ground. but these companies are investing big money, both their ceos time and millions in lobbying. >> we'll be reading axios am in just a little bit. you can go to signup.axios.com. >> i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside geoff bennett. "morning joe" starts right now. >> if it's hard to figure out what's going on right now, it's because we are living on one of those blanc pak pages in betwee chapte chapters. i believe running for office is an act of hope and so is voting and volunteering for somebody. i hope you'll join me in making sure that next era is better than any we've had so far. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you, mayor. and thank you -- wow, a standing ovation.

>> all right. >> there you go. that is mayor pete getting a standing ovation on fox news, a forum elizabeth warren wants nothing to do with. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, may 20th. i'm in washington today. i'll be interviewing nancy pelosi for a headliner special that will air later this summer, but we will bring you some of the interview tomorrow on "morning joe." with us, columnist for "the washington post," david ignatius, politics editor for "the daily beast," sam stein, former direct ooor for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne elrod and katty kay is with us and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle up in new york. joe, my daughter and i watched that town hall and thought it was pretty amazing what happened

last night. >> well, the reaction to mayor pete has been remarkable, especially for a nation that has learned to become very cynical of politicians of all stripes. but you could see the response on twitter, you could see the response -- hear the response from friends and neighbors just like after his announcement and it's quite unlike anything that i know that you and i have ever seen. you know, as you know, mika, i only can tell three kind of stories, either baseball stories, winston churchill stories or rock 'n' roll stories. and looking at mayor pete last night and once again seeing this remarkable response, i was reminded of one of the most famous lines by any rock critic in music history and that line was "i have seen the future of rock 'n' roll and it is bruce

springsteen." john landow wrote that in '73, '74. well, i've seen the future of the democratic party and it's mayor pete. it may not be in 2020, perhaps it's in 2024 and beyond, but this guy is going to play an important role in the mainstreaming of the democratic party for many years to come. and believe you me, that is exactly what he does, regardless of ideology, mayor pete main streams a democratic party much in the same way nancy pelosi fights every day to make sure that her house caucus does the same and that joe biden's doing on the campaign trail today. >> i find him to be a really exciting candidate. during that town hall last night on fox news, 2020 presidential candidate mayor pete buttigieg slammed two of the networks most

prominent primetime hosts for comments they made on air. and he also dismissed the tweets of the president. >> especially when you see what goes on with some of the opinion hosts on the network. when you have talker carlson saying immigrants make america dirty and laura ingram comparing detention centers with children in cages to summer camps -- summer camps? there is a reason why anybody has to swallow hard and think twice before participating in this ecosystem. even though some of those hosts are not always there in good faith, i think a lot of people tune into this network who do it in good faith. there are a lot of americans who my party can't blame if they are ignoring our message because they will never hear it if we don't go on and talk about. so it's why whether going into the viewership of fox news or dem gographically going into

places where people haven't gone much, we have to reach out. >> how would you handle the tweets and the insults and all that. >> the tweets, i don't care. we need to change the channel from this show that he's created. it's the nature of grotesque things that you can't look away. >> no defense of tucker or laura ingram there. as for the aforementioned tweets, president trump weighedhouweighed in hours before the town hall criticizing fox news, tweeting fox is moving more and more to the wrong side and they just want in. they forgot the people who got them there. fox senior news analyst britt hume defended the event responding to trump writing, quote, say this for buttigieg, he's willing to be questioned by chris wallace, something you've

barely done as soon as you've been president. oh, and covering candidates of both parties is part of the job of a news channel. wow. joe? >> mika, that reminds me about when donald trump wrote about bleeding badly from a facelift or calls me psycho joe. people are like how do you do it? we don't care. you have to see it as sort of a carnival or a side show. some candidates get so jum supsd enraged. mook barnicle, in those two answers he responded in the most powerful way anyone can respond to donald trump, not by fear, not by being angry, which we do from time to time, but by laughing at him.

it's grotesque, it's a side show, i don't care. let's get on with the business of getting working americans back to work and getting them good jobs with good pay. >> you know, joe, if we were running, if you and i were running pete's campaign, mayor pete's campaign for president, you might be tempted to tell him just to show those clips repeatedly, the ones that we just showed because they show a calm, direct, composed delivery common sense to voters. and the reaction with the crowd was clearly obvious. and that's one of the reasons that he's doing so well, i think. he delivers information in a calm, direct way that very few other candidates do. and he has the correct answer to the presidential tweets. who cares? you know, the tweets are so voluminous and so predictable, who really cares? and i think he triggered a lot

of reasons for people tho think about him as a presidential candidate. but those who were not thinking about him from the fox audience, they're going to be thinking about him today. >> david, you've sooneen a few presidential candidates. i wonder whether where mika and i are being a bit excessive in our praise of mayor pete, but i've seen a lot of candidates, i think this guy, i almost called him kid because he's like 20 years younger than me, i think this -- i think this kid is special! i do think there's something about this guy that separates him from the thousands of politicians that you and i have seen over the past few decades. >> he's unusually smart. really, he's a brilliant guy. evokes barack obama's raw intelligence, but he just got this way of seeming to break through the conventional things

that politicians say. it just sounds real when he says it. that long pause and then i don't care when he's talking about the tweets. his description of trump, that he's mesmerizing in the way that grotesque things are. i don't know that i've heard a better description of what it is that makes the whole country watch this guy through his antics and taunts, a better account than that. we'll see. it's early in the campaign. he is distinguishing himself from this very large field in part because he seems to be speaking so directly to people and let's see if he can sustain it. >> well, adrienne elrod, let's talk about the reality here. this is a young man with incredible, diverse experience, incredible education, speaks up to eight languages, served our country abroad and has this pastoral demeanor that really makes him stand out, especially among young people.

but the african-american vote polling shows he's got nothing and he can't win without that. >> that's exactly right, mika. he's got some work to do in that community. but he's got plenty of time here. >> really ? >> it's mid may but he's got nine months until the the south carolina primary. i love that he's going out to audiences that frankly a lot of democratic challengers, candidates are too afraid to go in front of. we learned in 2016 in hillary clinton's campaign, 20% of fox viewers are democrats and 10% are independents. the way he did it with chris wallace, who is a very fair host compared to some of the others on fox news, is a good cue for

him to follow. >> i wonder if he can make up enough ground with the african-american community. >> one of them is he's been the mayor of south bend, indiana. it's not to say he can't develop the ties but he's starting from a position of intense weakness in that part. but i think what he does have, which is think is separating him is not just elg maybe -- i think mostly politics is about reaction to the moment. barack obama was a reaction to george w. bush and donald trump was a reaction to barack obama. i think what mayor pete to some degree of success is he's been a reaction to donald trump, someone who is incredibly willing to engage multiple

audiences. he's not conventionally -- he's made it a part of his message, someone who is definitely of the politics of the moment but the politics of the future and there's been a lot of success in terms of fund-raising and polling data. i don't know if that translates into concrete democrat being party institutionalist success. he has to staff up, use that money, spend it wisely and get into the african-american and elsewhere. >> so joe biden kicked off his presidential campaign saturday with a rally in the heart of philadelphia. biden spoke to the crowd of thousands about party unity, as well as continuing his push to look beyond the democratic primary field and toward the general election fight against president trump. >> i know some of the really smart folks say democrats don't want to hear about unity. they say democrats are so angry that the angrier a candidate can

be, the better chance he or she has to win the democratic nomination. well, i don't believe it. i really don't. i believe democrats want to unify this nation. that's what our party has as been about. >> let me tell you something. the single, most important thing we have to accomplish to get this done, is defeat donald trump. >> you know, katty kay, let's look at the two candidates that we've heard perhaps the most biden and mayor pete, both positive messages, both messages of unity, not the angry, you know, we hear that the democratic party is an angry left-wing snarling party that's lost their minds in trying to

somehow get even with donald trump. boy, all we've heard is a positive message. and i'm not so sure that's -- i mean, we're an exhausted nation. i even talk to trump supporters who say he just exhausts me, i've just had enough. i can't handle the tweets. i wonder if this is not the message that all americans are readied o. >> where trump does badly against a democratic -- i think last you're going to put me on a debate stage with him? i'm tough enough to tack him on and dismiss him. i felt for all of a long time of all the democratic candidates, the one who seems easiest

aracking he has this ability to tack trump on it and joe biden has the african-american vote hereby particularly has women african-american votes, people just poll at less than 1% with african-americans. he's got to do something there, he could bring in young voters, help out in the midwest. it was interesting, bud jej got the headlines and he's still he didn't really have an answer to it. >> yep. andy needs o i seem to tem a lout sore johnson j you don't

win on the coasts, you win in the central time zen. but another thing he said, though, was his pem tra mont every night. and who i think of that when i hear even trump supporters saying, god, i'm just so exhausted by this man. and i wonder whether it's a sheer exhaustion that at the end of the day will make voters turn on lebs you really put kwr fing on it's huge out there because in a sense if you talk if you lead a fairly normal life, you get the sense that he has

narcotic s.e. major prt of that's not the language people expect from the president of the united states. every election is i think a lot of people are going to be looking for then, and they say let's settle down and calm this country down. let's deal with health care, instead of arguing and fighting all the time. let's deal with the economy with pay and equity. and people like joe biden, people like mayor pete okay, these guys are where i am on this. >> we're going to have more 2020

news just ahead. senator kamala harris is rolling out a new policy proposal this morning that we're going to dig into. the conservative congressman called president trump let's go to bill karins to check on the forecast. bill? >> it will be a very dangerous today in the central plains, one of those high-risk days we get once or twice a year. over the weekend we had tornadoes, too, oklahoma, kansas and a few in texas, too. we're going to continue to watch the trend here to see how these storms are going to play out. look at this one. this one was just sucking up the dirt on a farmer's field. look at how dark and ominous that looks. thankfully we didn't have any injuries or fatalities from any tornadoes over the weekend. we'll be lucky to make it through that today. this is a high risk.

