we start a new week. thank you for being here with us. good night from msnbc headquarters here in new york. defying a congressional subpoena president trump directing don mcgahn not to appear before the house judiciary committee this morning. jerrold nadler is threatening to hold mcgahn in contempt. >> president trump holds a campaign rally in pennsylvania and takes a swipe at joe biden telling the crowd he deserted you. >> severe weather batters the southern plains. tornadoes have touched down in several states causing damage to homes and buildings. meteorologist bill karins tracking the damage. good morning, everybody. it is tuesday, may 21st.

i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett. we'll start with the fight over the trump administration's stonewalling of democratic investigations escalating. the white house has directed former counsel don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena to testify before the house judiciary committee this morning. in a letter to chairman jerrold nadler, white house counsel said the justice department has quote advised me that mr. mcgahn is absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters occurring during his service as a senior adviser to the president. he went on to say the president has directed mr. mcgahn not to appear. a lawyer for mcgahn said the former white house counsel would respect the president's instruction and not appear today. chairman jerrold nadler says the committee will still meet this morning adding mr. mcgahn is expected to appear as legally require and if he did not testify quote the first thing we're going to do, we'll have to

hold mcgahn in contempt. president trump was asked by reporter yesterday why he instructed mcgahn to defy the subpoena. here's what he had to say. >> president, why are you asking don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena. >> as i understand that they are doing it for the office of the presidency. it's an important precedent and the attorneys say that they are not doing that for me, they are doing that for the office of the president. we're talking about the future. >> several top democrats are urging house speaker nancy pelosi to move forward with an pea impeachment proceedings. >> let me clear if don mcgahn doesn't testify it's time to open an impeachment inquiry. the president has engaged in an

on going to impede the truth. no one is above the law including the president of the united states and we expect mr. mcgahn to come before the committee and testify. >> according to nbc news during a leadership meeting in house speaker nancy pelosi's office last night, several democrats all argued for launching an impeachment inquiry if mcgahn fails to testify. impeachment was raised in a separate weekly meeting last night among democratic leaders and committee chairs. pelosi who is wary about calls to open impeachment proceedings reportedly told her members we always said one thing will lead to another as we get information. we still have unexholocausted avenues here. tore more on this later on this morning david ciciline will join "morning joe". >> trump's speech last night touched on several topics cluing

the mueller investigation and that his 2016 campaign was spied on. >> if you look what we went through with this phoney deal, phony witch00 is a disgrace. now they are blaming each other. do you see. they are all turning on each other. it's his fault. no, it's his fault. now we caught them. they were spying. they were spying on our campaign. i'll tell you what. if that ever happened to the other side, this thing would have been over two years ago, and you know it would have been treason. they would have called it treason and that's what it is. it's treason. it should never be allowed to happen to another president again. ever. ever. ever. you reclaimed your destiny. you defended your dignity. and you took back your country.

well have a great new attorney general who is going to give it a very fair look. very fair look. >> all right. michigan republican congressman is not backing down from his impeachment call for president trump. he pushed back on his critics saying there were no underlying crimes unearthed in the mueller report. he laid out his reasoning for why he's come out so strongly against trump's innocence in a barrage of tweets yesterday. here's what he had to say about it last night. >> the proceedings is a process. what do you mean by that? >> it's a process. not like the resolution is just drawn up overnight. it's a process. you have to come to the right conclusions about how to draft something. >> you would like to see them

start something? >> i think it's appropriate to do so. >> president trump is not keeping quiet about the republican's congressman rebuke about him either. take a look. >> i've known him. he's against trump from the beginning. he probably wants to run for some other office. he's been a loser for a long time. rarely votes for republicans. and, you know, personally i think he's not much. >> all right. let's talk more about this joining us from washington senior writer at roll call. good morning to you. thanks for joining us. talk about the gop leadership and. how they are reacting to the chaos surrounding amash's impeachment calls. >> i think that the reaction has generally been certainly from kevin mccarthy, the house republican leader, and others to sort of dismiss the congressman from michigan's recent announcement and even going

