north korea. that is our broadcast for this thursday night. thank you so much for being here with us and good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. > fact checking presid trump's response to robert mueller. we're taking a look at how the president's latest attack compares to the special counsel public statement. >> bipartisan break through. two different lawmakers find common ground. president trump distances himself from a report that the white house had the war ship "uss john s. mccain" moved out of sight during his recent visit to japan. now he's calling it an exaggeration and. quote fake news. good morning, everybody. it is friday, may 31st. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside

nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett. yesterday morning president trump delivered a furious response to special counsel bob mueller's remarks after the veteran law enforcement official took to the justice department podium wednesday and contradicted several claims from the president and his allies. but that didn't stop president trump from continuing to put words in mueller's mouth. >> he said, essentially, you're innocent. i'm innocent of all charges. and, you know, the thing that nobody brings up, there was no crime. >> but here again is what mueller said for himself. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so. >> the president was emphatic that there are no grounds for impeachment. >> it's a dirty word. the word impeach. it's a dirty, filthy, disgusting word. it's high crimes and not with

or. it's high crimes and misdeamnor. there was no high crimes and no misdeamnor. >> unresolved matters do remain. besides the ten episodes documented by the mueller report under the heading of factual results of obstruction investigation in december federal prosecutors mention the president as individual one. in the indictment of his former lawyer michael cohen saying cohen quote acted in coordination with and at the direction of trump something cohen later testified about. >> is there additional corroborating evidence that mr. trump while a sitting president of the united states directly reimbursed you hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws? >> there were 11 checks that i received for the year. >> and the president had more to say about impeachment. . watch this. >> i don't see how. they can, because they are possibly allowed although i can't imagine the courts

allowing it. some day you ought to read a thing called article ii. read article ii, which gives the president powers that you wouldn't believe. >> however, article i of the institution is crystal clear on congressional powers stating the house of representatives quote shall have the sole power of impeachment. here's more from the president. >> russia did not help get me elected. you know who got me elected? i got me elected. russia didn't help me at all. russia, if anything, i think helped the other side. >> so that clashes with the conclusions of the nsa, cia and fbi who stated that russia launched an fence campaign with a clear preference for donald trump and in opposition to hillary clinton something that mueller reaffirmed. >> russian intelligence officers who were part of the russian military, launched a concerted

attack on our political system. the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. >> the president also made a claim that putin himself has disputed. >> i believe that russia would rather have hillary clinton as president of the united states than donald trump. >> president putinin, dew point president trump to win election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? >> translator: yes, i did. yes, i did. >> so, finally the president claimed to be cracking down on election interference. >> i think i've been much tougher on elections since president obama. president obama was told in 2016 just before the election in september that russia may try to interfere with the election he

did nothing. >> so trump's own chief of staff reportedly told dhs staff not to mention election security in front of the president, senate republicans have been blocking a vote on a package that includes election security forms passed by the house back in march. all right. in a new interview attorney general william barrere is break with president trump on his allegations of treason which the president is making against members of the fbi and intelligence community. >> they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person. should she lose, we'll have an insurance policy and we'll get this guy out of office. that's what they said and that's what they meant. that's treason. that's treason. >> you don't think that they committed treason? >> that's a legal matter. >> but you have concerns about how they conducted the

investigation. >> yes, but, you know, sometimes people can convince themselves that what they are doing are in the higher interest, for the better good. they don't realize what they are doing is recent antithetical to the democratic system we. >> barrere said he disagrees with special counsel mueller's sequester prettiation that the institution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to charge the president with a crime. >> i personally felt he could have reached a decision. >> he could have reached a conclusion. >> he seemed to have suggest there was another venue for this and that was congress. >> i'm not sure what he was suggests but the department of justice doesn't use our power to investigate crimes as an adjunct to congress. senator bernie sanders has become the latest 2020 democratic presidential candidate to call for an impeachment inquiry against president trump following bob mueller's statement on wednesday. sanders made that call yesterday during a campaign rally in

