resilience, such rebirth. so in that way, very heartening. and yes to our great and good friend, the anchor katy tur of the 2:00 on the birth of her child. we offer our congratulations from paris. >> congratulations indeed. of course our hearts here in the united states are with the people of paris today. that's going to wrap it up for us in washington, d.c., and in paris. coming up next, deadline white house with my friend nicolle wallace. that starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. we're a couple miles away. current and former white house advisers are reportedly in full freak out mode over robert mueller's report. a redacted version due out in about 36 hours. those aides worried about retribution from the president.

nbc news reporting some of the more than one dozen former and current white house officials who cooperated with special counsel robert mueller are worried that the version of his report expected to be made public on thursday will expose them as the source of damaging information about president donald trump. that's according to multiple witnesses in the investigation. some of the officials and their lawyers have sought clarity from the justice department on whether the names of those who cooperated with mueller's team will be redacted or if the public report will be written in a way that makes it obvious who shared certain details of trump's actions that were part of the obstruction of justice probe. people familiar with the discussions said that they said the justice department has refused to elaborate. among the most potentially dangerous witnesses in trump's close orbit, someone who witnessed known obstruction flash points including the attempted firing of robert mueller himself. former white house counsel don

mcgahn met with mueller's team for at least 30 hours of testimony and has reportedly hinted that more of his conflicts with president trump will soon be known to the public. but any information he and others close to trump may have shared and how much of it will see the light of day this week is now in the hands of attorney general bill barr, a man under growing suspicion from democrats and trump detractor from the central plank of donald trump's war on justice, that he was spied on during the campaign. that is where we start with some of our favorite reporters an friends. counter interesting at fbi, harry litman, former deputy assistant attorney general and executive producer of talking feds podcast nbc news national reporter carol lee. with us at the table matt miller, former chief spokesman of department of justice and "washington post" national political reporter robert costa. carol lee, i want to start with you and your fantastic reporting.

take us through it. >> basically what we learned in talking to various people who have been witnesses in the mueller investigation, people in the president's orbit, and they have said there's a rising anxiety among those who cooperated with this investigation because they fear that the president, if it's obvious that they shared certain information that is viewed as damaging to him, that he will seem some sort of retribution. he'll attack them, allies will attack them. from their perspective, they are saying, look, we were told to cooperate. we didn't really have a choice. we have to talk to investigators. when you get in and talk to investigators, you have to tell the truth. have you to fully disclose everything you know. like it or not, some of the things they know are not things that president trump is going to find make him look good, and he's going to be upset with. so there's this concern that they don't know what mueller's

report -- redacted report is going to look like. there's questions about will their names be actually listed in the report. if not, a couple of people said will it be a bob woodward type of book. it's obvious who was a source on something. there's this game where you try to figure out who individual one and two are. either way they feel like they are exposed and they are concerned about it and concerned about this president's reaction. we could name some names of people we know went in as witnesses. just looking at how that investigation shook out, there was a a bucket of sort of collusion witnesses, former campaign officials. a far reaching, wide obstruction of just that ended in basically special counsel version of a hung jury. no conclusion whether or not there was a prosecutable crime but very clearly no exoneration.

don mcgahn, more than 30 hours, priebus, steve bannon. the universe of people who have to be sweating the next 39 hours is vast. >> they are not only sweating, they are angry. talking to lawyers for some of these witnesses and friends of these witnesses, they say the white house early on looking back made a mistake executive privilege by the white house officials to cooperate and sit down for these interviews. they believe these officials through their conversations with the mueller team built a case with the president on obstruction of justice. looking back on this presidency, they wonder, is that the right decision, strategic decision, imperils this whole presidency going forward. >> if it imperils the presidency, strung together with the guy that sat in the next

office or gal that sat in the next office could be pretty damning politically. >> we know through the "washington post" and other fine news allegations about the president railing against his attorney general in private and in public. very unhappy with the officials at department of justice. there were certainly according to lawyers of these witnesses more examples of the president lashing out, whatever that means, that reporters were not able to find. they expect robert mueller because he had subpoena power, sit down privately with officials, did find more examples of the president's behavior that will be of interest to congress and the american people. >> i'm struck by what you say that their concern, as always with concern with people in this white house is what was the politically smart thing to do, not what was the right thing to do. any other white house, administration, the administration you worked in, the administration i worked in, everyone goes and talks to the fbi if there's an investigation. that's what you're expected to do. the fact, number one, they would