beyond that. there's reporting from last night that the house freedom caucus of which amash had been or maybe still is a member, it's unclear how often he he actually shows up. wld be conservative members of the house who are probably the most aligned with donald trump and so, you know, he sort of is on an island but long been on an island. there's nothing particularly unusual. if you talked to anybody about who would be the first house republican to say something in favor of impeachment, amash would probably have been on the top of everybody's list. >> let's go back to don mcgahn. we've seen what will happen here before when attorney general bill barr was supposed to show up before the house committee and he didn't show and they left an empty seat behind the desk. is that what we should expect today? >> it sure sounds it will be an empty chair situation again.

and this is just going to become the next front in what's becoming more and more of a legal battle between the house and the trump administration. you know, they've gotten some favorable views from the courts in terms of the house, and i don't know where exactly the court is going to come down. mcgahn is a private citizen, so there could be that argument made, but, obviously, there is the executive privilege case that could be made. >> we'll talk to you again in a little bit. thank you. let's switch gears here. another migrant child has died while in the custody of u.s. customs and protection. the fifth death since yesterday. yesterday a 16-year-old guatemalan boy died after being found unresponsive. on sunday the boy who at the

time was the rio grande valley center said he wasn't feeling well. he was diagnosed with flu. he was not taken to a hospital for treatment. before heading to his rally president trump blamed the matter on democrats. >> you look at the border, and if you look at the fact that the democrats are really making it very, very dangerous for people by not approving simple, quick, 15 minute legislation, we could have it all worked out, it would being a great for people, great for lives, great for safety, and the borders are a dangerous place. it's only made that way because the democrats will not approve any legislation. i mean they don't want to approve anything. it's making the border very dangerous. [ inaudible ] we're working very hard. the border patrol people and all of law enforcement is working

very hard. honestly what should happen is the democrats should sit down and make change so that we can protect people on the border. okay. still ahead a federal judge rules against president trump in the fight over i had financial records. what it means for democrats seeking those documents. >> plus tornadoes and funnel clouds spotted in several states after a severe weather warning. meteorologist bill karins will have the very latest on that coming up next. n that coming up next oh! oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes

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the best of amy poehler. amy, maybe we could use the voice remote to search for something that you're not in. show me parks and rec. from netflix to prime video to live tv, xfinity lets you find your favorites with the emmy award-winning x1 voice remote. show me the best of amy poehler, again. this time around... now that's simple, easy, awesome. experience the entertainment you love on x1. access netflix, prime video, youtube and more, all with the sound of your voice. click, call or visit a store today. severe weather across the central u.s. has people picking up the pieces after a day of powerful storms that left many with homes severely damaged. twisters and funnel clouds were spotted after dozens of counties across texas and oklahoma were under the most severe weather tornado warning yesterday. fortunately there are no reports of injuries, but heavy rain and tornado threats continue for the region today. let's get a check on your weather now with nbc

meteorologist bill karins. good morning. just looking at some of the latest information and the flooding is incredible right now in northwestern oklahoma. looks like we made it through the night at least so far. no reports of any injuries. no reports of any fatalities which is amazing considering how dangerous of a set up it was last night. 19 reports of tornadoes out there. a couple of them were pretty big. the one near magnum was pretty large and. missed the town by half a mile. it hit some of the houses on the outskirts but didn't go through the downtown area. let me catch you up where we're at now. we're not done. we still have a couple of tornado watches up here as this squall line continues through. we haven't had any new turns reported in about the last two to three hours. that's good. all the problems right now, there's water rescues ongoing, evacuations ongoing from homes because of flooding. just water issues. we've had four to six inches of rain overnight from oklahoma city to tulsa.