we haven't had a high risk of severe weather and tornadoes in two years. this is right in the heart of tornado alley, west texas and west western a lot of schools are cancelling in this area. they do not want the kids in the classrooms when the storms are rolling through. and we have a high risk of flash flooding. new york city watch out around 5 to 6 p.m. then it kwai elts down toward the end of the weekend. as we head towards memorial day weekend, the next significant weather be event, record highs and a heat wave. we could be near 100 into memorial weekend, many of the areas of the southeast. it looks like a dangerous, life threatening tornado outbreak for our friends in oklahoma and texas. new york city, some overnight thunderstorms. a nice shot of the harbor this

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now that's simple, easy, awesome. get $100 back when you bring in an eligible smartphone. click, call, or visit a store today. over the weekend -- >> mika, hold on. i'm wondering should we have a poll of "morning joe" viewers who love and care for you about what we were discussing during the break or not? >> you could try. i think they'd be for it. i mean, mother/daughter, you know. >> let's talk to security first about whether we can talk about locations and everything. it's quite an adventure. it's very dangerous for you and your daughter. >> i think it's fine. mount kilimanjaro, yes or no? >> yes. >> yes. >> no, no, no. david ignatius, you know and you knew and loved dr. brzezinski

and i'm all for this daughter/mother bonding experience but what would dr. brzezinski say if mika said, hey, dad, i for my 52nd birthday, i decided to march up mount kilimanjaro. >> i can only imagine, but he did prize the things that people did that were hard. >> oh, yeah. >> the quality of people that made them tough is what he loved the most. >> thank you. he knows i'm tough. >> he'd have appreciated you getting out of cell phone range. >> oh, my god, i can't do it. over the weekend -- >> how about a different mountain. alex suggests mount airy lodge. why don't up just relax? you are in extraordinary shape. mika has started running again like five and a half miles a day. >> i do. >> she's in great shape. she even asked me if i was interested in going.

i wouldn't get -- i would say see you soon. >> he can wait at base camp and make tea. >> meet her at the helicopter, joe. >> be standing there smoking a cigar. >> back to politics. >> i'll have big macs shipped in to the top of kilimanjaro. >> no. >> over the weekend, a member of congress became the first member of his party to call for impeaching president trump. congressman justin amash writing attorney general barr has deliberately misrepresented muell mueller's report. 2, president trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.

3. partisanship has eroded our system of checks and beautiful. 4. few members of congress have read the report. >> he goes on to right that it's clear that barr intended to mislead the public about special counsel robert mueller's analysis and findings. mueller's report reveals that president trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment. president trump responded to congressman amash by attacking him and the mueller report while at the same time claiming that it exonerates him, which it does not. quote, never a fan of justin amash. a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controver controversy. if he actually read the biased mueller report composed by 18 angry dems who hated trump, he

would see it was nevertheless strong on no collusion and ultimately no obstruction anyway. how do you obstruct when there is no crime and in fact the crimes were committed by the other side. justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponent's hands." joe, where do you begin with all of that? >> it's very simple. we have to break it down to its lowest common denominator. most of what donald trump wrote there was objectively false and everything that justin amash wrote you can go through line by line, point by point, is objectively true. and, mike barnicle, the fact that justin amash is the only republican who is willing to tell the truth on either side of congress is damning enough but perhaps it's a start. maybe there will be somebody

else out of, my god, what, 280, 290 republicans serving in congress right now in the house and senate, maybe there will be another who will find the courage to actually be honest and tell the objective truth. this is not fact, this is not partisanship, this is not anty trump unless telling the truth is considered anti-trump by mitch mcconnell and all of his gang of unfortunately republicans who have sold their country out. >> don't hold your breath on that, joe, waiting for them. the congressman, as you pointed out, four points in that twitter feed, four points. the fourth arguably is the most important. how many members of congress have actually read this report thoroughly and thought about what is in the report because if you read volume two, the specific volume that addresses

potential obstruction of justice, it is clear by any measure, by any standard that the president of the united states attempted on several occasions to obstruct justice. and if you read volume one thoroughly, i mean, the indications of coercion and cooperation with a foreign government, our sworn enemy, it's all pretty clear. congressman amash's voice is a pretty lonely voice on that right side of the aisle, joe. for the life of me, these people clearly have lost track of the fact that history is recording what they are not saying. and they will be responsible for their own history in this, for not speaking up in a common sense way. not in an accusatory way, just in the acceptance of what is in that report. >> they'll also be held responsible for the bankrupting of america when republicans took control of congress in 2001,

there was a $5.7 trillion debt. there was $155 billion surplus. pi the time they left washington in 2009, the debt had doubled, had the largest deficit in u.s. history. they promised if you give us another chance, we'll clean it up next time and here we are, biggest deficits ever in an expanding economy. the debt is over 22 trillion. and sam stein, it just leads me to where nick gillespie went this week in saying this guy needs to run as a libertarian for president of the united states. it's so funny, i go around in conversations when i'm talking about my former republican party and i said, you know, i literally do not have a party. i went to washington as a small government conservative to balance the budget, o pay down

the debt, to save social security oh sand medicare for future generations. to be responsible and spend only as much as we needed to spend and be efficient with taxpayers' dollars. nobody in washington other than justin amash and a foo poob fool that way anymore. i wonder if he can reason a candidacy talking about small debt and talking about well, it gets to something that's been talked about a lot, which is that trump's vulnerabilities are not in the middle necessarily. at least when it comes to he is on party. it's on the right. and, yeah, there is an opening there but no one appears well to

take it. i think it says a lot about trump that no one's willing to take it. if you look at these tweets, for instance, the ridiculing of justin amash, not just that, the way he went after fox news. he expects subservience. the most interesting thing to me is this tweet came yesterday. the mueller report has been out since april 18th. >> but it hasn't been completely out. >> sorry, you're right, you unredar unredarkt. this was no a he clearly took his time and read the report and thought about this in a substantive way.

ironically the person he probably nuts the ask her about because how can you as the speaker of the house read a tweet storm like this from a conservative member of congress and still sit there and be like, you know, there's just not a bipartisan push for this, the elements aren't there, when in fact there is is now. >> i stand by the idea that this does put a little pressure -- >> we broad brush a lot of things in news because there is so much going on, which is what the president wants. >> of the people who have not read the mueller report, i believe donald trump has not read the entirety of themueller report. >> he wants people to.

>> you got to understand justin amash. hoose been in congress quite some time and i think he's only ever cad unquestion. the a question i wonder, maybe he wants some type of exit strategy. it's very disturbing. justin never supported the president and i think he's just looking for attention. >> joe, while amash frequently stands apart from other republicans in his rhetoric and criticism of the president's behavior, his votes have lined up with the trump position more often than not. so that is just a lie. according to -- >>ia, go ahead. >> no, he's just lying. it's unbelievable that kevin mccarthy, who, hey, republicans,

your leader is lying about a fellow member who spoke his mind. hey, members, republican members, now put that back up. i want everybody to see what a liar kevin mccarthy is talking about -- as la leader about a member of his caucus who said publicly what the overwhelming majority of republicans his career voting record is over 60% and kevin mccarthy lied about. it's very interesting, kevin mccarthy behind closed doors -- remember this? this doesn't really for

trumpists. a small and and i'm not reading the acu or the heritage action because they've been overtaken by trumpists. they will put americans for prosperity, 94%. but what's so interesting is that kevin mccarthy just like sam stein, i think you'll remember this, just like so many other republicans who trashed donald trump by the day behind closed doors, wasn't it kevin mccarthy that was talking about donald trump's connection with vladimir putin and he was curious bo rohrabacher. >> him and dan about himself

concerns about donald trump's kebss with vladimir putin. and now he's the hypocrite that goes on it. v? >> wonder if he ever supported donald trump might be getty of treason. >> it totally ridiculous. it just goes to show you the sub servens to donald trump is -- >> pervasive. >> it public. >> only plk. >> he just threw his members under the bus for the hell it. the only sub servens. they all trash donald trump behind closed doors. they all know that these offenses are impeachable. they all say it behind closed doors but turn on the cameras and they become cowards. just isn't and he's getting trashed by his leader. >> and i'm curious to see if any

i know mitt romney did a little bit to a degree on the sunday shows yez but. you can count how many people a are. >> all right, we're going to get back to all this. the must-read opinion pages are ahead. plus president trump said he was neff warned that his former national security adviser, mike emflynn, was under investigation. but according to the mueller report, he was. we'll talk about the new public filing that discloses all the details ahead on "crime & justice." e & justice. woow! yeahhh!

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justin amash has reached a different conclusion than i have. i respect him, i think it's a courageous statement. i believe to make a case for obstruction of justice, you just don't have the elements evidenced in this document. and i also believe an

impeachment call, the american people just aren't there. you have to look at the senate. the senate is certainly not there either. >> senator mitt romney, one of the only republicans to criticize the president after the mueller report's release saying that amash's conclusions are principaled but not practical. what do you think, joe? >> well, it's exactly what nancy pelosi has been saying. it's very interesting. you know, mitt romney is a great case study in what liberals -- well, why maybe some more conservatives aren't stepping out and being bold. look romney, here's a guy who since he's got i don't know there has been more critical of donald trump than any republican senator and he should be praised for that, and yet, mike barnicle, if he does not throw himself on the barricades at every single stop, at every single issue with complete and utter recklessness that would

yield him ineticketiffective thd get him voted out of office immediately, suddenly he's a hip owe democr -- hypocrite and this and that. when the time comes, if it becomes practical, i'm sure mitt romney will be at the front of that line doing what needs to be done. but i don't fault him for saying that. do you? >> sure. i agree completely with you. they're probably right. the country is not there. this exhausted country we've been talking about is not there on impeachment. but this whole moneyy flap about congressman amash's twitter feed and what senator romney just said, it begs the never-ending question, joe, not only in my mind but i think in a lot of people's minds, why are so many people of one political party

frozen in fear of donald trump? >> oh, my god. >> what is wrong with these people that they're afraid to speak up? >> i don't know. so i was talking last night, mika, to bob costa and we were going back and forth and just having a general conversation and we were talking about it and he asked me what do you think? could these republicans do what justin amash did? i said, you know, when newt gingrich was man of the year and considered the most powerful guy in washington d.c., we ran hem o -- him out of town. there were 11 of us. and i came from a really conservative district from people that liked newt gingrich. i just went back, ran town hall meetings and told them why i did it. i said, if you don't like it, vote for somebody else, but i'm a conservative, i'm a small government conservative, and i

want to balance a budget and do a lot of different things and i don't think newt's still there. and you know what, i ran four times and i had four landslide victories and i did because i did what i thought was right and i went and i told my voters why and they voted for me. people could do what justin amash did but only if they're connected with their district and explain why they're doing it. >> still ahead, "hardball"'s chris spamatthews joins the conversation. we'll be right back. oins the conversation we'll be right back.