be angry and think the lawyers let them down into not cooperating about a foreign investigation shows you something about the people that work in this white house. number two, the fact they understand the president will be concerned because they didn't lie to investigators. that's when you get to the bottom line of carol lee's reporting. that's what they are upset about. they told the truth, as they were required to do, because otherwise they would go to jail as other people in the president's orbit are doing because they lied to investigators. they know the president -- i think they know rightly, the president is going to be up set at them for telling the truth. i think my reaction is boohoo. you went to work for this president. the fact you're concerned the president is going to be ir rationally unhappy with you, that's the consequences of working with someone like that. >> it's such an ugly picture. you talk to people close to the investigation, the community of lawyers that represented witness in this investigation and ugly is a word you hear over and over again. the president has, for reasons

obvious to all of us, focused on the headline he chose, attorney general barr told him, being exonerated on the conclusion side. everyone is expecting a very ugly story to be told, perhaps in chron lonell cal order with a lot of evidence marshalled from these witnesses we're talking about on the question of obstruction of justice. does this sound right to you? >> yeah. because look, it now appears a criminal metric, criminal standard applied by mueller's team and certainly by attorney general barr to their findings and approach. here is the problem with applying that. we knew mueller was likely working under the constrapts kcf a policy that said you couldn't indict a sitting president. anything less is going to be in that report. that could be a whole lot of ugly, as you're saying, and could be extremely damning for the president. let's just think about the irony and repercussions of what you

teed up at the top of the show, people are concerned. what are they concerned about? let's go through this. we have people who may have cooperated with mueller on an investigation of obstruction and witness tampering. they are now afraid if their cooperation is revealed, what's going to happen. the president is going to gauene in obstruction and witness tampering. what's he going to obstruct? it's over. it's not over. first we know cases have been spun out. we know detailed to the u.s. attorney in the district of columbia. this is ongoing. and congress is in the middle of subpoenas and investigative w k work. so the president could keep reobstructing and retampering with witnesses. if the attorney general were serious about this, he would be issuing a warning to the president with this release on thursday saying don't mess with witnesses, don't obstruct, don't

tamper and congress would release a similar statement saying we're starting investigations, stay away. >> harry litman, it's an exceptional point to be made. donald trump is individual one in the southern district of new york where there are active and open criminal investigations into the president's inaugural committee and the president's hush money scheme and god knows what else in and around trump organization. the president likely to retaliate at least on twitter and god knows where else against people if he tries to figure out or deduce who said what and what is expected to be a politically devastating obstruction of justice report. what is the effect on ongoing investigations like the ones out of the southern district of new york and the prosecution of roger stone in d.c.? >> you know, it's always a bad idea to be saying anything when you're a subject, and yet trump has broken that rule with

impunity again and again. but yes, you have to think he's giving more evidence to the prosecutors in sdny. look, it says so much about the mob mentality of the president and the white house that people are scared about exactly as mat says doing what we had to do under the law. think of whitewater, say, where betty curry were in an uncomfortable position telling the truth about clinton but there was no issue that somehow they were going to be repriced against. so he really is playing out of that playbook, but it could get him into ongoing trouble because it's not over yet and certainly isn't over for the trump organization, the trump children and the like. >> and robert costa, we know obstruction is behavior he's engaged in around these other

investigations. he attacked, been reporting, he wanted political appointee at sdny to unrecuse from some of the cohen related cases there. this idea of ongoing investigations, known conduct, your newspaper and others have covered, we will have. we will have in a report thursday morning a narrative description of what that looked like. with don mcgahn spending 30 hours of mueller investigators, we made a list of things he would have been a witness to. the efforts to fire mueller, reported he threatened to quit if that happened. pressure on sessions to unrecuse, which i always recuse, which isn't even a thing. the comey firing which mcgahn was one of many people around that. the handling of flynn, the warning that he might be a target for black -- blackmail, may be a target. if you just take don mcgahn's

