you know, there was one prosecutor donald trump called after his election? preet bharara. he was also, as you'll see right here, the one prosecutor who refused to resign when trump demanded he go and he was then fired. he is my guest tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern on "the beat." a big discussion of law and justice in the trump era. don't go anywhere, "hardball" with chris matthews and a special edition with cory booker is up next. have you no decency? let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews from chicago. donald trump is showing right now a viciousness we have never before seen in the american presidency. perhaps sensing doom at the hands of a damning mueller

report, he's spitting his anger with the violence at the special counsel and cnn, general motors, "saturday night life" and even fox news. it's found its hardest target in a hero who spent five and a half years in a communist prison in vietnam. this coming after john mccain succumbed to brain cancer. because it was mccain's moral superiority that incites in trump such an undying grudge. the president slammed mccain for passing the christopher steele dossier along to the fbi back in 2016. quote, so it was sgeed just proven in court papers that last in his class at annapolis john mccain that sent the fake dossier to the fbi and the media hoping to have it printed before the election. he and the democrats working together failed as usual. even the fake news refused this garbage. well, trump's allegation is false. as nbc news points out, mccain gave the dossier to the fbi in

december of 2016, after the presidential election. and there's no evidence whatever he ever gave the dossier to the media. trump's attack on mccain's legacy is bringing outrage and condemnation, including from democratic senator and 2020 presidential hopeful cory booker, who spoke with me this morning in iowa. >> what was your instinctive reaction when you heard that? >> repulsive, repulsive. john mccain, he and i disagreed, but he was probably one of the better mentors i had when i first came to the senate. he's a hero. and a sitting president, a commander in chief, what's that say to other men and women that are serving this nation? so i found it repulsive. just another example of his moral vandalism and him just tearing at the fabric of this country. >> we've got a lot more of that powerful interview coming up in the program tonight. trump's fevered clamor over mccain, his late rival, was in stark contrast to the oval office silence about the lives of the 50 muslims who were

murdered in new zealand. where he did show sympathy was for the fox news host judge gentlemen janine pirro who did not show on her show after anti-muslim comments. donald trump said the radical left democrats working closely with their beloved partner the fake news media is using every trick in the book to silence a majority of our country. jill wine-banks, ron reagan and carlos curbelo. ron, i read what you thought about trump. i don't know what to make of it. going after a man that's passed away. we used to say in society, say no ill of the dead. what's he doing? what's trump up to with his weird attempt to assassinate a guy who's already gone? >> well, trump is being trump. trump is a coward and he's somebody who looks normal human

decency. what is it about john mccain that sets him off? john mccain was everything donald trump isn't. john mccain was a man of integrity and a man of great courage. we all remember that moment with the thumbs down that killed trump's chance to undo obamacare. i'm sure he's never mccain for that. and it's not going stop him that john mccain is now dead and can't fight back. that's perfect for trump. he loves a target that can't fight back. it really is low. it doesn't get much lower than this. >> congresswoman, i get the sense that trump feels -- i get the sense that he feels that something is coming. he's been in a frenzy lately. he's been shooting in every direction, even at the dead. >> i think that he always does that when he feels something is coming. when his kitchen is getting hot, he has to throw shade somewhere else or create chaos. i think he's very, very good at that and i think this is what is happening now. >> reacting to the president's criticism of his friend john

mccain, senator lindsey graham issued a response, but a tepid one, which did not mention trump by name. graham said of mccain, he stepped forward to risk his life for his country, served honorably under difficult circumstances, and one of the most consequential senators in the history of the body. nothing about his service will ever be changed or diminished. by the way, daughter meghan mccain tweeted no one will ever love you the way they love my father. here's meghan today on "the view." >> my father was his kryptonite in life, he's his kryptonite in death. i just thought your life is spent on your weekends not with your family, not with your friends, but obsessing, obsessing over great men you could never live up to. that tells you everything you need to know about his pathetic life right now. >> congressman curbelo, what do you make of this sort of port motor '