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women filled over 60% of all the news jobs created over the

past year. so i think the men should sue the women for discrimination. >> that's just hilarious. president trump joking, i think, on friday. meanwhile, senators kamala harris is out with a plan that aims to lessen the disparity in pay between men and women by taking 1% of the company's profit for every 1% difference in wages for equal work. yesterday harris rallied more than 4,000 fired up supporters in losses will for what was described as an organizing vant in the battle for california's over 400 delegates to the democratic national convention. here it senator harris previewing today's announcement. >> in america today women for the same work, for the equal work on average make 80 cents on the dollar, black women make 61 cents on the dollar, latinas

make 53 cents on the dollar and this has got to end. [ cheers and applause ] tomorrow am going to announce the first ever national priority on closing that pay gap and h e holding corporations account for for closing that gap. you'll see the announcement tomorrow. there will be penalties if they don't. >> this is like the basis of know your value, which is something we've all been working on together. sam stein, what are the political challenges of the position she just put out? >> honestly, i don't think there are that many, at least in the context of a democratic primary. this was a galvanizing issue for hillary clinton, too. i don't think there's many challenges.

>> do you think there are any, especially in terms of corporations being held accountable on this and being forced to do what they should be doing on their on? >> there could be a pushback from the corporate sector. lilly ledbetter traveled all around the country with us. this issue resonates with voters, especially women voters. senator harris was just saying that pay disparity is even worse among women of color. so this is a win motor vehicle with -- win-win issue for her. >> they say pay disparity is 80 cents for every dollar but it gets worse. >> i think there is some political down side for her. there is only one country that penalizes if they don't close

the gender pay gap and that's iceland, and it has a much more progressive attitude. i think america poonlizi ipenal companies for not closing the gender gap, i think it's going to be hard to do. but she needs to do that and she needs to get the delegates from california. >> coming up, joe biden kicks off his 2020 campaign with a rally in philadelphia and casts himself as the candidate that can unify the nation. msnbc's chris matthews was there and he joins us next. plus president trump conducts more foreign policy by twitter warning iran will meet an official end if it fights the u.s. we'll talk to david ignatius about that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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some of the really smart folks say democrats don't want to hear about unity. if democrats -- i believe democrats want to unify this nation. that's what our party's all been

about. if the american people want a president to add to our division, lead with a clenched fist, a closed hand, a hard heart, to demonize your opponent, to spew hatred, they don't need me, they've got president donald trump! democrats, republicans, independence, i'm running on a different path. folks, the single most important thing we have to accomplish to get this done, the single most important thing we have to accomplish is defeat donald trump. [ cheers and applause ] >> former vice president joe biden kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign with a rally in the heart of philadelphia. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, may 20th. with us we have columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius, the host of msnbc's "hardball,"

chris matthews. i'm so excited. i want to write the opening loon tonight. can i? >> call the open? >> yeah. i'm good at this. i need my chance. >> it's just like writing the "new york post" front page. >> mika, are you ready? >> yes. >> fox trot, fox trot! >> buttigieg, fox trot. >> outfoxed. >> that's even better. that's even better, mika! outfox, let's play "hardball," i love that. >> senior adviser at move on.org and contributor kareen jean pierre and chief correspondent for "the new york times" mark

baker is with us and mike barnicle. >> and with something for chris, biden's bump, let's play "hardball"! >> not as good as outfoxed. chris has some takeaways from pennsylvania. what are your takeaways? >> doesn't overlook us, don't look down your nose at us, take us seriously, don't discard us. they don't trust the democrats with immigration. they want economics not social issues. an electrician stood up and said my social issue is taking care of my family. stick to economics. very pro roe v. wade, leave it alone, just leave it alone. common sense. >> and pennsylvania could be quite a battle ground. >> i said it before, as tim

russert said in 2000, it was about florida, florida, florida. this year it's going -- or 200 it's going to be pennsylvania, pennsylvania, pennsylvania. and one of the i think most important things that joe biden brings to the table is the fact that he would win and he is winning now in polls, the scranton media market is a market that donald trump won by double digits. that changes the whole dynamic. chris, people when they look back at 2016, they overlook the fact that hill ary clinton took what she needed out of philadelphia, about 420,000 votes but she got wiped out in the rural areas and in scranton. that's what joe biden brings to the table. >> what hit me yesterday was joe biden, dr. biden was fantastic.

it was beautiful, her love of her country, her belief in her husband and what he can do for this country. biden is basically running for america against trump. he's trying to rescue us from trumpism and trump himself. i don't know if i'm going to go all the way through till mill million at t -- milwaukee at the convention, i don't know. there's always a front-runner and a main challenger. but his emotion is patriotic, it's not anger. right now unfortunately it is about anger. listened to bernie sanders yesterday on "meet the press." it was all anger. he was angry at ed rendell, angry at everybody. biden is going to have to grab that anger and turn it given trump. black support is a big thing with biden. support of african-american

community leaders, i was at the award leaders yesterday in philly, standing with them in the crowd, he had a gospel chorus came on and sang, the lead singer that did the "star-spangled banner" was an african-american woman. i know he's a white guy but he wants to be a champion of the black community. ironically, a 76-year-old white guy but that's where he's comfortable. >> you know, mika, that's one of mayor pete's biggest challenges is the fact that joe biden right now is doing extraordinarily well among black voters. i want to follow up on what chris said about dr. jill biden. one of the things that struck me in talking with her and you in philadelphia was also what struck me and i know mike barnicle can attest to this as well as anybody, just how --

what a contrast they are to the trumps and the trump family who seem to want to come off as some european plutocratic ruling family when you look at them. that is their post. i've got to say with both jill biden and joe biden, they are about as normal and americana as they can be. i remember sitting on the back porch with joe biden in wilmington talking. i was down there, he had just finished doing "meet the press," must have been 2009, 2010. we looked around and there were secret service men and and he pointed to this many and he said look at them, look at them, what are they doing? can you imagine being so much of a loser that you would try to kill a vice president? i mean, come on, man!

a but he was always make fun of himself, poking fun at himself, putting others at ease. they are, and i say this in the most complementary way in the age of insanity and craziness and hyperbole, they are about as normal as it gets. and you said that jill biden seemed talking to her because you've grown up around people affected by washington, d.c. and the power, that it was as if she had never been to washington before, that she was just a community college professor. >> it's actually stunning when you think about the lifetime in the washington world that they have spent together because he has served for decades and he commuted back and forth and that train trip there and back, they have stayed normal, they have stayed normal in a sea of insanity in these political times and, get this, corin ne,

have to appreciate this, they want to go back. most people, and you can talk about the obamas, they're so glad to be gone. they are out of there. it is so insidious, it's such a difficult life with people pulling at you and grabbing at you and getting under your skin and trying to basically rip apart your world every single day in washington and yet the bidens want to go back and serve this country. i think it says a lot. i wouldn't want to go back. >> i totally agree with you. i think i said this on the show, i got to know both vice president biden and dr. biden when i worked in the obama administration. i traveled with them a whole lot, and when we would go to pennsylvania, he was really the third senator from pennsylvania and there he got a lot of love there. he gets a lot of love from states like that. those two are probably two of

the most normal people that you would ever, ever meet. just full of heart. >> and yet, david ignatius, he has foreign policy from those decades of serious. >> he has foreign policy experience. sometimes he's serious to a fault. the thing that i think is so interesting is the fact that biden has opened strong. we all wondered will do nothing -- >> that was very french of you what you just did. >> but it means anyone who beats joe biden in the democratic field is going to be a really good candidate. that's what we know. we're going to have a strong leader and that whoever beats him is going to show qualities that the voters really like and have that energy. >> mike barnicle. >> as we just watched the vice president and talk about his wife jill biden, they clearly

are a relatable couple. everyone who has encountered them knows that but there's certainly else to the bidens that they bring to the country that i'm wondering if the white house is cognizant of or thinks about and dwells upon? it is this, both bidens, but more so the the more visible biden, the candidate himself, they understand loss, they understand grievances in a real way. they understand what it means to lose someone in your family to war or disease. they understand what it means to lose a job. they understand loss. does the white house understand how deeply relatable that is to the country? >> yeah, i think that's one of the things you know most about joe biden. he got his start in national politics at a time when he had the great tragedy in his family, his first wife and choold kil--

child killed and then emerged again in 2015 with the death of his son beau. it's that youauthenticity that been one of his strengths in politics. and this is a challenge for him, is he going to rally a part that is increasingly younger, that is looking for something new. he appeals to the people who have been in washington for decades. that's not necessarily where the party is going. does he provide enough of a contrast to donald trump generationally and so forth. at the moment he's starting strong and he's the person to beat. >> nor candidate getting a lot of attention is mayor pete bu e buttigi buttigieg. here he is dealing with the issue of fox on fox. >> especially when you see what

goes on, tuck are caer carlson immigrants make america dirty and la laura ingram comparing immigrants in cages to summer camps. summer camps? even though a lot of those hosts who are not in good faith, a lot of americans tune in in good faith. there a lot of americans who i can't blame if they are ignoring our message because they will never hear it if we don't go on and talk about it. whether it's going on the viewership of fox news or dem g -- demographically going to where the people are. we have to upgrade our

vocabulary so we are understood from coast to coast. >> wow. >> he's doing what barack obama said he would do in 2008, he'd go to the counties where democrats usually lost 70-30, 80-20. he figured if he only lost 60-40, you add that up enough, you're winning states that republicans usually win. what do you think about mayor pete and going to fox news and leaving with a really positive tv event? >> well, what you said there about going into the enemy camp where you only have a minority of the voters, that was the smart politics that jack kennedy used. he went into the suburbs where people had gone to b.c. law, harvard law and got i don't know ahe -- gotten ahead in life. they said we can bring them back for jack kennedy. i've been watching the nba championship like most people are and i've been rooting for

the philadelphia war yourself now in oakland -- just kidding. what i've seen is joe biden got a lot of byes, people like sherry brown didn't run, mike bloomberg didn't run, mcauliffe didn't run. all those moderate politicians, if you will, the center breed, he didn't have to run against them. so he started out with a great burst because they weren't will. there's a couple people like buttigieg, who is also moving toward the center. he's going for some the biden vote. it's clear that kamala harris is really moving hard on the other conference championship, on the left, center left but mainly left. angrier, tougher on issues, not necessarily patriotic as much as the emotions are patriotic of course but really angry at corporations not fair to women.