experience, things he witnessed, through his account alone it paints an unbelievable picture of an attempt to obstruct. >> all those will be laid out for the american people. two things i'm watching as a reporter, how do democrats in the house see it. does it reach the threshold for obstruction, impeachable offense to pressure speaker pelosi to move forward on that front. watch the reaction of republicans who so far have been in lock step with president trump. do they show any crack at all with this president and say we're starting to question this president's conduct. new information has come to light. governor hogan of maryland who talked about a possible primary bid will certainly be reading it closely. we'll watch his reaction to see if establishment mainstream republicans say this is too much for us. >> carol lee, don mcgahn has secured a spot sort of deep inside that inner sanctum of senate republicanism around his

record and his judgment on judicial appointees. he's still in the fold and in the mix very much. do you think that was a little assurance on don mcgahn's card to make sure he has allies on the republican side to make sure if this thing goes sideways. >> it's possible. he could wind up being one of the main targets the president aims at after the mueller report comes out for all the reasons you outlined. one of the things we talked to, we learned, is that there's this anxiety because they know there's all of this new stuff that's going to come out that's not maybe out of the box of things in terms of the kinds of things we've seen the president do in terms of obstruction but that are really damaging. i think bob makes a really good point in that how damaging it is. based on the conversations we had, people are really nervous and it sounds like it could be pretty explosive. we also don't know what would be

redacted and exactly what is in the report. but the anxiety level suggests it could be something really significant. the political reaction on the hill is going to be one of the most interesting things to watch after the report is released. when it comes to don mcgahn, you could easily see him, you know, becoming one of president trump's main targets. we've talked to people in the past who said that he's been wanting to unleash on him at various times since he left. he was frustrated with him when he was there at different times. so he sort of stands out among, above all of the other people who into with special counsel for all those reasons. >> harry, a former republican federal prosecutor said to me that the only way the justice department could be pressured into or backed into legally or politically sharing underlying evidence would be as part of an

impeachment proceeding. is that a correct analysis? >> well, backed into, i don't know. i actually think now that there is a legal avenue for them to be forced to do it, whether or not an impeachment inquiry has happened. the big analogy is what starr did. i think if they go to court and say this is preliminary to our impeachment, we need this in order to decide whether to impeach, that turns out to be exactly what happened in the starr case. when starr got the order permitting him to disclose the grand jury information, congress had not started an inquiry. i think we are in the same setting. a couple arguments i heard from the white house i think don't fly. there is one maneuver that i think jerry nadler can take today. otherwise it's such an endless slog trying to fight back on the redactions one at a time.

>> there's bipartisan support for at least getting an unredacted copy of the mueller report. matt miller, we learned that congressman schiff -- chairman schiff and nunez asking for unredacted report in a rare joint letter. do you think that happens? do you think the underlying evidence ultimately makes its way to congress? >> i think it will. nunez has his motive for showing that. he probably thinks they inappropriately spied. >> or nunez. >> schiff and nunez have motives but want the same thing, which is to get all the evidence. harry makes the right point about grand jury information. congress's case may be stronger if they started impeachment inquiry but they don't need it to get that information. then there's this whole set of underlying information that never went before the grand jury. i think the obstruction of justice information most likely falls into that category. i think it's important that congress see that report. i think we will probably see all

of the obstruction of evidence piece of report or the vast majority of it on thursday. they also need to see, for example, don mcgahn's memos. the memos we know he wrote. the evidence of interviews that white house staffers did with respect to obstruction of justice. because that is now a question for congress to decide, whether that's appropriate presidential misbehavior or not. the precedent for congress is just so strong on this based on the justice department's recent actions. i know we've talked about this a number of times based on evidence they turned over with respect to hq and evidence they turned over about the russia investigation while ongoing. doj may exist. barr seems to be showing he will resist. if it ever gets to court, congress has very much the upper hand in this. >> frank, i want to underscore one last point before we lose you. robert mueller spent 22 months looking at both questions, whether a criminal conspiracy around coordination and efforts with the russians took place and around obstruction of justice. on the question of obstruction of justice, he did not roach a