nevada, but stressed there are risks with going down that road. >> this president is not above the law. no president is above the law. this president must be held accountable. and i believe that the judiciary committee should begin impeachment inquiries. inquiries, all right. now that's not impeachment. that's to determine, the first step, to determine whether or not trump has committed impeachable offenses. but here is the danger, which i think nancy pelosi and many people are struggling with. it may well be donald trump wants to be impeached because he knows that in the senate, you know what you need? two-thirds of the united states senate. you all know that. 67 votes to impeach trump. and right now there are 47

democrats and not all of them today would impeach trump. >> sanders is the latest 2020 candidate to announce support for impeachment proceedings after previously saying he would be open to the idea. joining us now from washington senior staff writer for the hill. scott, good morning to you. thanks for joining us on this friday morning. i appreciate it. as you well know especially hearing from bernie sanders, more 2020 democratic presidential candidates are taking a stand on beginning impeachment proceedings against. trump. if you look at the polling numbers here, though, pursuing impeachment proceedings is not necessarily a high priority. what your hearing with regards to voters when it comes to pursuing impeachment proceedings? is it resonating with them? >> well, i think it's resonating with the democratic base, right? the people that show up in democratic primary elections, who vote in these elections, and, obviously, the 2020 candidates are paying very close

attention to that debate happening on the progressive wing of the party, the aoc wing because they wanted to attract those voters and get some support from those voters. but at the same time, as you pointed out from some of that polling across the broader party, there's concern from democrats who are representing trump districts, people like abigail spanberger or max rose who are trying to hold on to their seats, preserve the house majority. they know that voter, those voters are focused on bread and butter issues, economic issues, health care, things like that. and so, you know, you really have this debate playing out in the party. that why you're seeing 2020 candidates going in one direction and many of the centrist democrats going in a different direction on impeachment. >> on a separate topic what do

you make of attorney general barrere's comments the special counsel could have reached a decision on obstruction. mueller made clear why he couldn't do that. >> i think it's one more example of the daylight that we've seen between bill barre and robert mueller. you saw when the report was first, when the mueller report was first revealed you saw bill barr say there was not enough evidence to go down the path of bringing charges against the president. clearly a lot of democrats took mueller's comments on camera the other day as evidence that, that there clearly was enough to at least look at obstruction and they have seen this, at least many house democrats and senate democrats are seeing robert mueller's comments the other day as a referral to congress to

gain impeachment proceedings. again you've seen these two top officials on different pages when it comes to the issue of the mueller report and this investigation. >> scott, thanks. we'll talk to you again in just a bit. president trump took to twitter yesterday to announce he's imposing even more tariffs quote on june 10th the president says the u.s. will impose a 5% tariff on all goods coming in to our country from mexico until such time as illegal immigrants come through mexico and into our country stop. in an official statement the president added mexico has made massive amounts of money in its dealings with u.s. and for years mexico is not treating us fairly. adding the u.s. has been invade by hundreds of thousands of people coming through mexico as a result of lawless chaos. trump also claims that the sustained imposition of tariffs will produce a massive return of

jobs back to american cities and towns because we're firmly and forcefully standing up for america's interests. that's what the president says. the white house said the tariffs will rise monthly by 5% to as high as 25% but would not say what would take to remove or halt them. only says it's at our discretion on an ad hoc basis. last year u.s. imported $350 million goods from mexico. his tariffs are passed on to use consumers and companies as taxes. the tariff amounts to a tax increase of $17 billion. yet acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney said illegal immigration comes at a cost. the american taxpayer is paying for what's going on at the border. mean. while the trump administration sent congress the revised and updated trade agreement between mexico and canada yesterday. it preserves the low tariffs put

in place under nafta. a information republican congressman. said president trump should be considered to be indicted to avoid an impeachment allegation. an unlikely pair of lawmakers team up. we'll tell you what alexandria occasio-cortez and ted cruz are planning to work on. those stories and a check of the weather when we come right back. you try hard, you eat right... mostly.