mortem attack? your thoughts. >> there are a couple of factors at play here from my perspective. number one, it's clear the president is anxious about something. i don't know if it's about the mueller report or something else, but 58 tweets over a weekend. i mean i know a lot of kids that do that when they get anxious, when they're worried, they talk a lot. it seems like that's what the president was doing over the weekend. combine that with the fact that he's always been frustrated with john mccain being regarded a hero, someone that both republicans and democrats admire, someone who obviously contributed to this country more than the president, more than most of us, to be fair. so that's what's at play here, that combination, that mixture of feelings. now, the president might be anxious, might be frustrated. however, that's no excuse to disparage someone, especially someone who has passed away, especially someone who has sacrificed so much for this country. so i hope that a lot of my fellow republicans really step up and say this is wrong, this has to stop.

>> i want to get to jill wine-banks about the imminence of something coming from robert mueller. there's a frenzy, almost like a cat on a hot tin roof. there's something that's scaring this guy. the heat's on. let me ask you, ron, in the pantheon of american heroes, your dad is up there but this guy mccain is up there too as a senator. i wondering if trump realizes he will never ascend that mountain. that his goal has always been division, rotten talk about people. it may even get him re-elected. god knows anything can happen, he got elected once, but it's never going to make him a hero to the american people in history. is that what's bugging him? >> well, i'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist and i don't want to play one on tv. it's been said trump is a narcissist and it seems that way to me.

at the core of narcissism is a crippling insecurity. this man who wants to boast that he knows more about anything than anybody is actually quite sure deep inside that he's a pretty worthless guy. and that's what you see coming out here, that this -- you know, this reacting to any slight or insult, whether from a late night comedy show or another politician. it's born of insecurity, not strength. he would like you to believe that he's a tough guy, but he's anything but. he's a bully and he's a coward. >> you could write a movie about a ghost roaming the white house up and down. working its way upstairs, this ghost being john mccain, and spooking the hell out of our president. he is spooked by this didn't i. anyway, trump has been fixated on mccain way back since the summer of 2015. let's watch himmen. >> he's a war hero -- >> five and a half years -- >> he's a war hero because he was captured.

i like people that weren't captured, okay? i hate to tell you. >> you're not going to get cap turld capcaptured if you've got a bone spur. let me ask you, jill, about this guy. it's ridiculous. has he got a reason to worry about a little update on the court, on robert mueller? i feel he's a cat on a hot tin roof. he's jumping around, jittery, attacking everybody on the weekend, won't take a day off. >> remember, he doesn't exactly what mueller knows but he knows what he's done wrong, so he has plenty to worry about. he knows his lifetime history of wrongdoing in new york. he knows how many people he's cheated. he knows how much he's cheated on his taxes. we don't know it. hopefully we will soon. but in the meantime, he has plenty to worry about. >> people in new york talk about him like he's a thief. that's how they talk about him. >> right here in chicago, the

trump tower construction, people didn't get paid. when they called his lawyer to say we're going to sue, his lawyer said, no, we withheld just enough that it will cost you too much to sue. you're not going to sue us. it's not worth it to you. >> that's his game. >> exactly. it's a deliberate ploy. >> more predictably, the president went after "saturday night live" perhaps not knowing it was a rerun this weekend. he says it's truly encredible that saturday night life, not funny, no talent, can spending all of their time knocking the same person, me, over and over without so much of a mention of the other side. he said should federal election commission or fcc look into this? there must be collusion with the democrats and of course russia. one thing congresswoman the democrats aren't good at is jokes. >> he's the gift that keeps on giving so they don't need to call us. >> what kind of an investigation would you have? would you investigate fox for