conclusion. bar did. will the report explain that extraordinary culmination of robert mueller's 22 month effort around obstruction? >> i would be surprised if the report does not contain either in some exhibit, appendix or footnote a legal explanation of mueller's intention. i've got to tell you, that's one of the first things i'll be trying to flip to when the report is released. what was in the mind of mueller, what was conveyed to the attorney general, if anything. i think that's critical. if we see evidence that mueller intended this to go to congress for a decision, that is explosive and actually empowers the house to move forward with investigation. the other thing i'll be flipping to, because you know where i come from from my experience, i'll go straight to the issue of russia and counter-intelligence and see if there's anything new there involving the whole conclusion and conspiracy angle

that could prove extremely embarrassing for the president and his family. >> let me follow up with one more for you, frank. a theory was posited to me by a former security official that said mueller may have some explanation that gets at but doesn't necessarily explicitly articulate some sort of conflict investigating his own firing as part of the obstruction case as well as being prohibited from pursuing an interview with the president. could anyone have made a prosecutable case for obstruction if they felt conflicted around investigating their own firing and/or if they couldn't actually interview the target of the obstruction of the investigation? >> well, mueller is just that kind of individual who would be very concerned. it's becoming increasingly rare in washington. the kind of guy concerned about appearances, conflict, recusal, integrity. it's possible we could see a footnote saying i felt conflicted on this and i punted it to the attorney general.

i don't think that's the kind of decision that mueller would leave to the attorney general, but it's possible we could see a conflict there and some form of recusal. that would be fascinating. >> it's all going to be fascinating. we're going to be calling on all of you all week. i'm grateful to have all of you today. carol lee, congratulations on your scoop. >> thank you. >> after the break, pete buttigieg breaks through again. this time in an interview with our colleague rachel maddow. we'll show you how mayor pete's big moments are translating into big dollars. also ahead appearing on fox news a new power play for democrats. mayor pete in talks with fox town hall after bernie sanders appeared there last night. we'll check in on the democratic field and their divergent path to the democratic nomination. donald trump doubles down on his harshest and most racially charged attacks. how his 2020 campaign strategy is shaping up to be darker and more divisive than his first one. all those stories coming up.

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you inspired us to create internet that puts you in charge. that handles anything. that protects what's important. and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi. this is xfi. simple, easy, awesome. have this instinct as democrats, horrified by the abuses and failures and the character of this presidency that there will be some kind of piece of evidence out there that

demonstrates conclusively to everybody that he's not a good guy. what i hope we can remember is there are a lot of people, certainly in the industrial midwest where i live who already know he's not a good guy. they didn't vote for him because they thought he was a good guy. they voted for him for a whole different set of reasons and this isn't going to change that. >> serious and sober commentary from a candidate who is being taken very seriously in all corners these days. three months ago he was a relative unknown at least outside south bend, indiana. now mayor pete is challenging the top tier of the 2020 democratic contenders and this might be why. new york magazine, "sick of old people? he looks like alex p. keaton. scared of young people? he looks like alex p. keaton. religious? he's a cris. atheist? he's not weird about it. traditional? he's married. woke? he's gay. way behind the rest of the

country on that? he's not too gay. worried about socialism. he's a techno contract capitalist. if you squint hard enough not to see color, you can almost see obama in the inspiring professor. oh, and he's the son of an immigrant, a navy vet, speaks seven foreign languages, owns two rescue dogs and plays the piano. he's terrifying. what mother wouldn't love this guy. the buttigieg campaign appears ready to test the theory throwing him into the deep end. from the hill, mayor pete's team is in talks with fox news to do a televised town hall. msnbc contributor and correspondent for "politico" and come author of the killer new book everybody is talking about -- everybody is talking about it ""the hill to die on."" let me start with you. i will confess i went into the greenroom and said, the right two political stories?

