the country and the political realities of having two houses of congress in the hands of democrats required him to raise some taxes to try to get the deficit under control. we used to worry about this thing called the deficit. >> yes. >> you may be too young. and i know -- >> when the will was larger than the wallet. >> exactly!

it's as though we're talking about, you know, something in the bayou tappest espest ry. >> you said george h.w. bush had grown up in a world when politics was a means to serve the public good, not a vehicle for self-agragrandizement or self- self-enrichment. i've heard a lot of people cynical or pessimistic that we'll get to that place again. as you've waded into his life and had so many conversations with him over the course of his and your lives, do you think we can get back there? is there something a vestige of the past that we're not going to see again? >> i do think we can get back to it. i think also in president bush's case, he's the exception that proves the rule. we make a mistake, i think, if we act as though somehow every moment before 2016 was this kind of golden moment where people were walking around in frock coats and powdered wigs and making great decisions and the

bipartisan interest of america. ask joe mccarthy. ask john adams when he signed the alien sedition acts whether there's that the case. history is conditional, it's contingent, it's complicated. and the remarkable thing about america is that we've had moments where we've moved forward. the nature of our history is a couple step forwards, a step back. president obama has a wonderful formulation where he talks about -- in fact, i think the last public caller on george h.w. bush in his 94 years of life was barack obama last week. and what president obama sometimes says is when things are going well, they're never as good as we really think, and when they're going poorly, they're not as bad as we actually think. and i think president bush had that sense of proportion. he knew we were a 51% country, not in a steve kornacki sense, necessarily, with great respect to our colleague. >> of course. >> but a 51%, if you -- every

day is a battle between our worst instincts and our better angels. and if the better angels can win 51% of the time, which they did with george herbert walker bush, then we move forward. and that eternal struggle is one that will continue to unfold. and i think one of the things he would want us to be talking about is, think about how do those better angels win out? it's going to be a tough fight, it's going to be a knife fight to get it done, but that's the way history moves forward. >> john, i'll let one of the other young'uns here ask you a question. >> as a proponent of an ideological foreign policy, you have to say that george h.w. bush ran a very realist foreign policy and a very successful one, at that. i would argue that perhaps he took a hands-off approach to tiananmen square that was ill advised, but you can't say that about the post-soviet space. places like jackson hole and off the coast of malta, where they created a soft landing space and

he had a hands-off approach in poland and romania where there was a lot of violence that allowed the soviet union to feel like the threat from the west had receded, so by august 1991 when the coup happened, there was no threat from the west that would have mabd helped that coup s be successful. what kind of lessons can policymakers take from that foreign policy, as the republican party and people like me are so predisposed to say, we need a much more extroverted, ideological, pro-democratic foreign policy. >> yeah, you know, i think i would urge us to step up one step of perspective. to me, what's fascinating about that period is the combination of the 12 years, of president reagan and president bush. i think we were incredibly fortunate, as a country, in terms of our foreign policy, that we had ronald reagan to infuse the cold war, freshly infuse the cold war, with moral

urgency. and also the old great screen actor guild's negotiator that he was. and then, having george herbert walker bush being able to bring, as the greeks would say, character is destiny, george bush's character was, let's balance this, we used to mock this, but god knows we live in a better world because of it. he believed in prudence. he did not believe -- he believed america was the indispensable nation, but he also believed that every country had its right to shine th. that he shouldn't stick his finger in gorbachev's eye. that sense of his grace and his manners actually found political expression. and i think that, as a country, we were very lucky that the reagan/bush continuum actually governed us in that period. reagan did things that bush couldn't have done. i think bush did things that reagan couldn't have done. i think the lesson of that is that if you have a principled

vision of ultimately where you want things to go, there are a couple of different paths to get there. but you have to have the principled vision. george bush believed in helsinki. he amazed gorbachev when he would be in a meeting and he would say, held, the helsinki accord said, and they were all looking around, thinking, what the heck is the helsinki accord. which is another thing, expertise matters. he knew his stuff. he would read his books quietly at night and tell his staff not to tell anyone because he didn't want to appear to be to intellectual. hopefully there's some secret going on. >> jon meacham joining us from washington, d.c., appreciate it, jon. president xi and president trump break bread in buenos aires and maybe, just maybe, there's a cease-fire in that ongoing trade war between the world's two largest economies.