getting calls from the white house? >> he's being ridiculous. again, he's worried. like you said, he's worried, he knows something is coming and he knows better than we know what's coming. hopefully mueller knows everything. >> i think so. he may not care much about the muslims in new zealand, but i don't know what he thinks about because he won't say anything. now jeanine pirro appeared to be giving talks news a pep talk. he said stop working so hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for your con true, our country, the losers want you to have. don't give it to them, be strong and prosper. what is this guy, star wars? be week and die? they can't beat you, you can only beat yourself. there's a pep talk, ron reagan, i've got to let you handle. they're totally right wing and totally in his pocket and now he's saying i want more of you

in my pocket. >> there's a couple of aspects of this that are scary. again, he's a narcissist so any insult is seen as an existential threat. but we laugh about this stuff and make fun of his outrageous, crazy tweets, but they are the product of a mind that is not well balanced. when you pair that with some of the other things he's been tweeting or saying lately about violence, for instance, having the military and the police and the bikers for trump on his side and that things might get very rough of things don't go his way, you put together not well balanced and encouraging violence, mix those things together, and we're not laughing anymore then. then things get serious in a hurry. >> ron is absolutely right, chris. >> i don't understand why the republicans who are still in office like lindsey graham are supporting this captain quake? why are they supporting him? they support him no matter what

he says. he can attack one of their heroes, like john mccain. lindsey was his buddy, but will not take a shot at trump. >> when it comes to the issues of basic decency, it is inexcusable, chris, and i encourage all of them to speak up. i mean these are things that our parents taught us were wrong, our grandparents when we were growing up. you'd think when the president crosses those lines that some republicans, or more republicans would stand up and say this is too much. this is wrong. when it comes to fox news, it's obvious what the president is signaling to them. number one, he considers them an extension of his campaign and his operation. number two, he's telling them, hey, white nationalists are part of the base. you cannot discourage them. you need to keep them excited. that's why he comes out in defense of this judge. that's when republicans really have to stand up and say, look, we cannot have parties in this country that organize based on race and ethnicity. we need to have parties that organize based on ideas for the

future of the country. i really hope more republicans would stand up and do that. look at the example of ronald reagan and others, who, by the way, chris, i would put at the top five of the best presidents in our country. >> good for you. thanks so much. robin kelly from here in chicago, jill wine-banks who lives out here and is brilliant out here. thank you, ron reagan, as always for a good psychoanalysis and carlos curb delo thank you for that. coming up my enter view with cory booker. it was a really interesting interview about everything. he's a very hope guy. i think he's an open person. more of his passionate response to president trump's attack on the late senator mccain. i also asked senator booker about new zealand and whether he thinks trump is a racist. stick with us, a lot of cory coming up. ot of cory coming up.

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welcome back to "hardball." now to my interview with cory booker, who's running for the democratic presidential nomination. the senator from new jersey and former mayor of newark is offering himself to voters as a uniter for the country. earlier today i sat down with him at tommy's cafe in davenport, iowa, about three hours from here for a wide-ranging discussion. i asked him to start with about trump's rhetoric on race, the branding of the democratic party by some as socialists, whether the president committed obstruction of justice and if a president booker would ever think of pardoning donald trump. i began i asking him about john mccain and what he thought about the president's rough talk about his deceased former colleague. >> repulsive, repulsive. i mean john mccain, he and i disagreed, but he was probably one of the better mentors i had when i first came to the senate. he is a statsmesman and he has passed away. this is a moral vandalism that we see from this president with

the idea that you speak kind of the dead. and i guy who sacrificed for his country, was tortured for his country, who stayed there without other people going before him, he's a hero. and a sitting president, a commander in chief, what's that say to other men and women saving this nation. so i found it repulsive. just another example of his moral vandalism and him just tearing at the fabric of this country. as opposed to bonding us together, he pits us against each other. >> you've got a great headline in a local paper here. we're in davenport, iowa, right now. there's a great quote from you on the front page slightly below the fold. pretty good. this election is about uniting americans. i want to ask you about working in the senate, the world's greatest deliberative body. name some republicans you like in the senate. >> there's a lot. >> name them.