too much attention for buttigieg. i've fallen for him, my political crush. he does seem to rise to every occasion. being interviewed by rachel maddow has become a rite of passage. he just manages to turn every moment into one people talk about for a couple of news cycles. >> he's got something missing in other candidates, he's open about things. oftentimes democrats don't want to talk about religion. where he is in terms of being the mayor of a flyover country as you said. i think he's catching a moment. the question is, can he sustain that. >> do you think the early buzz has ruined more candidacies or catapulted more candidacies, if you look back at cycles. >> if you look at history, there are candidates like gary hart and howard dean who struggled when they became a favorite in the democratic presidential primary. others like jimmy carter in 1976

were able to run as an outsider, someone washington didn't know and actually win the nomination and win the white house. it is still very early, as anna said, to judge how mayor buttigieg's campaign is going to evolve. having covered hem, this is someone struggling to escalate his whole operation. he needs to build a finance operation, early state operation. but so far this is a candidate who has found his message and continues to be immediate tour. as president trump showed us all in 2016, this new day and age of politics is not so much about traditional advertising and structure, that matters especially in places like south carolina where he's maybe not as well-known, but at this point in the cycle, you have to win people's attention and keep their attention. he's doing that for the moment. >> can i challenge the idea what he has to do next is build operations. trump never had those. cory left, paul manafort double dutied for oligarchs and trump.

trump never had any of these things and he's the president. who is holding him to that standard to have early organization. >> i would only push back on that. look at senator sanders experience in 2016. he's learned a few things about his own delegate operation. in the democratic primary, you can't just be a movement. have you to prepare in crowded field for potential contested convention. buttigieg has a movement certainly growing online and certain areas of the party. if he doesn't have delicate on the ground should this be protracted primary fight he will find himself just like sanders, in 2016 wishing he had done more to organize. >> a movement with a candidate that's manifesting between sanders and all the other people in the field. where do you see -- it is a movement. where do you see mayor pete's movement. >> if you look back at 2008, which seems to be the template

we're gauging mayor pete on. obama came out with numbers but underneath was all about this. he lost to hillary clinton in the primary vote. that evening his campaign team said we've got more delegates. they managed to figure out how to win the actual primary, which matters. >> like bush in 2000. he lost michigan and got on the phone to reporters, california or something -- >> mayor pete taking this enthusiasm that he's obviously encountered and turning it into an operation is vital. the good news, one, he's spending very little money and raising a decent amount. that will only continue as his name id goes up. two is he's learned a very valuable lesson from donald trump, i'm not original on this observation, all media is essentially good media. there's not a hit mayor pete turned down at this juncture. he's used it to his advantage. he's become ubiquitous in the

press. that has raised his profile, fundraising, first tier of democratic candidates. i don't know if there's an oversaturation risk but at this point they are willing to run it. >> and he's compelling. let's watch. >> one of the risks people with meaningful jobs have, especially people in politics, actually, is because your job is meaningful, a lot of the meaning in your life comes from your job, which is a real problem. part of what is needed, i think, to be good at your job in politics, has to be more than winning. you have to be able to walk away from the job in order to deserve it. i did get a lot of meaning from that work. in some ways because it was so demanding, i almost didn't mind for an inordinately long time i didn't have much of a personal life. i did not have a dating life while i was closeted or anything like that. the city was a jealous bride for a long time and kept me busy. it was the employment that put me over the top. i realized you only get to be

one person. you don't know how long you have on this earth. by the time i came back, i realized, i've got to do something. >> that was mayor pete and rachel talking about coming out. they both talked openly about that and what it was like in their lives. this is not our parents or grandparents presidential primary. >> to say the least, it shows where the country and how quickly things have shifted on this issue. to your point, i think it's going to be really interesting to see how do the other candidates in this field deal with this. so far he's doing all this media and handles it so well. he was talking about his health, a package earlier on nbc, talking about mental health. he's willing to take on these topics most candidates aren't. you don't see other senators struggling in this race who are candidates doing the same thing. >> there's a great story in the "new york times" a couple days ago about how he diagnosed one of the problems or challenges the democratic party had, a problem with their narrative. you and i both spent our careers