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. president trump is praising his relationship with his chinese counterpart this morning. the president wanting desperately to leave the g-20 summit in argentina with at least one win aft. after the 10,000-mile trip, 19 hours on air force one, and three days' worth of talks, the president returns to the white house this morning claiming he brokered a truce in the trade war. but as always, the devil is in the details. and after the 21 1/2-hour dinne they had last night, there are more questions than answers. david foouk joins us now. some folks calling it a truce or a cease fire. you've been watching all of this play out. strikes me what they agreed to is that they have agreed donate -- to continue to talk. what things after this dinner in

buenos aires? >> not much. i think it's clear that the president clearly decided to call a truce for a moment in exchange for the chinese agreeing to talk about the issues that the president has been wanting to talk about for a while, which it doesn't seem like he's getting a whole lot out of this. but i think taking a step back, and you look at this, this is classic trump when it comes to foreign policy. he plays the arsonist and firefighter at the same time. he takes a genuine problem with china, decides to make it much worse by starting a massive trade war with them, and then, all of a sudden, he comes in, decides, okay, i'm going to douse the flames, put the flames down a little bit on this and call it a giant victory here. where in goes, no one knows, but trump clearly likes to do this when it comes to foreign policy. >> chris, you've been watching this. there's the element of the trade policy and the palace intrigue, as well. at the beginning of the g-20, he said, larry kudlow is having meetings on the sidelines. there were no published indications that there were going to be meetings of staff before the dinner last night took place. we're still at this point that it's unclear who's leading these conversations? >> yeah, i feel it's incredibly

reactive and that he felt like he needed to do something, because already canceling with russia and refusing to do anything around ukraine or to confront saudi arabia, this became another site that he could go to and say something and come out with some kind of claim. but you're exactly right, it's this ongoing dynamic of creating crisis and then staunching crisis and then claiming this is a massive success on my part and i've negotiated something incredibly. and it's really frustrating, because there are really legitimate problems and concerns with china. there are things we actually have to do. and none of this does any work other than destabilizing markets, you know, causing massive violence to workers. it's just an incredibly unproductive and violent practice that leads him sort of feeling at the end that, you know, like he's now made some kind of accomplished goal. he gets a headlines. >> mike, you've been to a number of these meetings. this strikes me as being particularly weird, in the limited amount of news that comes from it, am i right in perceiving it this way? is this an outlier? >> yeah, when you have a normal president, the way i try to

think about it, right? the best presidents are able to really achieve a lot at these summits, come out with some kind of multilateral consensus about some big issue, climate change or trade or something else. for president trump, unfortunately, we seem to set the bar really on the floor. so it doesn't take a whole lot to actually clear the bar here. and so the very fact that the president did not actually step on one land mine after another, which seems to be how he usually operates at these summits, seems to be a good thing for america, i guess, i would say. but really at the end of the day, i think, unfortunately, what we saw in that "snl" clip from last night with vladimir putin and mbs sort of giving the bro hug to each other is sort of, unfortunately, illustrative of what is happening around the world during the trump era. i mean, trump is making autocrats great again. and it's really, really unfortunate. he doesn't stand up to autocrats. he doesn't stand up to xi jinping, talking about other issues that we have with china. china right now is imprisoning a

million uighur slmuslims in an ethnic cleansing campaign. >> illustrative, as well, to see president trump walking in after that bro handshake, just kind of lingering in the background. all right, up next, president trump says his brilliance lies in his gut. you'll remember, that's a core tenant of what stephen colbert called truthiness. >> that's where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen. the gut. do you know you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head? look it up! now, somebody's going to say, i did look that up and it's wrong. well, mister, that's because you looked it up in a book. next time, try looking it up in your gut. ♪