there's 53 to go through. >> look, i have friends on the other side of the aisle. >> name them. >> i just told you one. mike lee is a friend from utah. lamar alexander isn't a friend but he's a statesman. i go to inhoff's office for bible study. >> that's a good one. you agree with him on nothing. >> we are americans. sincerely, we're americans. we passed an amendment to an education bill together that took care of homeless kids and foster kids. when i went to do bible study, i saw his black grandchildren, adopted grandchildren. so you see people when you strip away all the politics and you meet them over prayer, you meet them in the gym working out, you begin to realize the lines that divide us are not as strong as the ties that bind us. in america if we can stop focusing on this divisive rhetoric and start seizing that

common ground we'll get a lot more done. >> you know what struck me on the ethnic thing, the racial thing over the years, the politicians -- >> bill bradley and jack kemp, my very first fund-raiser in washington, d.c., they co-hosted that fund-raiser for me. >> they were ballplayers together. >> football and basketball. again, when you sweat with somebody, when you bleed with somebody on the football field, it strips away a lot of the bs frankly and you see their humanity. you see them first as human beings in a common cause. that's what the military does as well. >> that's love, and i love it. i work with politicians and you walk past a guy in a hallway, you've got to treat them with respect. you share the same space with them. >> you cannot lead the people if you do not love the people and all the people. >> let's talk about the other end of the spectrum, hate. the guy who did the shooting down in new zealand cited our president in his manifesto.

>> yeah. but it's not only hate in new zealand, we have hate groups here. we have hate leaders. david duke and others that see him as their president. here's a guy that couldn't condemn nazis, whose bigoted language from the time of the campaign. talk about pulling the race card. he came down that escalator and started talking about mexicans and muslims, started talking about the divisions in america. >> is he racist? >> he's a guy -- >> is he a racist? >> racists think he's a racist and his language hurts people. his language is causing pain, fear. the way he's talking, he's making people afraid. i was down at mother emmanuel church. i have talked to people that are afraid -- >> south carolina. >> in south carolina, where there was a hate crime. people who are afraid to go worship at a mosque or a synagogue because hate is on the rise and these hate incidents are on the rise. we have a president that can't stand up with any moral

authority and remind us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere and it's despicable. >> how do we stop this world market, this global market for hatred. 8,000 miles away at new zealand is connecting with other people that think and talk like him on the social media. is there any way that the people that don't believe in that hate can stop the social media from being the traffic for that? any way? >> yes. we're not helpless. we can't surrender in cynicism. i think cynicism is a refuge for cowards. it's not enough to say in america or the world to say i'm not a racist. if racism exists, you have to be anti-raci anti-racist. and those platforms that we have, let's not use them for trivialities. other people are using their platforms to preach hate and we need to preach kindness and decency.

there's a researcher at stanford that has shown that one act of decency and kindness or love witnessed by others, it ripples out two or three degrees of separation. >> yeah. president obama tried to do that, right? or did he? >> of course he tried to do it, yeah. >> and? >> and look, we now need more than ever after this president, we need a revival of grace in our country, in our civic spaces. and we need -- this election, that's what i tell democrats. you can't make this election just about one office and one person, about what we're against. we need to talk about what we're for. if we reduce this effort to just being we're going to beat republican, no, this has to be about uniting americans again. when i talk to folks in iowa, i mean they're right to be angry. attacks on public education, attacks on labor. here in this state, the loopholes to get around

davis-bacon. attacks on farmers. farmer suicide rates are as high as they have been in the great depression. just down the street here you see the rivers rising. historic floods happening year after year after year. all of this stuff is happening because we are not seeing with a more courageous empathy the suffering of our neighbors. so we need to have politics where we say, hey, we've got common cause. we definitely have common pain. but this campaign, this time in american history more than ever we need to reunite a common purpose and put more indivisible back into this one nation under god. >> nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, took impeachment off the table at least for now, not to talk about it. where are you on that? >> i'm waiting for the mueller report. this is another bipartisan effort. lindsey graham and i worked together on a bill, chris coons and tillis got in to try to protect this investigation. let's let him finish his work and make our determinations after that.