this area of northern oklahoma is by far the worse. 14 million people are in this flash flood watch and includes much of oklahoma, missouri and illinois because we're not done with the rainfall yet. that flash flood emergency for tulsa will continue to 5:45 this morning local time. here's a look at the close up. radar. we still have this squall line that's just now going through oklahoma city. it's already had three rounds of storms. this is the fourth for some areas. this one has some strong gusty winds with it. more the water issues we're dealing with. i'm hearing some schools are closing because there's so many highways and roads closed and flooded throughout this region they want to keep everybody at home or as many people possible. this has to go back over the top of tulsa. i was looking at a little creek called the bird creek north of tulsa, snakes down north of the city. that just broke its record crest by two feet. it's up to 24 the feet. the old record was 22 feet. those records go back to the 1940s. so this is a pretty rare flood event for areas of northwestern

oklahoma. at daylight once it gets nice enough we can get the helicopters up to show you we'll have water every where. we're not done yet. 17 million people at risk for additional threat. the tornado threat isn't as bad today as yesterday but we have isolated tornadoes from springfield to st. louis, columbia to little rock. as dangerous as it was and damaging no injuries or fatalities. >> that's the good news. rough couple of days. >> a lot of clean up to be done. democrats have won an early legal battle with the president. the federal judge decided not to block a request over president's financial records. trump's lawyer argue the subpoena was unconstitutional because it wasn't tied to any specific legislation. attorneys for the oversight committee said the financial disclosures will serve to prove

existing disclosure and ethic laws. the ruling means they must comply with the subpoena for eight years of trump's financial records. president trump criticized the judge, calling the ruling crazy and said he's going to appeal. >> we disagree with that ruling. it's crazy. because you look at it, this never happened to any other president. they are trying to get a redo. as far as the financials are concerned we think it's the wrong -- totally the wrong decision by, obviously, an bap appointed judge. he was a recently obama appointed judge. >> joining us here on set msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. how big of a win was this yesterday's decision for the house oversight committee? >> super big. this is a district court

opinion. it will be appealed. beautifully written opinion. difficult to overturn on appeal. the gist of it is this. congress' power to investigate is very broad. it's almost as important as its power to legislate. but it's not unlimited. congress can't infringe on the duties of the executive branch. can't engaging law enforcement. but those are very minor restraints on congress' power. as long as there is a facially proper legislative purpose, the courts will not second guess even the motives of the congress folks in issuing these subpoenas or seeking this information. >> was this ruling based on that law from 1924 saying that members of congress can demand to see the taxes of any citizen of the united states? >> it goes back to the constitution, goes back to the power granted to congress to conduct investigations. as lone as those investigations are for a potential legislative purpose, they don't need be for

a current or actual legislative purpose. in other words, as long as congress can articulate some kind of legislative purpose they get the presumption of reasonableness. in the law presumptions are incredibly powerful things. in my closing arguments when you talk about the presumption of innocence, presumption essentially means you have to root for the party who benefits from the presumption. you want them to win like a fan. in that situation, in this situation where congress has that legislative presumption of reasonableness, they will usually win. >> we just saw the president say his attorneys will appeal this thing. this is one of the things where the legal strategy is the same as the political strategy. the trump administration, the trump team are trying to run out the clock here. >> sure. >> probably beyond the 2020 election. what comes next >> sound legal strategy. legally they know when it comes to issues of the constitution, appellate courts including the supreme court are more likely to take a fresh look at the issue

and maybe not give the deference to the lower courts. it's a smart legal strategy and as you pointed out it's a smart political strategy because the longer they delay, the longer it takes to brief these issues and present them and argue them to an appellate court then the more likely we get to a new congress and subpoenas have a shelf life in congress. they last only as long as that existing congress. >> it's not assured the house oversight committee will see eight years of the presidential's financial records. >> nothing is assured in this administration. >> i need a t-shirt that says that. >> danny cevallos, thanks so much. still ahead an nbc news exclusive. there's new evidence to suggest russia's campaign to meddle goes far deeper than election interference. >> we have some good news. lots of weddings here. a quick congratulations right there to one of our producers.

that's a gorgeous picture. he got married over the weekend. best wishes to him and his wife. yes, he's not at work. he's not in my ear talking to me about going to break because he got married over the weekend. congratulations to them. we have another wedding as well. we hope our associate producer and her husband are having a nice honeymoon in italy. we're back in a moment. >> congratulations. a moment >> congratulations ♪ ♪ memories. what we deliver by delivering.