sort of a left anger against the establishment. that's classic left politics, you run against big corporations, the establishment, the rich, the billionaires if you will. that's a battle bernie has to fight still. so that championship is really being conditionested. the reason why bernie isn't doing so well is a will the of people want bernie's votes. they cleared for biden on the center. that's why think he's doing well. >> if cam she's got a lot of votes she's can pick up from bernie sanders and you may end up having somebody from that wing of the party as more of a centrist. i see all these candidates, the democratic party, and they are a wealth of really good, inspiring, exciting candidates. and it just remind me of what i love about politics so much.

every time a party is written off, the republican party in 1964, who pops up as the savior of orange county in the state of california in 1966 but ronald reagan. 2004, democrats at a low, low ebb and, you know, karl rove talking about a permanent republican majority. two years later speaker nancy pelosi, four years later barack obama. parties usually found a way to sur rife and to fight their way back, claw their way back. you look at joe biden in philadelphia, mayor pete on fox, you look at kamala harris. you see that happening with this democratic party. there's a lot of reasons for democrats to be exthey don't like trump, they're going to vote against trump and the rats

have a tremendous opportunity just on the anti-trump things. did you see the polls the owe other day? it was trump gets 41% against everybody, except biden he gets 38. it's very hard to die i've watched the democrats for years. they're not always smart her gleeful at the montgomery nomination. dancing in a circle, we've won, we've won 49 states. they don't always know reality. so think kamala harris, by the way, is not a vice president. i've been watching her. she's a president someday, maybe not now, maybe now, but somebody once said about walter mondale, he has the sole of a viep. she does not have the soul of a vice president. she's a winner or a loser but cease going to fight and that could get really out of hand. >> notes to candidates like when you're asked if you will make

your vice president a female, it a rude question. it's rude to the female candidates out there. >> and it's premature. >> it's very premature on many levels. so all right. peter baker, want to shift to foreign relations with you and david ignatius. the president tweeting about iran threatening. this seems like playing with fire on many levels. what's going on? >> it sound like fire and fury again. >> it does. >> what that disguises is this fundamental divide in his own house right now. in the first generation of maush advisers, we've now we see a president you'll the more hawkish folks like mike comeio and john bolton. he's more lookly to get involved

some kind of military confrontation with came moments, minutes after a segment on fox news about iran. what is the president doing? >> his inflammatory tweets and statements are just part of the pack and. i think one problem trump has is that the world has figured that out. the world is much less tweet sensitive now than it was two years ago. >> right. >> and i think the problem on iran and you can generalize this to our probably lems with china north korea, it's not clear the president has an end game. he has these very extraordinary, maximum goals but it's not clear he has a strategy for getting there. i think that's what i hear increasing discussion of from some in the administration and from many foreign diplomats.

taking a tough line with iran, given their behavior, max a lot of sense. the question is where is this going? as you reduce the flow of income to iran month by month, that's happening, they are squeezed, what is it that you want them to do? and i think the trump administration is going to have to figure out do we want to be at a negotiating table with them? it's not where john bolton wants to be. is that where the president wants to be? and how is he going to get there? >> joe, i wonder sometimes if it's, like actually trying to be destruct is exactly what david ig naeshs wroes and knowing that, everything else is a bluff. so the sab are rattling with north carolina is a bluff. when they figure it out, you

start firing missiles, they continue developing the nuclear weapons and they know there will be no response. donald trump's response is that he and kim love each other. and when you actually have the president of the united states apologizing for the leader of north korea when the leader of north korea makes him look like a fool. we we saw donald trump in helsinki look like a weak leader next to vladimir putin. now it's the same thing with iran. he's saber rattling, threatening the iranis. he's taking ships in there. he's never going to go to war there. it's just not who donald trump has been. there are very few things that donald trump has been consistent on. he's flip flopped, he was a pro-choicer. he said in 2010 i'm very pro-choice. he told tim russert a decade before he was very pro-choice, he held pro-choice fund-raisers at his hotels.

he was for gun control. i mean, he's flip flopped on many things. two things he has not flip flopped on. one, trade. he's always been a protectionist going back to the 1980s. two, wars. he thinks when americans foot for wars they are suckers. so at the end of the day, isn't this all just a big bluff with iran? >> you know, you mentioned abortion rights and i think it's a fascinating parallel. you know that term in mathemati mathematics, the theory of limits, the republicans are wary of outlawing abortion, they're brainy about it. you outlaw abortion, you have all the hell that goes with that, you drive it underground. it going to be dangerous and horrible. they want to be against it but they don't want to outlaw it because prohibition is disaster. it's hard. they want to be known as pro

israeli, anti-iranian because that's good for a lot of people out there politically for them and then they also don't want to go to war. they want to go right up to the edge. that's brinkmanship. if they do it with abortion rights, they play the game politically, all the time being cognizant of the fact, damn it, what happens if we win? we all read the history of world war i, the guns of august, one side mobilizes and the other side said you're mobilizinmobil? we have to go to war. the iranians, they're never going to forgive us for the shah, but at some point they might because of the economics say we have to deal with their enemy, us. i don't know why we talk to kim jong un and we talk to putin but we can't talk to rouhani.

>> it's always come to those two issues, war and foreign trade with planning and objectives. there's always what's the objective of this policy? within the white house today with those two issues, iran, tariffs, trade, how many different views are there of a consensus? do they have a consensus on anything internally? >> well, that's a great question actually. on trade i think you've got the president driving this train. and he is not only in favor of conflict, conflict is a tool, as far as he's concerned, to get to where he's going. his model would be the u.s./mexico agreement and he modernized it and said let's call that a victory. he did do things that other presidents probably would have done with that. up until then he was more than willing to risk the

relationships with mexico and candidate da and that canada and that's a lot of broken pottery that others wouldn't do to get to that result. >> okay, thank you. and chris matthews, thank. "enemy in the foxhole, let's play "hardball." or for justin amash, "a republican rebuke, let's play hardba hardball." >> please use one. >> that's what you do. mika has like this alarm and if it is 6:57 p.m., she just pops up, she goes "hardball" starts in a few minutes. she runs in front of the tv set, i promise you -- >> i get so mad if i miss it.

>> it's like young kids in '64 rushing in front of their television set of their parents to watch ed sullivan. she's like let's hear what he says, be quiet, be quiet and you say "let's play "hardball." >> it would mean everything if you used one of mine. >> some young kid like 5-year-olds, they don't grasp everything they hear but they love the opening. >> i'll be watching. still ahead on "morning joe," never before has congress had so many women veterans. now that are joining forces in a new way, on capitol hill. we'll talk to two of them next on "morning joe." woow! yeahhh! there we go! this memorial day, start your summer off right in a new chevrolet. oh, wow!! it's time to upgrade. you guys out did yourselves there.

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>> it's good to you have back on the show. and u.s. air force veteran, democratic congresswoman from pennsylvania. both are members of the house armed services of committee and co-sponsors of the newly house passed quality act and they just launched the service women and women's congressional caucus. congresswoman sherrill, tell bus this new caucus and why we need it. >> chrissy came to me and said we have the largest number of women veterans right now, we have to get together and think about how to impact our service women across the country. we have the fastest growing group of veterans are our women's veterans and hair not

always getting the same level of care the men veterans are. >> chrissy, your thoughts on this. >> the story is true. it's a remarkable revelation to discover with four women in congress we had had doubled the numbers we had ever had, which is sort of sad in and of itself. but what we're seeing is the really rapid growth of women in the armed services and we wanted to address the entire arc from a woman's career from her recru recruitment to her service and reserve duty and being a veteran. all of that is unified but in congress not so much. we needed to think about them wholistically. >> whenever we read or hear about service members suffering from trauma, on the edge of

suicidal, you know, tendencies, depression, access to the va, the va's care, it's almost always about a guy. women in combat, women in the service suffer from the same experiences, many of them, do they not? and how are they being treated? >> they do and the suicide rate among our women are higher than among their male counterparts. >> why is that? >> a lot of women have suffered military sexual assault or trauma. i just put an amendment on a bill to make sure they had access to child care. i think having service women in congress right now to focus on these critical issues is important.