i had an important conversation with 2020 presidential candidate cory booker, including whether president booker would consider pardoning donald trump once he got into office. we'll be right back. once he got into office. we'll be right back. they see us as profits. we're paying the highest prescription drug prices in the world so they can make billions? americans shouldn't have to choose between buying medication and buying food for our families. it's time for someone to look out for us. congress, stop the greed. cut drug prices now. ♪ do you ♪ love me? ♪ ♪ i can really move ♪ ♪ do you love me? ♪ i'm in the groove ♪ now do you love me?

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welcome back to "hardball." in davenport, iowa, today i talked to senator cory booker about everything, from socialism to adding extra supreme court justices and impeachment. whether he would consider

pardoning trump if he got into office. let's take a look. >> you went to yale, the best law school, everybody knows that. no, i mean it, everybody knows it's the best law school. >> my dad didn't. he's like boy, you've got more degrees than the month of july but you ain't hot. life isn't about the degrees you get, it's about the service you give. a lot of people who get degrees aren't all that smart. i'll take somebody who -- >> you're push meeg in my areas here. jerry ford pardoned richard nixon. would you consider pardoning trump if you took the presidency? >> no. >> why? >> first of all -- >> you said you want to unite the country. wouldn't that unite the country? >> you're pushing me to a lot of hypotheticals here. >> you're running for president. >> what has he been convicted of? >> start with obstruction of justice. you've got to believe that is in play here. he fired his fbi director because he wouldn't swear his allegiance to him on the issues

that he's being investigated on. he gets rid of his attorney general because he recused himself on the issues he was being investigated on. >> this is the problem that a lot of -- this is why our justice system has lost so much legitimacy. as brian stevenson says, we've got a justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than poor and innocent. there's a whole lot of people who i'm looking to pardon who are being punished unfairly. there were more marijuana arrests in 2017 than all the violent crime arrests combined. you know who doesn't get arrested for smoking marijuana? people on yale's campus. there's no difference between blacks and whites for using marijuana or even selling marijuana but blacks are four times more likely to be convicted. now we have senators bragging about their pot use while kids can't get a job because they have nonviolent use for doing something two of the last three presidents did. >> so you wouldn't pardon trump

in general and you're not willing to say obstruction of justice yet. >> i'm going to wait for the mueller report. >> let me ask you about a couple of economic issues. first of all, amazon was going to go into brooklyn and maybe create tens of thousands of jobs. local politicians, activists basically discouraged them from doing that. where would you have been on that one? >> where i was. i was trying to get amazon to come to newark, new jersey. >> you would support that now? >> absolutely. bring amazon to newark and do it on our terms because we had a very good conversation with them about how he would do it. >> so you think new york was wrong to run them out? >> i would not have supported running them out. >> let me ask you about breaking up the high-tech companies, amazon especially. where are you standing on that? >> i think we've had too much corporate concentration from the pharma industry. i will have a justice department if i'm president of the united states that enforces antitrust laws. a lot of these mergers that are going on right now are hurting consumers, are hurting labor, are hurting communities in which

these corporations exist. so we just need to use our antitrust laws. i'm not going to make a determination right now about which companies to break up. there should be a process for that. but i'm telling you right now unchecked corporate concentration -- if you're a farmer in america right now, there's three companies that control 70% of the chemicals you use, two-thirds of the seeds you use. the farmers share of their tomato, it's gone down about 40%, 50%, 60% depending on the good. that's why farmers are losing their farms because people are profiteering off of this corporate concentration. a guy for his beef used to have five companies to sell to, now he's got one. >> where are you on this issue with socialism. this country has existed with mixed capitalism. it's always been a mix of capitalism and socialism. what's wrong with being for capitalism? >> the thing is -- >> it's always been part of our growth. >> i am for capitalism and i'm