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new exclusive report from nbc news details russian efforts to sow discord among americans. richard engel has more on the story. >> reporter: new evidence suggests russian efforts to meddle in american society stretch beyond elections. documents seen exclusively by nbc news appear to show another bizarre campaign to sow unrest in the u.s. russian operatives last year pitched a plot to manipulate african-americans, one especially disturbing proposal suggest recruiting african-americans with criminal records giving them sabotage training at camps in africa and returning them to the u.s. another proposal, encouraging african-americans to push for independent statehood in the south. it does not surprise me at all the extent to which russia would

go to undermine our democracy, and really target divisions that already exist within our country. >> reporter: the documents were found in communications between russians linked to a catering magazine nature dubbed putin's chef indicted by robert mueller for trying to sway the 2016 election. while nbc news can't independently verify the documents they were un. covered by an investigative russian group called the dossier center which has unveiled authentic material to us. >> our adversary is coming after us. we should expect it happening leading up to the 2020 election and these documents indicate we'll see it on steroids. >> reporter: there's no indication that the plans were just aspirational, members of congress were so troubled they drafted a bill to guard against

these and other russian plots. >> much more from president trump's campaign rally in pennsylvania including attacks on some of his potential 2020 rivals. newly revealed transcripts reveal what president trump ace former fixer told lawmakers behind closed doors earlier this year. we're digging into the documents next. impeach peechlt peechlt your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory.

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i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett. it's the bottom of the hour. let's start with the morning's

top stories. as president trump rallied voters in pennsylvania he, again, hit fox news for its recent town hall with 2020 candidate mayor pete buttigieg. watch this. >> we would lose everything if we go with the people that you see that are running for office. you saw that. last night i watched alfred e. neuman. what's going on with fox? what's going on there? putting more democrats on than you have republicans. something strange is going on at fox, folks. something very strange. did you see this guy last night? i did want to watch. you always have to watch the competition, if you call it that. and he was knocking the hell out of fox and fox -- somebody has to explain the whole fox deal to me. >> however, pete buttigieg said despite trump's jabs he's keeping his focus on the campaign telling telemundo this, i think the president doesn't know what to do with me and

that's fine. i'm not worried about the tweets, the insults. my focus is to focus on how this election will affect people's lives. the less we talk about him the more we're talking about you. president trump also took on 2020 candidate former vice president joe biden in his home state of pennsylvania. >> sleepy joe said that he's running to quote save the world. well he was going to save every country but ours. don't forget, biden deserted you. he's not from pennsylvania. i guess he was born here but he left you, folks. he left you for another state. remember that, please. i meant to say that. this guy talks about i know scrant scranton. he left you for another state and he didn't take care of you because he didn't care of your jobs. he let other countries come in and rip off america.

>> transcripts released yesterday show president trump's former fixer michael cohen claimed the president's attorney jay sekulow encouraged him to lie to congress in 2017 about the timeline of the trump tower moscow project. in a february close door meeting with the house intel meeting cohen admitted sekulow told him to say that the trump tower moscow talks ended in 2016 and to quote stay on message. that message of that quote there was -- that there's no russia, no collusion, no business deals. cohen claimed sekulow advised him to say discussions about the project stopped in 2016 before the iowa caucus when, in fact, it continued for months after that. according to the transcripts. now attorneys for sekulow dismiss the allegations yesterday saying that cohen who is serving a three year prison term should not be believed. now house democrats are now scrutinizing whether sekulow or

trump's other attorneys played a role in shaping cohen's 2017 testimony. house judiciary chair jerrold nadler is threatening to hold former white house counsel don mcgahn in contempt if he doesn't testify before congress today. he has been directed by president trump to defy the congressional subpoena. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker has more. >> reporter: president trump is directing his former white house counsel don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena to testify. the white house cites justice department opinions going back four decades that say senior officials like him have absolute immunity from testifying. the president speaking out. >> i think it's a very important precedent and the attorneys say that they are not doing that for me, they are doing that for the office of the president. >> reporter: mcgahn sat for more than 30 hours of interviews with special counsel robert mueller. democrats say he's a key witness on obstruction and accusing the