>> is it fear of reporting on sexual -- >> i agree with represent at the sherri sherrill are twice as luikely t commit suicide than men. women feel when they're separating from the air force, their v.a. may not be the v.a. for them. we also together wrote a letter to the secretary of the navy and the secretary of the army asking them, imploring them to make another issue which was to have them a v.a. training for women who are separating from the air force. there's a four-hour training session that the air force was doing that was being very successful in lowering the number of suicides and increasing the number of people accessing the v.a., women, and we asked the secretary of stath

navy and army to do the same thing because women are less likely to access the v.a. regardless of why they're feeling unhealthy or unstable, it doesn't matter, they should be able to access the medical. >> i want to broaden the discussion. you're both members of house armed services committee, crucial committee. i want to ask what your assessment is of the current showdown with iran in the persian gulf? where do you think this is going? >> i think we're both incredibly concerned about it. the president has said he does not want to go to war with iran, i take him at his word but because we have underfunded the state department and haven't focused on the diplomacy being efforts we needed to, we don't have the lanes of communication open with iran to make sewer that the small skirmishes that we get into in the straits of

hormuz, for example, the typical back and forth between our navy and the iranians is going to become something big ager becau of misunderstandings. we really don't seem to have the diplomacy diplomatic efforts going that we need to have. i don't think we're in the position we normally are with the strength of our allies in western europe. it's a real concern for me right now. >> for congresswoman houlahan, there's a report out this weekend of president trump considering presidential pardons for convicted war criminals. there's nothing that's been concrete yet. as a veteran, i am curious for your position on it. >> i will definitely answer that in one center. i wanted to follow up on one thing. i feel on iran and the president's position, he should

not be surprised when he has elevated and escalated tensions by identifying the army as being a terrorist army and elevating economic sangs actions and pull outs of the jcoa. i would like to implore our president to be a grownup in the room and de-escalate the tensions, the stakes are very high and communication is very poor between the two countries countries. my understanding is this use of pardons by our president is pretty unprecedented and i would like to see the president not pardon people in these situations. >> i'm incredibly proud to have voted for the equality act. it's hard time they have the protections under the law that other groups have and can really be respected at part of our

community and we can be sure they get the services they need to. it was really a great day. >> thank you both, thank you for being there. >> thank you. thank you for having us. >> and strengthening numbers. >> coming up, new court transcripts reveal thousands of addition an migrant children may have been separated from their parents at the border. jacob soboroff has been covering the crisis from the very beginning. we'll have the latest next on "morning joe." t next on "morning joe." it's not small. but it's not just big either. it's the kind of big where you'll never have to ask, "should i scooch up?" it's big that looks at a sunroof and wonders why it can't just be most of the roof. it's big that's better

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leaders of the democratic party. for over two years, this president has broken the law... and nothing happened. you told us to wait for the mueller investigation. and when he showed obstruction of justice... nothing happened. when this president took money from foreign governments and blocked the release of his tax returns... nothing happened. and when his administration illegally refused to testify nothing happened. now you tell us to wait for the next election? really? really? really? this is why we volunteered, raised money, went door to door and voted in the last election. our founding fathers expected you - congress - to hold a lawless president accountable. and you're doing nothing. nothing. nothing. he broke his oath of office. he's defying you. he's laughing at you. and he's getting away with it. this is our democracy.

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welcome back to "morning joe." according to new court transcripts, the trump administration says as least 1,700 additional migrant children may have been separated from their parents. that's in addition to the 2,800 that were separated under its zero tolerance policy. joining us now with more on the government's effort to identify potentially thousands of additional separated children, msnbc correspondent jacob soboroff. jacob, what do you have? >> i remember sitting at this table with you all coming back from the border and i think i described this as a slow motion, man-made national disaster and

disgrace, credit to one person donald trump. and that slow motion disaster is still playing out today, a year later. we already know about the 3,000 kids that the 3,000 kids that the trump administration took away from their parents and put in those cages on the border. and hhs identified thousands more separated and now for the first time we're starting to hear how many additional kids on tom of the 3,000 they took away from their parents. the number that we heard on friday was 1,712 additional children before the zero tolerance policy was put into place. get this, mika, they have tens of thousands of records of additional children they still have not gone through yet, meaning there could be thousands more children we still haven't heard about. i think the reason -- first of all, thank you guys for continuing to talk about this. the reason it's so important is with everything that is continuing to play out on the

border, we got to remember the trump administration never had a plan once they separated these kids to put them back together again. when you hear them talk about this humanitarian crisis going on at the border and the solutions to put into place to address the flow of families coming in, i'm not sure the credibility that they are talking with today has a particular high level, especially as thousands of additional children that they separated continue to emerge here. >> this is, corine, cruelty and imhumanity at the hands of this presidency. >> it truly is and it breaks my heart every time i hear this type of reporting. i want to thank jacob. you've been on top of this for over a year talking about this with the administration, with the zero tolerance policy and the separation of children and the damage this is going to have on these young kids and the

sexual abuse we've been hearing about. i wanted to ask you, jacob, have you been talking to the outside groups who have been working on fighting this, the folks on the ground, what is it that they're doing and what else can we be doing to be helping this issue out? >> the number one one organization obviously that's on the front lines of this is the aclu that sued the trump administration and won the force reunification of all of these children, wouldn't know anything about this if it wasn't for the lawsuit that was brought by the aclu. but there are separations that continue to this day and that information continues to come out only because of public pressure. none of this would have come to light if it want for that one one week in june of 2018 a put the president under pressure. he said the only reason he reversed this is because it came out on television. >> what's coming out is limited information still. i'm glad we're covering it.

but we don't know how many kids we're talking about. is this all happening behind closed doors and far away from anybody who wants to report on the story? who are these children? where are they? how are they and how many are they? >> it's such a good point, mika. we talked about where are the girls, the toddlers, we had only he heard about the young boys and then we fondund out about all these tender age children. there are tens of thousands of records they haven't gone through. all of them have been released from custody. we don't know who they were released to, we don't know if their parents were already deported, which is why it's so important we continue to ask the questions. the transparency is about as low as it could get when it comes to determining who these kids are and what happened to them. >> it's abhorrent.

jacob soboroff, thank you very much. we'll stay on it. up next, there are few power morse consequence for an american president than the ability to shape the u.s. supreme court. a new "frontline" documentary tackles that topic and we'll talk to the filmmaker next on "morning joe." be right back. heading into retirement you want to follow your passions

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of people playing video games in the morning. is that everything? i can see who's online. i'm gonna sweep the sofa fort. well, look what i found. take control of your wifi with xfinity xfi. let's roll! now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity xfi gives you the speed, coverage and control you need. manage your wifi network from anywhere when you download the xfi app today. if kennedy had been alive or heflin or spector and had been watching the kavanaugh hearings, we would have puked. >> it looked like a product of the deep divisions in washington today. >> destroying civility and sewing chaos. >> but it had been decades in the making. >> senators who disrupt supreme court hearings, they might as well be in the audience with the protesters. >> and behind the scenes, one

powerful republican senator, majority leader mitch mcconnell. >> mcconnell knows the game plan. one of the reasons he's as good at his job as he is, he can play his hand of card and also play his opponents' hand of cards. he knows exactly what to do. >> outmaneuvering democrats, confirming conservative justices were his specialties. brett kavanaugh would be his crowning achievement. >> it's moving the court to a really very, very conservative court. that's mcconnell's dream from the time he was first in the senate. and maybe his dream when he went into politics. >> a look at the new "frontline" episode entitled "supreme revenge," which airs tomorrow night on pbs, offering an inside look at the battle for control of america's high court. the episode traces how a 30-year-old grievance transformed the court and turned confirmation hearings into bitter partisan conflicts. joining us now, co-producer,

director, and writer, michael kirk. michael, this looks fascinating. i would love for you to talk more about the title, but also connected to today with the renewed fight over roe v. wade. >> it's just an amazing moment in our politics now, because the democrats, if you want to do something about all the issues you've talked about on the program, so far this morning, it's all in the courts right now. and it's in the hands of the courts. and as everything moves that direction, it's probably time to learn what we learned in the making of this film about where the court stands and what it's going to take as we look out into the future. >> kareen? >> yeah, thank you so much for doing this film, because there's so much today that relates, as mika said, to the film that's being -- that's going to be on pbs tomorrow. and with the abortion fight, really, what we've seen for decades and you know this better

than i, that the right has been really good at stacking up the supreme court. and now we see it with, you know, now the supreme court leaning to the right, we see what is happening with abortion rights. we see that the potential of a legislation that could be challenged and go up to the supreme court. so i guess the question i have, like, now you have candidates out of the 20 candidates out there, many of them are talking about, what do we do with the supreme court. do we add more justices? do we change the makeup of the court? what are your thoughts after doing the research and doing these interviews, what do you think democrats should be doing now? >> one of the things you notice when you go all the way back to the robert bork hearings and the end of the reagan administration, as the battle really engaged and republican, especially conservative republicans, figured out that the courts were the future for their party, which was not expanding demographically, the way the democrats were. so when you watched that happen, bork, the grievance gets

established, when the democrats stop bork from being on the court, the republicans engage and they engage across the clarence thomas nomination and all the way through kavanaugh, in concert with the federalist society. so you have a growth of this incredible impulse to grab the court, to move it to more conservative directions. and with great success, partly under the leadership of leader mitch mcconnell, this idea becomes, we're going to establish things for the next 30, 40 years, generations, and they have now, with kavanaugh, done that. and as lizzie graham says in our film, if the democrats want to take control of the courts, they've got to win elections. and that's really never been truer than today, as you look at the republican senate, able to confirm nominees that donald trump, especially if he's re-elected, may have. so it really is about the senate

in lots of ways right now. >> mike barnicle? >> michael, i remember the bjork hearings. could you get away with a subtitle for this particular "frontline" film that you've done and the subtitle would be, after all we've been through, ideology over intellect? >> well, i don't know about that, mike, but i do know this. the way people have been nominated, when you watch the bork hearings and the way the battles have become more and more politicized, and they've happened on this spectrum. bork ideology, thomas character, and kavanaugh, absolute politics. the battle between republicans and democrats by a nominee himself. so that's the direction i think you've seen and i think ideology is absolutely become a standard when it used to be character and qualifications in terms of, was the person, you know, a walking,

talking criminal and have they been a judge. those things have changed dramatically since 1987. >> supreme revenge airs tomorrow night on pbs. michael kirk, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. and still ahead, south bend mayor and 2020 candidate pete buttigieg takes on president trump and a couple of prominent fox news hosts on their own turf. plus, a republican congressman calls for impeachment. michigan representative justin amash is breaking ranks with members of his own party, accusing president trump of impeachable conduct. and the president is hitting back. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in just a moment. wa" we're back in just a moment.