tired of companies engaging to socialism. >> okay, i agree. >> they outsource their costs. >> that's good. >> it's true. i live in jersey. i live in jersey. the passaic river is polluted because they outsource their costs into my river. we now have a super fund site from corporations pushing out their costs onto the public. i'm a capitalist. monopolies are not capitalism. i asked people in this diern, how many people wanting to start businesses, you might get half of the people. small businesses with the ones creating jobs in this country. we just gave corporate tax breaks to folks that were not even paying the full effective tax rate. so we don't have competition anymore. >> okay, the word socialist, where are you on that? >> i am not a socialist. >> you've got people in the party who are. >> i am a democrat and believe in fundamental democratic principles. i believe we need more democracy, not less. i believe all this money in politics is anti-democratic. i believe gerrymandering is

anti-democratic. i watched an election where somebody won 3 million more votes -- >> do you think voter suppression is immoral? >> yes. >> eric holder, the former a.g., is talking about expanding the number of people on the united states supreme court to nine to get more progressives on there. >> i think we need to fix the supreme court. i think they stole a supreme court seat? >> should we keep it at nine? >> i would like to explore a lot of conversations. term limits might be one thing to give every president the ability to choose three. with people holding on to those seats in ways that i don't necessarily think is healthy. >> age limit? >> look, i think we -- term limits might be a better way of saying that. >> voter suppression, i asked you about that. the nfl, would you encourage kids today, parents with kids, young teenagers, to play football? >> i got into stanford because of a 4.0, 1600. 4.0 yards per carry, 1600 receiving yards. >> that's legit.

you played for a really great school. >> and i played for great coaches, like denny green. >> we're going to show some of your highlights on the show tonight. 81. >> yes. >> i was asking you, you get a reception in college football at the stanford level, national competition, and you catch that ball right on the sidelines and that moment of excitement, you caught the ball, you got it, and somebody whacks you, brings you down on the gravel with all their might. is football to dangerous ? >> notre dame we played against -- >> you know who i was rooting for. >> i'm sure notre dame. but that was the mecca of football. my dream was to get into the end zone and turn around and see touchdown jesus. ever since lou holtz recruited me, i was already a christian but i had a conversion moment. and i knew what jesus wanted from me at that point was to score a touchdown in that end zone. >> you could have been rudy. >> so when i caught a pass over the line, todd light, all american cornerback, he falls

for my fake, he falls down. for a hot second i thought i could hear the angels calling me to that end zone, but you're right i got hit really hard, dragged out of bounds. it takes your wind away but the adrenaline is running. >> should kids go into football? >> i love football. i think we should do things more to make the game safer. >> bigger helmets? >> if i had -- not bigger helmets. there's a lot of work going on at rutgers university in my state, how do you make helmets safer. i'm really worried about what i'm seeing. i think the nfl should be responsible for health care. the way the ncaa does things is to me unconscionable. up next, trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border. what cory booker might consider an emergency if he becomes president. that's straight ahead. stay tuned. esident. that's straight ahead. stay tuned great news, liberty mutual customizes...

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welcome back to "hardball." in davenport, iowa, today i talked to senator cory booker

about president trump's declaration of an emergency at the southern border. several republicans opposed the emergency because they feared what a democratic president might do with that additional executive power. so i asked senator booker is gun violence a national emergency? here's what he said. >> for me it is. when you live in a community where there's shootings. an amazing young man shot, was murdered at the top of my block where i live. ideal with this urgency. i live in a low income inner city neighborhood in newark, new jersey. i see every single day the tragedies because we do not have a national consensus in our policy makers. because we have a consensus amongst people. over 90% of americans believe we should have common sense gun safety. 86% of nra members think we should have universal background checks. we're not doing it. so forget your political or legal definition, but for people who live in communities with gun violence, people who are afraid