white house of stonewalling. >> let me be clear. if don mcgahn doesn't testify it's time to open up an impeachment inquiry. >> reporter: michigan congressman justin amash a frequent critic of the president tweeting after reading the mueller report, president trump has engaged in impeachable conduct. the president calling amash a loser and a lightweight. >> i've known him and he's been against trump from the beginning. he probably wants to run for some other office. i don't think he'll do very well. he's been a loser for a long time. >> reporter: back in his michigan district more backlash against amash. >> i don't support him on that statement. >> i don't agree with -- i think that the job that the president is doing is phenomenal. >> reporter: late monday night a federal judge upheld a subpoena from house democrats for some of the president's financial records from an accounting firm.

the president says he'll appeal. thank you to kristen welker for that report. joining us once again senior writer at roll call. neil, what do you make of trump's stonewalling tactics for his current and former employees not to cooperate? will this come back to bite him? >> it's really no surprise that they would be taking this attempt to run out the clock approach with all of the document requests and the former staff in regards to these congressional investigations. i don't know that it comes back to bite them unless the courts start moving ahead really quickly in terms of how long that the legal proceedings drag out and someone gets forced to testify or actually held in contempt in d.c. it's too soon to know whether or not but if they can run out the clock successfully it works to

their advantage so it might be too soon to know. >> let's talk about these new transcripts released yesterday that show michael cohen saying that jay sekulow told him to lie to congress. what potentially would that mean for jay sekulow if michael cohen is telling the truth? >> well, in theory, obviously, it is not a good idea to tell someone to lie to congress. the thing that i'm a little bit curious about here this was not matter of mueller's report. cohen has already gone to federal prison and if this was credible and enough evidence to verify it you probably would have seen an indictment out of the mueller prosecution or out of new york already, but maybe some of the things that are still being looked at by the u.s. attorney in the southern

district of new york, that i'm not sure of. but the fact that mueller did not go down that road leads me to think that this might sort of blow over. >> neil, let's stick with mueller for one second. we were talking about the fact that there was a possibility that mueller was going to testify on the 23rd, which is thursday, i believe. doesn't seem that's going to happen as of now. so what information if any do you have as to when we could feasibly see robert mueller testifying? >> there seems to be no new estimate as to when that testimony might happen. it's hard to get a straight answer, to be honest, out of the justice department, out of exactly whether or not the attorney general barr is effectively blocking the testimony by not allowing things to be scheduled or whether there are actual scheduling conflicts on mueller's behalf. it's not entirely clear where this is coming from but it seems more likely it's coming from the

justice department than mr. mueller. >> neil, thank you so much. good seeing you. turning now to tensions with iran, which really began escalating earlier this month when national security adviser john bolton acting defense secretary patrick shanahan, secretary of state mike pompeo and other members of the trump administration said there were quote indications of a credible athlete by iranian regime forces which prompted them to send major military assets and weapons to the region in part to send a quote message. >> since then the administration has continued to ramp up its threatening rhetoric with trump even threatening iran's total destruction by a weekend tweet. now, however, in a reversal president trump says there's no indication iran is up to anything nefarious after all. >> iran, we'll see what happens. but they've been very hostile. they truly have been the number one provocateur of terror in

this country. our country has been very much involved. we're trying to help a lot of people out and i don't mind that at all. we have no indication that anything has happened or will happen but if it does it will be met, obviously, with great force. we'll have no choice. >> i think iran would be making a very big mistake if they do anything. if they do something it will be met with great force. we have no indication they will. >> reports have stated that iran's recent actions may have been defensive in nature against what teheran believed was a possible american attack. and that iran began mobilizing its forces in response to several actions taken by the trump administration in recent weeks. still ahead new reporting that former kansas secretary of state is being considered as president trump's new immigration czar.

but he wants some perks. >> bill karins is back with another check of the weather after more than a dozen tornadoes were reported across the country. we're back in a bit. country. we're back in a bit. i'm working to make each day a little sweeter. ♪ to give every idea the perfect soundtrack. ♪ to fill your world with fun. ♪ to share my culture with my community. ♪ to make each journey more elegant. ♪ i'm working for all the adventure two wheels can bring.