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or current gm owners can get thirty two fifty total cash allowance on this colorado. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. if it's hard to figure out what's going on right now, it's because we are living on one of those blank pages in between chapters in american history. and what comes next could be ugly or it could be amazing. and i believe running for office is an act of hope and so is voting for somebody and supporting somebody and volunteering for somebody. i hope you'll join me in making sure that that next era is better than any that we've had so far. >> thank you, mayor! and thank you -- wow, a standing ovation. >> all right. >> there you go. that is mayor pete getting a standing ovation on fox news, a forum elizabeth warren wants nothing to do with.

good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, may 20th. and i'm in washington today. i'll be interviewing speaker nancy pelosi later today for an msnbc headliner special that will air later this summer. but we will be bringing you some of the interview tomorrow on "morning joe." and with us now, we have columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. politics editor for the daily beast, sam stein. former chief of staff to the dccc and former director of strategic communications for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrian elrod. she's an msnbc contributor. and washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay is with us. and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle up in new york. joe, my daughter and i watched that town hall and just thought it was pretty amazing, what happened last night. >> well, the reaction to mayor pete has been remarkable, especially for a nation that has

learned to become very cynical of politicians, of all stripes. but you could see the response on twitter, you could see the response -- hear the response from friends and neighbors, just like after his announcement. and it's quite unlike anything that i know that you and i have ever seen. you know, as you know, mika, i only can tell three sort of -- three kind of stories. they're either baseball stories, winston churchill stories, or rock 'n' roll stories. and looking at mayor pete last night, and once again seeing this remarkable response, i was reminded of one of the most famous lines by any rock critic in music history and that line was, i have seen the future of rock 'n' roll, and it is bruce springsteen. jon landau wrote that. pretty smart guy to write that in '73, '74. well, i have seen the future of the democratic party and it's mayor pete.

it may not be in 2020. >> right. >> perhaps it's in 2024 or beyond, but this guy is going to play an important role in the mainstreaming, the mainstreaming of the democratic party for many years to come. and believe you me, that is exactly what he does. regardless of ideology, mayor pete mainstreams a democratic party, much in the same way nancy pelosi fights every day to make sure that her house caucus does the same and that joe biden's doing on the campaign trail today. >> yeah, i find him to be a really exciting candidate. and during that town hall last night on fox news, 2020 presidential candidate mayor pete buttigieg slammed two of the networks most prominent prime-time hosts for divisive comments they have made on-air. and he also dismissed the tweets of the president. take a look. >> especially when you see what goes on with some of the opinion hosts on this network. i mean, when you've got tucker

carlson saying that immigrants make america dirty, when you've got laura ingraham comparing detention centers with children in cages to summer camps. summer camps? then there is a reason why anybody has to swallow hard and think twice before participating in this media ecosystem. but i also believe that even though some of those hosts are not always there in good faith, i think a lot of people tune into this network who do it in good faith. and there are a lot of americans who my party can't blame if they are ignoring our message, because they will never hear it if we don't go on and talk about it. so it's why, whether it's going into the viewership of fox news or geographically it's going into places where democrats haven't been seen much, i think we've got to find people where they are, not change our values, but update our vocabulary, so that we're truly conducting with americans from coast to coast. >> how would you handle the insults and the attacks and the tweets and all of that? >> the tweets are -- i don't

care. we need to make sure that we're changing the channel from this show that he's created. because what matters -- and look, i get it. it's mesmerizing. it's hard for anybody to look away. me, too. it is the nature of grotesque things that you can't look away. >> by the way -- >> i mean -- >> to defense of tucker or laura ingraham there, and as for the aforementioned tweets, president trump weighed in hours before the town hall, criticizing fox news. tweeting, fox is moving more and more to losing -- wrong -- side in covering the dems. they got dumped from the democrats boring debate and they just want in. they forgot the people who got them there. fox senior news analyst, brit hume defended the event, responding to trump writing, quote, say this for buttigieg, he's willing to be questioned by chris wallace, something you've barely done since you've been president. oh, and covering candidates of both parties is part of the job of a news channel. wow!

joe? >> yeah, you know, mika, that reminds me of when donald trump wrote about, you know, bleeding badly from a facelift or calls me psycho joe. and people say, how do you do it, joe? well, because we don't care. we've got to have that sort of mind-set. you've got to see it as sort of a carnival, sort of a side show. and mayor pete does, so many other candidates become so upset and engaged. and he doesn't even go there. and mike barnicle, he -- in those two answers, he responded in the most powerful way any candidate can respond to donald trump. not by fear, not by comparing him to hitler, not by being angry, which we do from time to time. but by laughing at him. it's grotesque! it's a side show! i don't care! let's get on with the business of getting working americans back to work and getting them good jobs with good pay.

>> you know, joe, if we were running, if you and i were running pete's campaign, mayor pete's campaign for president, you might be tempted to tell him just to show those clips repeatedly, the ones that we just showed. because they show a calm, direct, composed delivery of common sense to voters and the reaction with the crowd was clearly obvious. and that's one of the reasons that he's doing so well, i think. he delivers information in a calm, direct way that very few other candidates do. and he has the correct answer to the presidential tweets. who cares?! you know, he's -- the tweets are so vol aluminuminous and so predictable, who really cares? and so i think he triggered a lot of reasons for people to think about him as a presidential candidate, not that whole lot of people have not yet thought about him, but those who are not thinking about him, in the fox audience, they're going

to be thinking about him today. >> hey, david, you've seen a few presidential candidates. i wonder whether we're, mika and i, are being a bit excessive in our praise of mayor pete, but i've seen a lot of candidates. i think this guy -- i almost called him kid, because he's like 20 years younger than me -- i think this -- i think this kid is special! i do think there's something about this guy that separates him from the thousands of politicians that you and i have seen over the past few decades. >> he's unusually smart. >> yes. >> really is a brilliant guy. evokes barack obama's raw intelligence. but he's just got this way of seeming to break through the conventional things that politicians say. it just sounds real when he says it. >> yeah. >> that long pause and then, i don't care, when he's talking about the tweets.

his description of trump, that he's mesmerizing in the way that grotesque things are. i don't know that i've heard a better description of what it is that makes the whole country watch this guy through his antics and taunts, a better account than that. so we'll see. it's early in the campaign. he is distinguishing himself from his very large field, in part because he seems to be speaking so directly to people. and let's see if we can -- if he can sustain it. >> well, and adrian elrod, let's talk about the reality here. this is a young man with incredible, diverse experience, incredible education, speaks up to eight languages, served our country abroad, and has this pastoral demeanor that really makes him stand out, especially among young people. but, the african-american vote, polling shows, he's got nothing and he can't win without that. >> that's exactly right, mika. he's got some work to do in that community, but i think he's got

plenty of time here. >> really? >> it's mid-may, but we've still got nine months until the south carolina primary. he's building a team in south carolina, he is working to make sure that he can attract that level of vote. but this is what i love that he's doing right now. he's going out to audiences that frankly a lot of democratic challengers, candidates are not -- are too scared to go in front of. they're too scared to go in front of fox news viewers. we learned in 2016 during hillary clinton's campaign that 20% of fox viewers are democrats and 10% of fox viewers are independents. so this is an audience that could possibly vote in the democratic primary. and you've got to at least make your case to them. and i think the way he did it last night especially with chris wallace, who's a very fair host compared to others on fox news is a good cue for other democratic channelers. >> i just wonder if he can make up the ground that is not there with the african-american community, sam. >> well, it's a huge hurdle. >> it's a huge hurdle. >> for obvious reasons. and one of them is that he's been the mayor of south bend,

indiana. it's not like he has these institutional ties to the african-american community. it's not to say he can't develop them, but he is starting from a position of intense weakness in that part. but i think what he does have, which i think is separating him, is not just a willingness to go and engage those audiences. and i should note, the dnc did cancel its debate on fox news, so maybe they should revisit that decision if that's the premise we're operating off of. but i think mostly politics is about a reaction to the moment. it seems to me, at least that way. barack obama was a reaction to george w. bush and certainly, donald trump was a reaction to barack obama. and i think what mayor pete has done, to some degree of success, is he's been a reaction to donald trump. >> he really is a man of the moment. >> someone who is incredibly willing to engage multiple audiences. he's not conventionally partisan. he's happy to talk to fox viewers. he is from, obviously, the midwest, which has kind of personified the trump voter, in a way. so he's made that a part of his message. someone who is definitely not of

the politics of the moment, but the politics of the future. and there's been a lot of success in terms of fund-raising and polling data. i don't know if that translates into like concrete, democratic party institutionalist success. that's his challenge. he has to staff up, he has to use that money, spend it wisely, and get inroads in the african-american community and elsewhere. still ahead on "morning joe," mayor pete wasn't the only democrat honing his message over the weekend. joe biden kicked off his official campaign in pennsylvania, where the next presidential election could well be decided. we'll talk about that. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good monday morning to you, mika. there are schools closed in oklahoma and texas this morning because of anticipated severe weather. it doesn't happen all that often. this is only one time in the last two years that we've had a high risk of tornadoes in areas of that part of the country. and not just regular tornadoes, these could be strong tornadoes, too. let me get you into it. the storm that was in the west is moving into the intermountain west. already early this morning, some

really strong thunderstorms, north texas and areas of western oklahoma. this is just the appetizer. it's going to come in two rounds. and because we're getting heavy rain with this, too, we have the life-threatening flash flooding. we have a right risk of flash flooding in oklahoma and in kansas. 7 million people under flash flood watches. let's talk about the tornado threat. the area of pink is areas of greatest concern. that's the high risk. in all, 19 million people. but it's this area from all of oklahoma, north texas, and especially this area in the pink that we're most concerned with. this is where we could see what we call long track tornadoes. tornadoes that are strong, on the ground, for a long time. day typically are the most deadly. if they hit a town, they could change the life of that town forever. and these are the areas that we're worried about later on this afternoon into this evening. all the ingredients are there for these life-threatening storms. we have all of the moisture coming off the gulf. we have the spin in the atmosphere with the strong jet stream that's coming in on top of it. it's just one of those very dangerous days for everyone living there in tornado alley. we'll continue to monitor that

as we go throughout the afternoon and also this evening here on msnbc. we also could see some thunderstorms that could be on the strong side from new york city up through northern new england. it's a beautiful morning, but this afternoon we will see some stray storms. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. be right ba. this is anne marie peebles of la jolla, california. her saturday movie marathons are a never-ending montage of comfort. tv sfx: where have you been all my life? namaste? namaste right here on the couch. but then anne laid on a serta perfect sleeper. and realized her life was only just... sorta comfortable. where have you been all my life? not just sorta comfortable. serta comfortable. kiss your old mattress goodbye and save on the all-new serta perfect sleeper. we see two travelers so at a comfort innal with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom.