for their kids at their schools, people are afraid of their houses of worship, they feel a sense of emergency. >> so you would declare it. >> i think we need to respect the separation of powers. for me as a president, you can call it emergency. i feel a sense of national urgency to get these things done. i'm going to be the president, should i be elected, that's going to make sure we have common sense gun safety laws to stop the carnage we're seeing. america is not a war zone. we should not have this level of violence. >> let's talk about the globe. the president of the united states is our chief diplomat and our head of state in the whole world. who do you admire whether you read the papers and watch the news in the world right now. >> you know, i'm a big -- i really respect merkel. i think she is -- >> the chancellor of germany. >> but she's been governing in a very complex world. she's been insulted and disrespected by our president. we have a president who finds it easier to cozy up to dictators

than to deepen and strengthen allies. >> why does he go that? >> i don't want to go there. >> why does he like putin, netanyahu, all these tough guys. >> the way he talked about the north korean dictator, this is a guy to me that has weakened our nation abroad. he's weakened our alliances which make us strong. the way he cozies up to dictators and won't even admit that america has been attacked by the russians and they are still coming at us. a president's job is to be the commander in chief. he is not making america stronger, he's making america weaker. you want to talk about what our military is concerned with? read our reports on climate change. the military knows if we don't do anything, there's more extremism. we have a president that can't even admit that threat. >> last couple of questions quickly. venezuela. i sometimes think the neocons are back and want to take our

army to south america. >> using military enter very long -- interventions in the last 20 years as gone really, really well. iraq, you can go through the places. but you know what, we're going to do to need our allies to do it. >> should we bring back -- if it's president booker, would you restore american support for the iranian nuclear deal? >> i'm a strong supporter of that deal. i think it was the thing that best protected israel and israel's safety. i think what this president has allowed iran to do, they have grown in strength. we see them doing things in yemen, to lebanon. so i think that the best way to check iran is to stay strong with our allies. this president after america made a deal, he turned his back on america's word and america's deal, weakening that alliance at a time we need a strong alliance

in that region. >> senator booker, thank you for your time. >> thank you. thanks again to tommy and chris jones and everyone at tommy's cafe at davenport, iowa, for hosting us today. up next, reaction to my interview with cory booker and donald trump's latest bizarre attack on joe biden. that's ahead. den. that's ahead ♪ ♪ baby i'm not even in a gown ♪ and the only thing u have to say is wow ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪ ♪ make u say oh my god my drop drop ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop make u say oh my god ♪ ♪ and you never felt this type of emotion ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪ ♪ make u say oh my god my drop drop ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop make u say oh my god ♪

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getting larger and more diverse. currently the pool stands at 13, but there will be many more. we just gave you a taste of what one of those candidates, senator cory booker, had to say about his party and his place in the 2020 race. for more on that interview and the rest of the growing pool of democratic presidential candidates, i'm joined by natasha and aisha. first of all, i want to start, what did you make of senator booker for that long interview? >> well, i thought that he came across in the way that he intended to, which is he's trying to restore civility back into our process, in our politics, into our campaigning. he talked a lot about decency and bipartisanship. i think that he struck a tone that he's hoping will cut through this really angry noise of people just wanting to fight, fight, fight against donald trump and kind of having a hopefulness. >> did you believe him? >> you know, i believe him because i think that he is

genuine. but i wonder if he's a little bit tone deaf to what the base of the party is really looking for. these are not normal times. in fact these are very urgent times. he's coming across sounding a little bit he's coming across sounding a little bit kinder and gentler than the severity of the situation we're facing with the president requires. >> you think he didn't know that, that the party was in a ferocious mood. how could he not know that? >> he knows that, i think he's trying to be above it, and you know, kudos to him for that for sure. >> i think he knows what's going on. i think he's trying to offer counter programming, something different. because a lot of it seems to be, including him sometimes, are very tough, and very angry at times. >> he's trying to breakthrough in that sense, and i think actually if you look at the electorate in early states, recent iowa poll shows that's exactly the kind of candidate they want. >> they want finger red booker e