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former kansas secretary of state says he won't be joining the trump administration without 24 access to a government jet and a guaranteed promotion to secretary of homeland security by november. three sources familiar with the list tells the "new york times" that's just two of the ten conditions that he gave the white house. also on the list a west wing office with walk in privileges to the oval office. he wants to be the main television spokesperson for all things immigration. he also wants to have the title of assistant to the president at the highest paid level for white house senior staff. and guaranteed weekends off to travel home to kansas. he co-wrote the arizona law which required local officials

to target anybody they believed could be an undocumented immigrant and recently proposed the use of camps for detained asylum seekers. he's one of two people being considered as president trump looks to create a uniformed immigration policy across different agencies. that, of course, follows the departure of dhs secretary kirstjen nielsen. the other nominee or potential contender is former virginia attorney general ken cuccinelli who has only requested security details and transportation to work. >> the environmental protection agency is considering changing the way it calculates health risks after a proposed policy change had an estimated death rate in the thousands. according to current and former epa employees the new methodology would reduce that number significantly by adding the assumption there's little or no health benefit to making the air any cleaner than legally required and systematically downgrading the effects of air contaminants linked to haerks,

strokes and respiratory diseases. the shift would allow the agency to replace the obamaera clean power plant a move that could result in additional of 1400 premature deaths from air pollution caused by burning of fossil fuels. trump administration replacement regulations aim to boost coal production to be unveiled next month. >> good morning once again. still dealing with a dangerous situation and even at this hour we still have a new tornado warning that was just issued. here's oklahoma city here. this is interstate 40 as you head out to areas of the east. this box is a new tornado warning and our doppler indicated radar was showing debris aloft, possibly a tornado on the ground was picking up stuff off the ground and throwing it up in the air. tornado sirens are still going off. we had one that was an he le

front trunk tornado. this is the damage. it missed the downtown area by half a mile but it did hit, hit hard. some homes that were on the outskirts of the main portion of the town, and, he area we had a bunch of close calls with a couple of strong tornadoes. amazing we didn't have any injuries when you start to see pictures of damage like this. for today we're not done with our severe weather threat. not as dangerous of a set up as we had yesterday. done mean we can have one strong tornado and it hits the town and worst than yesterday. you never know. 17 million people at risk. this area of orange is enhanced risk. that includes little rock and st. louis and our friends there around springfield, missouri too. again, the heavy rain threat with these storms will cause some epic problems. it already has overnight. a lot of rivers are still going up. flash flooding continues around oklahoma city to result is a. i was looking at river gauges.

we'll go through two to three days of record flooding. even missouri river, i was looking at the waverly area they are expected to break the crest. those records go back to the 1800s. on top of everything in the middle of our tornado outbreak we got our first named storm in the hurricane season out in atlantic. subtropical andrea. it will go south of bermuda. no effects in the u.s. a little early. >> all right. thanks. still ahead in 2016 donald trump campaigned on bringing factory jobs back to the industrial midwest. but one american major automaker is announcing new layoffs. details on the stories driving your business day coming up next. ur business day coming up next s... s...u... s...u...v... these letters used to mean something. letters earned in backwoods, high hills, and steep dunes. but somewhere along the way, suvs became pretenders,