in the press shops of the various people we worked for. there is a deficit on both side of the aisle, argue mayor on the republican party. he is approaching this primary as a storyteller. >> when i watch him i think about that mario cuomo line you campaign in poetry and proceeds. he's telling a story. the rein it's so attractive, he tells a story not just about policies but where the country stands, in the arc of history where we stand, industrialization, offering a way of response to that that isn't rooted in nativism that you see from the president and isn't just a dry policy proposal. you have to have those as well undergirding. he has a story to tell to the american public. if i were a campaign manager and i had to choose between an extremely talented candidate with a message for the american public with no operation and an operation with a candidate dry and boring you would always take

the former because you can hire the latter. fundraising, field organization. he's got a lot of time to do that. if he continues to raise money like he is, he's going to have all the resources to do it as well. >> all right. after the break, bernie sanders breaks through on fox news. not all democratic candidates think the path to the nomination requires a trip behind enemy lines. we'll check in on that crowded democratic field. that's next. n that crowded democratic field that's next. travel and dining now kayak and opentable let you earn travel rewards every time you dine. with just one reservation on opentable,

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>> i guess your president watches your network a little bit. hey, president trump, my wife and i just released ten years. please do the same. let the american know -- >> senator bernie sanders turns up anew attacking the president on his home turf, attacks news, a move trump definitely did not like tweeting this earlier, "so weird to watch crazy bernie on the site, can't contain himself. on fox news. not surprisingly bret baier and

audience, in quote for some reason, was smiley and nice. very strange. it's a bet that seems to have paid out. sanders event was the most watched town hall of the 2020 campaign so far. taking risks and making splashes like this may be why the senator from vermont is leading the money race, $18.2 million in the first quarter. right behind him senator kamala harris $12 million. emerging as an early favorite among hollywood donors. it seems like they are all taking their own path. the rules, i think if they have taken some -- i watched this democratic field and try to understand what did they take from the debacle on the republican side in 2016. their lesson seems to be that they can chart their own path. there's not a donor race there always was, not necessarily a media race. we'd take any one of them. >> are there 25 different paths? seems like 25 different candidates. >> you tell me. >> all this depends what happens

with joe biden. that is the wild card. if he gets in, he gets in. how does that affect everyone else. >> what's the answer? >> i think he's going to get in. >> who does it hurt? >> it could hurt pete buttigieg, for all we know. >> i will say the most fascinating thing for me is watching bernie sanders navigate this. in 2016 he was insurgent running against ideal foil hillary clinton ultimate establishment figure. now what we've seen this week, he's kind of figuring what it's like to be a front-runner. who can he use as a foil, the center for american progress, prominent think tank in washington, d.c., and doing this fox hit, which to me was an interesting strategic choice. his appeal is he can reach these voters and has been unapologetic about that. he's also missed off operatives for elevating a news network that is inherently biased

against democrats. we're seeing tension between bernie sanders and democratic institutions and operatives. whether that is going to burst out into public even more could be a big, big development in this race. >> it was striking to watch senator sanders on fox news not use fox news as a political foil but making overtures to president trump's core voters. saying just hear me out on medicare for all. hear me out on my version of economic populism, not president trump's version. this was senator sanders. even as he said he's fighting democratic establishment on one battlefield. he has an eye on the general election as a nominee, how could i win back some of the trump voters to the democratic side, cast myself as someone as an outsider like president trump just with a different message. instead of going after immigration amid globalization, going after big corporations. >> i saw the end where i think he did some of what you're alluding to. at the end he stood up, and he

was warmly received. you could see donald trump screaming at the tv, get off my lawn. he did close with a message about just those things. he got a resounding, you know, round of applause around what was sort of that overlay between the trump voter and bernie voter in 2016. people forget for trump enthusiasts bernie was the choice not jeb bush. >> they overlap on the key issue of trade. trump stole trade from democrats in 2016. senator sanders is saying working class americans concerned about this and industrial jobs, they should come home to the democratic party and version of democratic party, democratic socialism that wants to protect them. >> my twitter feed is full of complaints about not covering some of the other candidates who are taking a different path.