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i take my chance with 12 reasonable sids before i do with the house democrats. >> that was trey gowdy this week offering president trump an interesting suggestion, to say the least, on how to avoid an impeachment inquiry by house democrats. joining me on set is danny cevallos. i'm a little confused by this. >> you're not alone. >> and why it is he's making this suggestion to the president to bait them into indicting him because he would have quote-unquote more clarity versus what he has now. >> it's a strange argument. first, the right, like the right to not or the privilege against self-inincriminatation or other rights we have in the constitution, it's not the same as the opinion saying the president can't be indicted. that's not a right. that's a doj policy. as the head of the doj in a sense the president could do away with that policy. but it wouldn't solve the problem of getting rid of an

impeachment inquiry because there's no jeopardy that attaches if a person is indicted and impeached. in fact there have been judges in the past that have been peechd and indicted at the short time. >> forget the policy if you want to indict me, if the evidence is there, indict me and then let's go down that path and see what happens. >> right. that's the other problem of comparing to it a right. because the reason why the opinion exists indicting a president is very damaging for the country. the whole idea is that the president is the one person in the entire government that if you arrest that person you arrest an entire branch of government. you can arrest a supreme court justice, the court will go on. you can arrest a congress person, congress will go on. the president arguably you put a halt to the executive branch if you arrest him, indict him, charge him and possibly jail him. so it's not really a productive solution for the united states

to waive this opinion and have the president be indicted. >> for those democrats calling for impeachment proceedings how would this indictment, how would that potentially complicate ongoing or future impeachment proceeding? >> in short not at all. only because from a level perspective indictment and impeachment are two parallel universes. they are not jeopardy events. in other words they are not like two successive federal indictments where jeopardy would attach and then the second prosecution would be barred. in this case impeachment, indict can both happen. from a political perspective, however, the gambit is this. if you indict me now, then you might satisfy all those congress folks who think that an impeachment is necessary because arguably the criminal standard, the burden of proof is so much higher that i find exonerated in criminal court i must be exonerated in the court of public opinion and congress but

that gamble wouldn't work because both can happen. you can be impeached and. indicted. folks in congress who have it out for the president will want to impeach him no matter what a criminal court would do. >> good point. let's get a check on your weather now with nbc meteorologist bill karins. >> good morning. as we head into the weekend, things will stay stormy but not too bad. the flood zone will get a break. yesterday we saw the worst of the storms roll in through pennsylvania and baltimore and d.c. area. damage in pennsylvania. you can see some of the significant stuff here. look at that huge tree that just fell to the house there to the left. again, today we won't see anything like this in pennsylvania, maryland, d.c. we get a little bit of a break. today we'll watch this storm in areas of north carolina, possibly a little bit in the northern great lakes. this morning it's kind of quiet. about time. we'll watch these storms in abilene heading to dallas-ft. worth during the rush hour.

today we have 9 million people at risk of severe storms. not an outbreak. yesterday we only had two tornadoes reported in maryland. one was confirmed. we ended our streak of outbreaks. eastern north carolina, up through the great lakes, green bay, could see strong storms also out here in west texas. today's forecast, here's the good news. sunny and warm in the flood zone. few storms in virginia and carolina. d.c. 83. we have some really great friday weather. when i come back we'll talk about the upcoming weekend flooding and i'll give you your weekend forecast. still ahead more legal trouble for singer r. kelly. he's facing new accounts of sexual abuse and assault. and house republicans block an aid bill for the third time. we'll be right back. of less than