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welcome back. ford's -- ford starts with a layoff. julianna, good morning. >> ford is laying off about 10% of their global workforce. it's not a huge surprise. in terms of who is the target of these reductions, most of them are overseas with about 2,300 of the job cuts coming from the united states. all together, this restructuring

program is set to save ford about $600 million annually. so quite a big program. i want to also draw your attention to another corporate story story in the airline space. american airlines says a concerted union work slowdown has caused delays. this is important as we head into the busy summer travel season and u.s. airlines are set to carry a record number of pass injuries this summer, so american airlines wanting to do as much as they can to get those flights to operate on time and to operate at all. >> are you a "game of thrones" fan? >> no. i have not watched one episode. >> julianna, how about you? are you a fan? >> huge. unfortunately i did watch the final episode. >> i'll just leave set now and you guys can have the

conversation. >> fans like julianna and me apparently helped shatter viewing records for the sunday night finale. >> we helped shatter the record but people in china did not. apparently, according to the wall street journal, if you tried to view the final episode of "game of thrones" in china, you received a message saying transmission media problem. hbo told "the wall street journal" that the network had no issue with actually transmitting the episode but that ten cent was restricted by the chinese government as part of the u.s./china trade war tensions. so the big macro developers were watching it have an impact on those watching "game of thrones." >> why don't you tell us about

it. no, don't do that. coming up, jim vandehei has a look at "1 big thing." and coming up on "morning joe." >> congressman cicilline is calling for an inquiry. >> "morning joe" is moments away. ments away there goes our first big order. ♪ 44, 45, 46... how many of these did they order? ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering.

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. joining us from washington with a look at axios a.m., jim vandehei. good morning to you. >> good morning. how are you doing? >> good. talks to us about axios' "1 big thing" today. >> we talked about how advice rahal po-- visceral identity. a teen-ager today by the time

they're in their 30s, for the first time in history you'll have more minorities than whites, more people practicing islam than judaism and you'll have more older people than younger people because our birth rates are slowing. a lot of that captures how quickly the demographic, the culture, the heart of the country are changing. that's something that donald trump is constantly trying to tap into, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly but it's been at the heart of his campaign from the beginning. >>we know he likes to attack the media but apparently he's trying to focus his fury elsewhere. what more can you tell us about that? >> we're looking at how he bullies the refs. now you see him expanding that and critiquing the sunday shows, going after the social media platforms, encouraging people to cry bias if they see it on

twitter. you've seen it in terms of congress and the oversight powers but also basically trying to make sure that none of his folks have to testify. and it's all part of the broader strategy of saying, hey, look, it's sort of everyone against us, all the elites, all the institutions against us, again, fits into what president trump has done from the beginning. they think it's an effective mechanism. you saw a lot of this in last night's speech in pennsylvania, one of the great battleground states for this race. >> axios got a preview of a poll showing the one issue americans care most about. what is that? >> it's funny. we all get so obsessed about robert mueller and russia. you go back to 2018 ask any democrat and any republican who ran, what was the topic that drove the most votes and moved the most voters, it was health care. a new poll this morning, whether you're a democrat, republican, independent, the number one issue is not what most of us are usually talking about, it's health care.

and that worries republicans, particularly at the congressional level because they don't really have a coherent plan. they're not -- that are spending so much time trying to defend what president trump's doing in terms of undoing pieces of obamacare, which leads to people losing health insurance if they had it before, leads to a reduction in coverage of preexisting conditions, things that are hard to talk about for republicans on the campaign trail. it's another reminder of how disconnected we are from the realities of what people care about. >> what does that do for candidates on the democratic side when you have the elizabeth warrens and those who talk about medicare for all specifically and then you have joe biden running on the obama legacy and the affordable care act but also attacking trump. >> on the one hand it might cause overreach. a lot of democrats saying medicare for all, medicare for all before they thought through

consequences in terms of the government spending and whether or not that's where the american people are. the other one is we saw this in a leadership meeting among democrats last night where nancy pelosi is like begging her party, please don't impeach so we can focus on issues like health care because that's what we win on and you see little by little the members around her saying, no, we want to focus on impeachment, there's too much going on, we need more leverage. they say it's the right thing to do. so health care is at the haeart of that. that's what nancy pelosi is talking about. >> jim vandehei, thanks for your time this morning. >> take care. >> you can sign up at signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us on this tuesday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside geoff bennett. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ ♪ good morning and welcome to