senator kamala harris has a very healthy and vibrant campaign. she's raking in cash. she's signing up super surrogates who may be very helpful for her down the road. can you just talk about the different strategies. if they are not out making interviews or news, their campaigns are somewhat opaque to those covering them. >> just because they are opaque to us doesn't mean they are on the ground. some are hyper focused on iowa or things that don't take the national media. some are trying to and can't. the way the press works, moves from one candidate to the other. it's a long race. kamala harris is going to have her moment. she had a great january. >> a great launch. >> when we get to the debates, she's one of the people you would expect if her performance in committee hearings, what we've all seen, performed well on that stage, translates to the debate stage, she's going to have her moment as are the other candidates. this question of all the different paths, they are scratching and clawing for any attention they can get, any dollars they can get just to

kind of have a ticket to be in the race as long as you can. when eyeballs really pay attention to be the one that kind of catches fire. >> they all had a ticket to the table any day they want. you're all invited back. after the break we've stopped asking where the bottom of donald trump's politics of division and racial animosity might lie. the new reporting suggests his attacks on muslim americans and his hard line immigration policies are central to his re-election strategy. the question now, how much lower can the discourse get. is there a breaking point for swing voters. that's next. breaking point for swing voters that's next. unpredictable crohn's symptoms following you?

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travel and dining now kayak and opentable let you earn travel rewards every time you dine. earn points with each restaurant reservation on opentable and redeem them for hotel discounts on kayak. get started at kayak.com/diningrewards. p3 it's meat, cheese and nuts. i keep my protein interesting. oh yea, me too. i have cheese and uh these herbs. p3 snacks. the more interesting way to get your protein. congresswoman omar sent out a release last night saying your tweet from a couple days ago has led to direct threats on her life. any second thoughts on that tweet and the way it was produced and put together? >> no, not at all. look, she's been very disrespectful to this country. she's been very disrespectful, frankly, to israel. she is somebody that doesn't

really understand, i think, life, real life, what it's all about. it's unfortunate. she's got a way about her that's very, very bad, i think, for our country. i think she's extremely unpatriotic and extremely disrespectful to our country. >> keep in mind, he's talking about a woman whose life has been threatened. that was the president showing no regret for a tweet that led to a current congresswoman facing death threats. his renewed focus on divisiveness could be giving usa peek into what his 2020 campaign will look like. "washington post" reports today, quote, while the broader gop apparatus is attempting to focus on the economy, the campaigner in chief is seizing on more confrontational messages may appeal to the base but -- so, i had hoped that would be true. donald trump ran on a muslim ban. i'll never forget when he stood there and talked about himself as third version.

i, donald j. trump, do here by embrace the muslim ban. i got to interview him when he called into "morning joe," would you lift it on a day if you had to bring in leaders of uae. yeah, yeah. this is what he ran on, how he won. reporting in the post today and "times" the day before suggests he's only going to go deeper down the rabbit hole. >> as always, the attacks on muslims, attacks on immigrants, hispanic migrants has never been a distraction, a central part of his strategy. the central part of his government, muslim ban he rolled out in his first week in office. so i think it's a safe assumption it will be a central part of his re-election strategy. you're right. you would hope it would repel enough swing voters. it didn't in 2016. he obviously lost the popular vote but he was able to hold enough republicans who don't like that part of donald trump but were willing to overlook it.

the question is, is the same dynamic going to come into play in 2020. you hope not. a proposition i don't think we know the answer to yet. >> talking to white house officials, i ask what's really going on with the president's strategy, put aside the moral questions for a second and they said, they actually just want to stir the pot inside the democratic party by raising the issue of israel, raising the issue of muslims, immigration but especially the issue of israel and congresswoman omar. they believe they are inflaming democratic tensions and that is a political strategy for 2020. keep the discussion away from the mueller report, at least the version of the mueller report that the public and congress will see and come back to the democrats and make it about them rather than president trump. >> you're seeing that right now. it's been fascinating and almost despiriting to watch the conversation around trump's tweet against representative omar has not really been about trump among the democratic conversation, it's been about