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[ screaming ] oh, snowball. uh, is he ok? not in any way no. take that ok. you were just beaten by a rabbit. you don't even know it. [ ding ] oh, my pizza rolls. so former vice president joe biden kicked off his presidential campaign saturday with a rally in the heart of philadelphia. biden spoke to the crowd of thousands about party unity as well as continued his push to look beyond the crowded democratic primary field and toward the general election fight against president trump. >> i know some of the really smart folks say democrats don't want to hear about unity. they say democrats are so angry that the angrier a candidate can

be, the better chance he or she has to win the democratic nomination. >> that's wrong, joe! >> well, i don't believe it. i really don't. if democrats -- i believe democrats want to unify this nation. that's what a party's always been about. folks, let me tell you something! the single most important thing we have to accomplish to get this done, the single most important thing we have to accomplish is defeat donald trump. >> you know, katty kay, so let's look at the two candidates that we've heard this morning, who have drawn a lot of attention. perhaps probably the most attention over the past several months. biden and mayor pete. both positive messages. both messages of unity. not the angry, you know, we hear that the democratic party is an angry left-wing snarling party that's lost their minds in

trying to somehow get even with donald trump. boy, all we've heard is a positive message. and i'm not so sure that's -- i mean, we're an exhausted nation. i even talked to trump supporters who say, he just exhausts me. i've just had enough. i can't handle the tweets. i wonder if this is not the message that all americans are ready to hear. whether it's in the republican appear party or the democratic party. >> and where trump does badly against a democratic candidate is on issues of character, right? and i think biden and pete buttigieg in his town hall last night, went specifically after trump's character with that idea of grotesqueness. buttigieg seemed to be saying, look, i'm tough enough to take on trump. you put me on a debate stage with him, i'm tough enough to take him on and to dismiss him in a way kind of that joe biden does. i've thought for a long time, of all of the democratic candidates, the one that seems easiest attacking trump, who seems to almost find it kind of fun, lets him wash over him, joe

biden. he has the ability to take trump on and kind of not let it ruffle him in the way that republican candidates did back in 2016. could they work together, potentially on a ticket? joe biden has the african-american vote, he particularly has women african-american votes, pete buttigieg polling less than 1% with african-americans. he's got to do something there, but he could bring in young voters and get some of the energy around that and help out in the midwest. it was interesting, buttigieg stole the headlines yesterday. he got much more attention than joe biden did. but he's still 37 and he still has to do something about -- and his weakest answer in that town hall yesterday was what he was going to do to up those numbers among african-americans. he didn't really have answer to it. >> yep. and he needs to find an answer. and you know, mike barnicle, i talked about the three type of stories that i tell. i need to add a fourth. i seem to tell a lot of stories about johnny carson. and the genius of johnny carson, who always told executives in

new york, you don't win on the coasts, you win in the central time zone. but another thing he said, though, like his temperament was important. people let him into their bedrooms every night and he was cog nip distant of that fact. and i think about that when i hear even trump's supporters saying, god, i'm just so exhausted by this man. and i wonder whether it's that sheer exhaustion that at the end of the day will make voters turn on election day to somebody else who's positive like joe biden or mayor pete. >> joe, you know, you really put your finger on, i think, a key element in the electorate from this point on. the exhaustion factor. it's huge out there. because in a sense, if you talk to people, if you lead a fairly normal life, you get the sense that what trump has done, above all else, he's narcoticized a

large part of the country, a large part of the population. people are weary of the insults, the behavior. i mean, even in foreign relations, david ignatius could speak to this far better than i do. when he's saying, if iran does anything, that will be the end of iran. that's not the language people expect from a president of the united states. so now i think, and sam stein pointed this out. every election is a reaction to the past election. and i think a lot of people are going to be looking for things that are just, hey, let's settle down. let's calm this country down and deal with some of the real issues that we have on our plate. let's deal with health care, instead of arguing and fighting all the time. let's deal with the economy, with pay inequity, rather than fighting and screaming all the time. and people like joe biden, people like mayor pete and their language and their presentation give a lot of people, i think, the sense that, okay, these guys are who i am on this. >> coming up on "morning joe," it's breaking news when a

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over the weekend, a republican member of congress became the first member of his party to call for impeaching president trump. congressman justin amash of michigan posted his principle conclusions to social media writing, one, attorney general barr has deliberately misrepresented mueller's report. two, president trump has engaged in impeachable conduct. three, partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances. and four, few members of congress have read the report. all of this is true. amash went on to write, in comparing barr's principle conclusions, congressional

testimony, and other statements to mueller's report, it is clear that barr intended to mislead the public about special counsel robert mueller's analysis and findings, adding, contrary to barr's portrayal, mueller's report reveals that president trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment. president trump responded to congressman amash by attacking him and the mueller report, while at the same time claiming that it exonerates him, which it does not. quote, never a fan of justin amash. a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great republican ideas and policies, just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. if he actually read the biased mueller report, composed by 18 angry dems who hated trump, he would see that it was nevertheless strong on no collusion, on ultimately no obstruction anyway. how do you obstruct when there

is no crime, and in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side? justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponent's hands. joe, where do you begin with all of that? >> well, you begin -- it's very simple. sometimes you just have to break it down to just, let's just break it down to its lowest common denominator. most of what donald trump wrote there was objectively false. >> exactly. >> and most -- and most -- well, everything that justin amash wrote, you can go through it line by line, point by point, is objectivity true. and mike barnicle, the fact that justin amash is the only republican who was willing to tell the truth on either side of congress is damning enough. but perhaps it's a start. maybe there will be somebody else out of, my god, what, 280,

290 republicans serving in congress right now, in the house and senate. maybe there will be another who will find the courage to actually be honest and tell the objective truth. this is not fact. this is not partisanship. this is not anti-trump. unless telling the truth is considered anti-trump by mitch mcconnell and all of his gang of, unfortunately, republicans who have sold their country out. >> yeah, don't hold your breath on that, joe. waiting for them, though. the congressman, as you pointed out, four points in that twitter feed. four points. the fourth, arguably, tis the most important. how many members of congress have actually read this report thoroughly and thought about what is in the report? because if you read volume ii, the specific volume that addresses potential obstruction of justice, it is clear by any measure, by any standard, that the president of the united states attempted on several

occasions to obstruct justice. and if you read volume 1 thoroughly, i mean, the indications of coercion and cooperation with a foreign government, our sworn enemy, it's all pretty clear. but the lone -- just congressman amash's voice is a pretty lonely voice on that side of the aisle, joe. and for the life of me, these people have clearly lost track of the fact that history is recording what they are not saying. and they will be responsible for their own history in this, for not speaking up, in a common sense way. not in an accusatory way, just an acceptance of what is in that report. >> coming up on "morning joe," threats of fire and fury eventually led to a summit with north korea. is president trump hoping for the same thing by threatening iran with total destruction?

i'm kind of scared, actually. congressman anthony brown, vice chair of the armed services committee weighs in on that hyperbolic tweet, next on "morning joe." get it.

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welcome back to "morning joe." mike barnicle, david ignatius, sam stein and karine jean-pierre are all back with us. now to a few other stories we're following this morning. despite his best efforts, former president jimmy carter did not return to his regular sunday school class yesterday. up until saturday afternoon, carter was set to resume his lessons, following his hospital release last week. he had undergone hip replacement surgery after falling at his home. according to a carter center update, the 94-year-old underestimated the amount of recovery time he would need, but has been progressing well as he continues to rest at his home

and we're all with him. we'll keep you updated. nearly 400 graduating seniors at morehouse college will leave school debt-free thanks to a commencement speaker who deviated from his prepared remarks with a promise to pay their student loans. >> on behalf of the eight generations of my family who have been in this country, we're going to put a little fuel in your bus. this is my class, 2019. and my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loan loans. >> i have chills. investor and philanthropist robert f. smith had already announced a $1.5 million donation towards school

scholarships before promising to take on the class of 2019's student loans, which drew stunned looks and cheers from both students and faculty. it's hard to estimate the exact cost of smith's pledge to the graduates of the all-male historically black atlanta college, but it could total up to $40 million. morehouse says, it is the single largest gift to the college. some of those students were like, wait, what? what did he just say? wait. i went to college for four years, but i don't understand what just happened here. >> can he address my daughter's college? would that be impossible. >> sets the bar pretty high for future commencements. >> but you've got to invest in people that need to be lifted up. and it makes a difference. they will pay it back the rest of their lives. >> joining us now, the vice chair of the house armed services committee, democratic congressman anthony brown of maryland is also a colonel in the army reserve. let's start with iran and what's

going on. the president seems to be exacerbating tensions that we probably don't want to exacerbate. >> sure, we're all concerned. there was a moment there where it looked like he was tamping down the rhetoric, but yesterday and then again today, talking about ending iran. the president has no authority whatsoever and ought to be prepared to come to congress if he and his team is contemplating some strike against iran. this is very troubling. the escalation we've seen over this short period of time. so, you know -- >> is there a clear message out of the administration as to what the policy and the approach is toward iran? because i think one of the problems here is that there doesn't appear to be and what concerns does that raise? >> so the concern is that, look, iran's a bad actor. let's not fool ourselves. and they've been supporting militants in iraq, in syria, in lebanon, in yemen, but the question is, what's different now? so there's talk about these