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welcome back. singer r. kelly was charged with 11 new sex related counts in chicago yesterday. prosecutors charged kelly with four counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, two counts of criminal sexual assault by force, two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against a victim who was at least 13 and under 17 at the time. the four aggravated criminal assault counts carry a mandatory minimum of six to 30 years in prison. kelly was already facing ten counts of aggravated sexual abuse involving four women over

a roughly ten year period that started in the late 1990s. now three of those women were minors when the alleged abuse occurred. the grammy award winner singer is due in court to hear the new charges next thursday. kelly has repeatedly denied all allegations against him and he maintains his innocence. long time mississippi republican senator thad cochran has died. senator cochran served more than four decades becoming the state's first republican senator in over a century in 1978. he most notably led the charge for recovery efforts after hurricane katrina as the chairman of the senate appropriations committee. cochran previously served three terms in congress. the late senator was re-elected to a six year term in 2014 but resigned last year due to health concerns. he was the tenth longest serving senator in u.s. history. senator cochran died yesterday morning in oxford according to his former office spokesperson.

he was 81. still ahead false out that the white house had "uss john s. mccain" moved out of sight during the president's visit to japan. trump is calling the story fake news. that's not what he said yesterday morning. what can we expect from wall street today after the president's latest tariff threat with mexico. we'll be right back. what is th? that's a blazer? that's a chevy blazer? aww, this is dope. this thing is beautiful. i love the lights. oh man, it's got a mean face on it. it looks like a piece of candy. look at the interior. this is nice. this is my sexy mom car. i would feel like a cool dad. it's just really chic. i love this thing. it's gorgeous. i would pull up in this in a heartbeat. i want one of these. that is sharp. the all-new chevy blazer. speaks for itself. i don't know who they got to design this but give them a cookie and a star.

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story. despite acknowledging yesterday that the war ship "uss john s. mccain" was moved out of sight during his recent visit to japan president trump now appears to be denying that the incident ever even happened. he tweet this last night. the navy put out a disclaimer on the mccain story. looks like the story was an exaggeration or even fake news. but why not, everything else is. here's what he said earlier in the day. >> to me john mccain was not a fan. i would never do a thing like that. somebody did it because they thought i didn't like him. okay. and they were well meaning, i will say. i didn't know anything about it. i would never have done that. >> so the navy's chief of information tweeted wednesday night this. the name of "uss john s. mccain" was not obscured during the president's visit to yokosuka on memorial day. the navy is proud of that chip, crew and heritage. but an email obtained by the

"wall street journal" the white house want. ed to move the war ship out of sight during the president's visit. nbc news has not obtained that email. meghan mccain said she got word of the incident earlier this week. >> i had journalists emailing this all day. giving me a heads up. i will say the president's actions have consequences and when you repeatedly are attacking my father and war heroes it creates a culture in the military where people are clearly fearful to show, you know, my father's name in one way or another and i think that's what started this chain of events and actions. >> so when asked whether he would start an investigation acting defense secretary pat shanahan said this yesterday. i need find out a little bit more. i just had the first glimpse of it this morning but democratic senator jack reid a member of the armed service committee said congress is looking into it.

>> we're looking into or making staff contact now to determine what exactly happened. and if it was a decision, who made the decision and why was it made, was it a result of a call from someone in the white house, perhaps not the president but someone in the white house. again, this is not the way to conduct an operation, not the way to conduct a visit by a president to a military facility. >> former vice president and 2020 candidate defend john mccain's legacy during memorial day services in delaware yesterday. here's what he told reporters. >> john mccain was a war hero, should be treated as a war hero, anything less than that is beneath anyone who doesn't treat him that way. he's a hero. avenues friend of mine. we argued like the devil as i said in our eulogy we loved each other but argued like the devil