whether nancy pelosi or other democratic officials have been sufficient in their defense of representative omar. so he has created strategically an effectively the divisions he has sought to create and, of course, this is going to be the main component of his re-election campaign. there are three freshman democratic women of color who will be spotlighted routinely by republicans. he cards these plays every time. it will be accelerated as we get closer to 2020. >> democrats have had a really hard time answering this. if you look at the first three months of congress, house democrats took over, they were in power and they were struggling with this question of anti-semitism for those three months. they weren't talking about how they'll drain the swamp or the proactive agenda, this was the issue and it's clearly where donald trump is very comfortable talking about and wants to keep this issue on the table. >> i would just say as a former operative, the differences, one, the democrats have a conscience. they're trying to answer --

trump isn't asking these questions earnestly. he's not trying to understand where the democratic party falls on israel. he's doing exactly what bob said, he's stirring the pot. if you look at what mark meadows and jim jordan have done, the difference is the president and "fox news" have this pipeline for smearing the entire democratic party. are they figuring out how to push back? >> house republicans can't get close enough to the president. when they go back home, why aren't you hugging him even more than you are publicly? the frustration is palatable among democrats because there's nobody on the republican side willing to step up and push back against the president. >> and democrats have taken the bait. there's been two votes on the house floor regarding comments congresswoman omar has made. it gets overshadowed by these flashy points. part of it is because the democratic party is a more diverse coalition but the

leadership is petrified of missing off people. they don't want to anger donors or apec. they want to make sure everyone knows they're closely allied with israel. she has created some of the problems on her own but a lot of this is just the democratic leadership is deeply worried about defending elements within their broader coalition. >> i think sam's right. my party gets itself twisted in a knot sometimes trying to decide whether to to the right thing or to do the politically safe thing and that's a legitimate debate to have when you're addressing questions of policy, what kind of health care plan. when it comes to core questions of what's right or wrong, the core questions of the fundamental values of this country, the answer is always to do the right thing and be confident you're doing the right thing and the rest of it will work itself. >> you're running against someone who views african nations at bleep hole countries and someone who talked about

grabbing them in the bleep. there is an asymmetry to the way donald trump attacks democrats that they will repeat whatever led to their electoral defeat in '16. where are the conversations on the democratic side about how to run against trumpism? >> the answer is to stand up for what this country is and stand up for the values of this country and stand up for the ideas that that isn't a way the president ought to behave, we shouldn't treat people that way in this country and stand up for what's right and if democrats do that and present an alternative vision of the country that says we don't stand for attacks on people based on their religion no matter that the religion is -- >> that may be right. there's a huge divide within the democratic party. some people think it's savvier to just ignore it all. i think it was either bernie sanders but i could be wrong, someone made the case that the best way to beat trump is basically to ignore trump. to put our a proactive vision

for what you want for america and say enough of this side show, i won't pay attention to it, i will give you what i think is the more proper vision for america. i don't know if it's the right thing but it is the strategic divide. >> one of the secrets because pete buttigieg's early success is he took on pence and won. we're out of time. i'm so sad. after the break, we're going back to the streets of paris. (boy) nooooooo... (grandma) nooooooo... (dad) nooooooo... (dog) yessssss.... (vo) quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker and is two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. (boy) hey look, i got it. bounty, the quicker picker upper. and i don't add trup the years.s. but what i do count on...

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dame. our own chris jan sing is there. what's the mood? >> reporter: somber. people feeling that they want to be -- but there are people here from all around the world. [ inaudible ] this is a sign of solidarity for a city that is hurting. >> that was our own chris jan si jansi jansing. i feel better knowing she's there. our hearts and prayer are with

the people of paris. mtv daily starts right now. >> hello, nicolle. happy tuesday. if it is tuesday there's the president's rhetoric and there's thursday's reality. good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington. we'll get to the escalating fallout from bernie sanders combative town hall on fox, which is grabbed the attention of everyone from the president to pete buttigieg. it's not every day you hear a "fox news" audience cheer medicare for all and we'll also head to iowa but we begin tonight with the president reviving two of the most incendiary elements of his 2016 campaign, his focus on immigrants and muslims. he's doubling down his attack