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you're right! what i'm about to do, it doesn't make any sense, it's not logical. it is a gut feeling. >> spock there, of course, a vulcan, unable to comprehend captain kirk's decision based solely on emotion. in 2018, we find ourselves inside the belly of the beast as president trump claims the infinite wisdom of his gut. the president telling "the washington post" in an interview this week, my gut tells me more sometimes than somebody's brain can ever tell me. i want to flag a few recent instances of when the president has gone with his gut, from just the last few weeks. after 13 federal agencies contributed to a major report about climate change, warning

about how devastating it's likely to be to the u.s. economy, this is what the president said. >> i've seen it. i've read some of it. and it's fine. >> they say the economic impact will be devastating. >> yeah. i don't believe it. >> you don't believe it? >> no, no, i don't believe it. >> you can also say the president's gut instinct overrule career intelligence officials. the cia reported with high confidence that saudi arabia's crowned prince ordered the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. here's how the president responded to that. >> the cia has looked at it. they have studied it a lot. they have nothing definitive. the fact is, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. >> maybe he did, maybe he didn't. mara, i'm going to go to you first here. jon meacham a few minutes ago talking to us about the degree to which george h.w. bush prized expertise. he read, he liked to have people around him who had read and had knowledge and established ideas about things. your reaction to just that comment that was in phil rutger and josh dawsey's interview,

when it comes to the fed and other issues, his gut is paramount, prized above all else. >> oh, my goodness. it's funny, because his gut tends to favor any decision that is good for him, but otherwise, there's just no value in expertise. it actually does kind of remind me a little bit, though, in all fairness of, i believe when a certain other president said that he had looked vladimir putin in the eye -- >> seen the soul of the man. >> seen the soul of the man. so it's not without precedent. and he's not the only one. but, no, it's obviously extremely disturbing. it's not just that he's going with his guts, it's that he's ignoring facts that don't serve him and that's really what this is about. >> noah, how do you react with this? this notion that he's dispensing with what is established fact in favor of what he feels or sees? >> i think the president has a tendency to think in five-minute increme increme

increments, depending on who's in the room. >> if i'm hungry, i also think in five-minute increments, where can i go to get something to eat. >> that does -- but this has policy impacts. when he ran for campaign, he crafted a coalition that really didn't work for republicans. he is coming back with a victory from buenos aires in the form of this renegotiated nafta, which has some good wins in it. but it's also the kind of negotiation and agreement that you would think would come from a democratic negotiation. it is an effort to negotiate wages and it's going to raise the price of vehicles. that's really good for his coalition, but not for the general public. not for car buyers, and certainly not for the out industry, which is experiencing a lot of disruption now and making their product more expensive is only going to hurt them in the long run. that's a gut move. it might play off, but it could backfire spectacularly. >> christina, we had this play out throughout the context of the fed. you never had a president attack the chairman to have the fed the way that president trump is. this is wonky, we're talking

about macro economics here. but they're supposed to be distinct things. and i'll point out again, president trump picked jerome powell to be the chairman of the federal reserve for four years' time. so what we're talking about here is a president going with his gut, but also skbrjust pushing aside, going right up against enormous that have been established for a very long time in this country. >> and apparently his gut has poo for brains. his gut isn't that smart. his gut said that michael cohen was a great lawyer to have. his gut apparently tells him one things and then his gut tells him something else. his gut is a little bipolar and his gut has no values. the other thing that's kind of interesting, if we want to come up with another body part, he's ethically color blind. there's this interesting way in which his gut guides him on self-interest or guides him on a desire for the things he wants to see happen. and because there's no precedent, because there's no history and there's no kind of knowledge behind anything, it's this continual, just, you know, it's a roiling gut. and it's making a lot of us really sick. >> i think the problem is that