intelligence signals. the administration's got to make a case to congress and the american people and our allies that there's really been a change of behavior by iran, by its proxies, that warrants this kind of buildup. i've been in two classified briefings. the case hasn't been made. they've got some work to do. >> david? >> congressman, let me ask you the famous dave petraeus question from the invasion of iraq. tell me how this ends. are we going to end in an negotiation with the iranians? what's the chance of military conflict. how does this end? >> well, to end in an negotiation, it begins with communications. and right now, there are no diplomatic channels. there's no communication, military-to-military with iran, which is a lot different than what we saw, say, for example, in south korea, in north korea. the president used a lot of bluster and bellicose language, but at least there was some back channel conversations. we were enlisting the support of

our allies. here, our allies are hesitant, right, as we saw germany, spain, a british officer questioning whether or not, you know, they're seeing the same thing. so the question is, what do you do to reach a negotiation? how do you open up communications. >> do you think that's the president's goal? he wants to be in a negotiation? zbri >> i think the president wants some wildly ambitious goal, which is to see a denuclearized iran. and we want to be moving towards that. we were moving towards that under the jcpoa, we pulled out. i think he would still like to see that. but he's in a very unorthodox way of trying to achieve that goal. >> all right, mike barnicle? >> congressman, another simple question. in your briefings that you just alluded to, in your conversations with people across the river in the pentagon or even people working in the white house, what's the objective? >> so the briefings that i've

had have really laid out the intelligence that is motivating the administration's behavior. i'm sorry, our administration's actions. there have been no plans laid out, no goals laid out. right now, the only thing that you can interpret this to be is a show of force to change iran's immediate behavior. and, but, there's no plans that have been laid out. we're going to have further briefings to members of congress tomorrow, members of the senate on wednesday during those briefings. we're certainly going to be asking and listening for what's the long game, what's the end game, what is the strategic goals and how do we achieve them. >> isn't the irony here that the jcpoa had opened up. put aside of whatever you think of the deal, some people thought it was trash, others thought stfit was great, but it opened up diplomatic back channels so a situation like this could have potentially been averted.

in the absence of that, what do you do? is there an entity that can help broker some sort of diplomatic back-channel, or do you just hope that the president doesn't tweet us into some sort of confrontation. >> hope is certainly not a strategy, but we're all hopeful given the response from our allies, germany, the uk, france, their disappointment with us pulling out of the jcpoa, it's going to be difficult to enlist their support, with us continuing to maintaining distance from the jcpoa. the preferred approach would have been to stay in the jcpoa and also expand the conversation to iran piece ballistic missile testing, to its illegal arms deals, its meddling with militants throughout the region. but instead, we pulled out of jcpoa, which gives us even less standing, i believe, in those diplomatic conversations that should be happening. >> right. >> all right. i want to ask you about the migrant children separated from their families. according to new court transcripts, the trump administration says that at least 1,700 additional migrant

children may have been separated from their parents. they can't actually get a good number, in addition to 2,800 that were separated under the zero-tolerance policy. where's the transparency here? where are these children? why can't we see them? why can't we track them? why can't we have access to them, we, the press. we, the people. to understand what our government has done here. and why can't congress compel that? >> yep. listen, mika, i've been to the border, i was at mcallen back -- last year, when children were easily being separated in an immoral way from their families. and in my conversations with officials from dhhs, health and human services, homeland security, they thought they had a system in place, but what we find today is they have no idea where a large number of these children are. whether they're with dhs, dhhs, whether they're in maryland, kentucky, tennessee, or any other place where these children

have been sent. so there's a one hand is not talking to the other. what i'm proposing, i've introduced a bill last year and you know, i know it's an overused term, but you really need like a reunification czar that has the authority across government -- >> absolutely! and how would you characterize what has happened here? >> it's immoral. that's how i would characterize it. >> karine? >> yeah, the other question i have, i know you talked about this last night on k cdc's show, what are you doing to do about service members' spouses who are not citizens who are being deported. what do you do there in your -- as a congressperson? >> and as we discussed then, first of all, many service members who are not naturalized have been promised that we'll expedite your path to citizenship. so we need to make good on that. this administration isn't doing that. and stto the extent that a serve member has a spouse who isn't a citizen, any talk of deportation, imagine what that does for the service member.

and how you going to ask a service member to go to iraq or syria -- >> put their life on the line. >> -- put their life on the line when they're concerned, rightfully so, about the welfare of their family. >> david ignatius? >> congressman, let me come back to iran for one minute and ask the basic question. you've heard the intelligence. is the intelligence cooked or is this for real? is there real iranian threat? >> so i think right now, it's pretty mature to say whether it's cooked, but my concern is there seems to be this effort to make the case. you know, you have this intelligence about activity in iraq. you have intelligence about activity in the straight of hormuz and activity about the houthis in yemen. i'm not clear how they're related, except that iran is behind all of that. but they seem to be building a case. it's very alarming when secretary pompeo suggests that iran is somehow affiliated with ca al qaeda. that's ridiculous. so i'm not going to say it's

kak caked, but they seem to be layering on these arguments to build a case that may end up being as incredible as what caused us to go into iraq back in 2003. >> mike barnicle? >> congressman, you're on the armed services committee. maybe you can give us a dollar figure for the cost of keeping the american military at a united states border along the texas border? >> sure. so, look, those numbers are in the large millions. i don't have the exact number. we've been asking the administration for the cost of deploying active duty and national guard to the border last year and again this year. i'll be proposing in the defense authorization act for the administration, if and when they send active duty or national guard to the border, they lay out the cost, the benefits, the impact on readiness, which units will suffer because of the unavailability of active duty. and there's a big resistance from the pentagon, from the administration in doing that. but i think it's our responsibility in congress to hold the pentagon's feet to the

fire. i've been in two and a half years of briefings on the armed services committee, hearing about threats and risks around the world from every cocom or major combatant commander. never have i heard about a national security riskcombatant commander. never a national security risk at our border. >> congressman, thank you very much for being here. david you're heading to a funeral service for a friend. >> i wanted to note a person who gave enormous service, ellen tauscher passed away three weeks ago, there will be a memorial service today at the washington cathedral. secretary clinton will speak, feinstein, two people she did her best to help. she passed much too early. up next, there are champions and then there is moo hauuhamma

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here comes my -- mu haumd ali. >> my name is muhammad ali, and you'll announce it right in that ring. >> that is a look at the new hbo sports documentary entitled what's my name? muhammad ali, now streaming on hbo, and joining us now daughter of the boxing legend hana ali, she's the author of "at home with muhammad ali," a memoir of loss, love and forgiveness. i love the title. thanks for being on the show. tell us what you share in this book, especially about forgiveness, and maybe some things that we didn't know about his incredible story. >> oh, my gosh, there's so much, i'm trying to tell three

stories. i have my parent's story, their relationship, the rise and fall of that, my relationship with my father, everything my father was dealing with and struggling with in the late 1970s at the end of his boxing career. i learned a lot. he made so many private recordings talking about his feelings and his struggles and dreams and plans. there was just so much it was overwhelming. so i tried to put that all together and satisfy the fans and i wanted to give posterity, a glimpse into his soul and spirit of the man he truly is and was. >> you mentioned -- it must have been quite an experience to sort of relive all this. you mentioned recordings. you also inherited something rather unique from your father, a series of audio diaries that he began recording back in the '70s. let's take a listen. >> up in the morning the teacher

teached the golden rule. american history, and math. working the finger right down to the bone. >> working your finger right down to the bone. >> the guy behind you won't leave you alone. >> leave you alone. >> ring ring goes the bell. >> ring ring goes the bell. >> wait in the cell. >> it's love, it's dedicated. >> it's dedicated to the one i love. >> oh, my god. oh, my god, you are so cute. >> i was bad, you wouldn't say that if you knew me back then. >> oh, i believe it, you sound like a spit fire. i just want to cry listening to that. mike barnicle has the next question for you, mike?

>> you know, one of the things that the audio recording just triggered in me was the pejorative headline that became a meme sort of, muhammad ali, the mouth that roared, you know, initially after he beat sunny liston and everything like that. clearly off of that audio recording you had many, many hours of spending quiet reflective time with your father. talk about who he really was in his essence. >> so my father, that's a loaded question because he was -- he was, oh, my god, he was an amazing father, he was very, very humble and sweet and kind and very spiritual. he was always constantly telling us that, you know, we're going to die one day. i was scared to go to bed at 5 years old, that life was short and to make sure that we didn't get caught up in this world but to live for the next and that was eternal life. he was telling us this at 5 years old, i'm serious, how

important it was to do god's work, which meant be charitable, kind, giving. he was such a giving person. our door was always open. constantly people ringing the doorbell, slip past the guard, you have to say i'm here to see muhammad ali, the guard knew to call and let him know. he was so accessible. one of the -- i'm just grateful that i had a father to learn from, to spend time with and to share with the world because he always -- he loved people so much and i felt like he belonged to the world. it felt like the book had to be written. >> sam stein down in d.c., your father was probably one of the most famous athletes and cultural figures of all time. what's the biggest misconception about who he was? >> i would say that he was arrogant or conceited. people thought that because of how boastful he was but he was coming up in a time where he was trying to teach and preach and

show black love and pride because people didn't love themselves. i think that a lot of the footage shows that side of him and he was, i guess, one of the greatest -- he was great at marketing so he was really marketing himself. he was humble and loving. >> well, the book is "at home with muhammad ali: a memoir of love, loss and forgiveness", it's out now. hana ali, thank you so much for joining us this morning. >> thank you for having me. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika. hi, i'm stephanie ruhle, it's 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. we have a lot to get to this morning. our team of extraordinary nbc reporters is here with new details on the storying impacting your life today, starting with the commander in tweet, trump issues a bold warning to iran saying on twitter it will be the end of iran if it threatens the u.s. with a fight, the threat coming as we get our first