recognition but it's the kind of candidate they're wanting. >> there are two sides, i think. we'll see. former vice president joe biden had an interesting slip up over the weekendment let. let's watch him in action. >> i get criticize bid the new left. i have the most progressive record of anybody running for the -- anybody who would run. [ applause ] anybody who would run. >> nice correction. anyway, president trump, according to reports is taking a biden run very seriously, tweeting joe biden got tongue tied over the weekend when he was unable to properly deliver a very simple line about his decision to run for president. get used to it another low iq individual. president trump has his own

history of getting tongue tied. let's watch. >> the op-ed published in the failing "new york times" by an anomonous, gutless, coward. at lot of work has been done. if you look at some of it. they sacrifice every day for the furniture, future of their children. you are embassies in kenya and tanzania. >> aisha, tongue tied. you know what, joe biden makes gaffe occasionally certainly, but this president is unfamiliar. i've never been to nambia. maybe that's a new movie coming out. what duid you think about this.

renerve renerversion. we're fighting for the furniture of our children. >> his supporters think that's charming. it's frightening. we should be afraid and dismayed that the president of the united states is clearly just not that bright. just not that intelligent that he even knows how to put words together. there's a reason why he uses twitter. not only because it's 140 characters, you can be succinct, you don't have to be elaborate. he's governing in the same way he's making those gaffes. >> this is childish but the president has been childish but why can't joe biden control himself. he had to do one thing. don't announce for president. >> i think it's something that we're going to have to get used to. he's very gaffe prone, but i think if donald trump's going after him the way he is, it kind of shows he's scared. >> joe biden, i like him. he's never hurt anybody with his gaffes. his gaffes can be goofy. no hurt, no foul, whatever, same

thing. natasha korecki, aisha moodie. he's unnerved, could it be his sense of impending doom? im?

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we have reached a state where anything is imaginable. i could not until recently imagine a president attacking a dead rival who was considered indecent for anyone, much less a

president to do such a thing. that no longer applies. it ended this weekend when president trump attacked the late senator john mccain. it was not until recently that american president or anyone would take, or relish of a violent struggle in our streets over a national destiny, the onset of another civil war. listen to the words of donald trump, the president of our country in last thursday's interview with breitbart. quote, it's so terrible what's happening. you know the left plays a tougher game. it's very funny, i actually think the people on the right are tougher, but they don't play it tougher. i can tell you, i have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the bikers for trump. i have the tough people, but they don't play it tough until they go to a certain point and then it would be very bad, very bad. what is donald trump talking about here? what is he threatening with this menacing words about how the conflict in our politics is going to grow very bad, very bad? we have had every school child, should know, a civil war. 600,000 died in battlefields

where men faced each other and fired to kill. we fought, as abraham lincoln said in his second inaugural because one of the sides would make war rather than let the nations survive. they would accept war rather than let it perish and the war came. why is donald trump talking this up, the talk of taking a national debate into the streets. listen to what iowa congressman steve king posted on his facebook account this week. folks keep talking about another civil war. one side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn't know which bathroom to lose. wonder who would win, king taunted online. what is triggering. is it about the impending doom, revving up his troops in hopes that in a fight, it would give him protection behind the lines. is he driving the country to war so he can at least find a friendly bunker.

that's h"hardball" for now, coming up, a town hall with chris hayes and senator kiersten gillibrand. tonight, an all in 2020 special event. >> now is our time. >> from the battleground state of michigan, kiersten gillibrand makes her case to the voters. >> we have to restore the moral integrity of the country. >> tonight, the new york senator on her vision for the country, how she plans to stand out in a crowded democratic primary and why she's the one to defeat donald trump. >> i have the compassion and the courage to get this done. >> this is an all in 2020 candidate town hall with kiersten gillibrand. >> hello, and welcome to the rochester brewery and tap room in auburn hills, just outside of detroit, a great local craft brewery, and we are here for the first town hall of this primary season. we're here in michigan, of course, which is one of