his gut, he feels, is what won him this election. and so, he's been rewarded, mightily, he believes, i think, for ignoring professional advice. the republican party told him he couldn't do certain things, couldn't say certain things. he did it anyway. and here he is. so, he's learned the wrong lessons. >> yeah, when ignorance and arrogance get married, that's really terrifying. >> ultimately, what he's talking about when he's saying, i listen to my gut is that i am not interested in learning the facts. i am not -- >> or the rules. >> i am not interested in understanding the impact or effects of what my decisions might be from an intellectual or a factual perspective. you see it play out with all of his tweeting, about the investigation, those tweets come back to haunt him. i am certain and a couple of his lawyers, i think, withdrew because he would not listen to them. because his gut knows better than the lawyers. and since we're about to wrap up

the segment, i think it is only a good time for us to recognize -- >> ahhhh! >> -- that this is what the gut is for, not policy. >> well said. that is quite delicious. a special treat from new jersey, i understand, brought in by some of my producers. a special programming note, as we go to break. this is exceedingly difficult. make sure to catch msnbc tonight at 9:00 eastern time when the global citizen festival celebrates nelson mandela's legacy on the 100th anniversary of his birth. trevor noah, oprah, beyonce, ed sheeran will all be there alongside of msnbc's joy reid and al sharpton tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. just ahead, push come to shove, literally. president trump always finding his light on the world stage, like this one, leaving his counterpart hanging, we were just talking about this, during a photo op misunderstanding at the g-20. what can you say? america first. more of these moments right after this break. ng that you do. let's clear a path.

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frmg welcome back. we remember the strange and

awkward arm lift. perhaps no one seems as ill at ease when the current president when he participates at international ♪ ♪ we are going to talk about president trump on the world stage. i believe we have some sill stra -- illustration there. mike is here with us back at the table. we were seeing that now.

the opening of the nato headquarters. certainly we saw down in argentina as well. how does the manifestation of that appear, the president's attitude towards the world? >> they have to wear the really awkward shirts. >> no. really i don't want to give it too much, you know, sot of the esthetics of this, but when you're abroad at these summits a lot of it is about how you appear. how you appear is how the president of the united states appears to the world. you want to send the right signals, the way you act and things you say. it is not donald trump's strong suit. so things like pushing aside the leader at a nato summit is sort of his approach to nato. again, this is sort of unford e

unfortunate. >> how much collateral damage can you get? you were laughing as you saw some of the moments there with the circus music in the background. >> which should really be played live. it's kind of clown music. it would be interesting. i think on a more serious level it's always embarrassing. he ending up personifying all of these things. certain types of stereo types. the country is kind of this bumbling and doesn't really care about the rest of the world. it is sort of those sort of images. he sort of personifies that ignorant aggressive behavior that we have been attacked for those in the past. he sort of personifies some of that. i think another part that's more distressing is he is something that doesn't have values beyond

his own self-interest. i think when he is experiencing time with other people in terms of ideal i think that's one reason he enjoys being around dictators. he is continually describes people that obey the law as weak, sort of people that go beyond as a kind of weakness. i don't think he knows how to talk at. he doesn't speak language beyond e english. >> thank you. coming up on separating fact fromfection is becoming more relevant than ever. stay with us. the meeting of the executive finance committee is now in session. and... adjourned. business loans for eligible card members up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds.

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welcome back to up. the death of president george h.w. bush maces the end of an era. it could be the end of a long standing feud. trump sweeting president bush will be missed by all. president bush saw a kinder and

gentler nation he thought if the nation were to get any kinder it would cease to exist. >> i'm not a fanover bush. >> jeb bush or hillary clinton? >> poor jeb bush, low energy. it's sad. and i respectfully say i beat the bush dynasty. >> president bush revealed the feeling was mutual. he said i don't like him. he is a blow hard driven by ego. >> your dad when he watches the debate some times throws a shoe. >> he doesn't aim very well, but y. >> the