but we were united by the same value system. that's why i love john mccain and that's why we need more john mccains. >> louisiana's democratic governor is sparking anger from party leadership after he signed a fetal heart beat abortion ban into law yesterday. the governor chose to sign the legislation without press present making louisiana the sixth state this year to enact strict heart beat abortion restrictions. joining mississippi, kentucky, georgia, ohio and missouri. louisiana law does not include exceptions for pregnancies from rape or incest making it almost as stringent as alabama's which goes further to outlaw virtually all abortion. hundred of people staged a stand in in louisiana's capital to protest the law which will only take effect if a similar ban in neighboring mississippi is upheld by a federal appeals court. it like all other dance are expected to face legal

challenges. new york democratic congresswoman alexandria occasio-cortez and texas republican senator ted cruz seem to agree on at least one thing, draining the swamp. the unlikely bipartisan match-up could soon be in the works in an effort to help overhaul d.c. lobbyists. aoc tweeted her displeasure with congress members signing on with some firm after signing tharms. senator cruz backed her views. i have long called for a lifetime ban on former members of congress becoming lobbyists. the swamp would hate it but perhaps a chance for some bipartisan cooperation. the two then hashed out potentially teaming up on a bill over twitter with cruz replying to aoc, quote you're on. another republican blocked the house' attempt to pass a bipartisan $19 billion disaster aid bill for the third time this week. delaying assistance to parts of the u.s. devastated by hurricanes, floods and wildfires. freshman congressman john rose

of tennessee objected thursday afternoon to pass the measure under unanimous consent. >> our nation is $22 trillion in debt. trying to pass nearly $20 billion in new spending while the majority of congress is not even in washington, reflects another act of irresponsible big government. this is absolutely without a doubt wrong. >> rose's objection follows similar moves by republican congressman of kentucky on monday. steny hoyer said democrats are expected to hold a roll call vote on the bill next week after lawmakers return from memorial day recess. joining us again from washington, scot wong. let's talk about this controversy over the "uss john s. mccain" playing out. the navy now the president say there's nothing to see here but the "wall street journal" has temp mail and you can clearly

see in the picture the tarp hanging over the name where it would have been on the ship. how do you think this will all play out, scott? >> well, i think it's a black eye for the navy, for the pentagon, for the trump white house. and, you know, who knows what the fall will be. i don't think we know the individual or individuals who sort of orchestrated this activity. but there's going be a lot of pressure to find out who exactly was responsible, and whether they should be held accountable, whether they should keep their jobs. but i think it is notable that the president is defending these people as well meaning individuals and so clearly there's no love lost between the president and the late john mccain. that is well-known. and, you know, as long as the president wants those people to stay working in the white house, they probably will remain but i think we probably will see at

least democrats in the house who control the house and have, you know, congressional subpoena power, we perhaps could see more investigations into this incident in the house of representatives. >> scott, let's circle back to louisiana governor signing of this pretty restrictive abortion ban. how might this decision put him at odds with other democrats compared to his state constituent views? >> it clearly puts governor edwards at odds with most national democrats including nancy pelosi who was very discouraged by the passage and the signing of this bill. she called this effort simply heartbreaking. and. it really undermines democrats message heading in to the 2020 election that we're the party that stands for women's reproductive rights, you know the republicans are trying to take those rights away, right, because you have a very prominent governor albeit in a

very red state and so the governor knows the politics of his state very well. but it does undermine democrats message. i would also note it puts republicans, national republicans in a precarious position as well because this bill goes far beyond what people like kevin mccarthy and even president trump have stood for, which is, you know, exceptions for rain and incest and when it comes to the life of the mother. . so this is putting both parties, i would say in a very precarious position heading in to 2020. >> scott, thank you for your time this morning. still ahead washington, d.c. clears a major hurdle to potentially become america's 51st state. the challenges it still face. >> german chancellor angela merkel takes a veiled swipe towards president trump during her harvard commencement speech. >> bill karins is back with a lo look at your weekend forecast.

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>> translator: that requires us not describe lies as truth and truth as lies. [ applause ] >> welcome back. that was german chancellor angela merkel yesterday delivering the commencement address at harvard university and receiving a standing ovation for remarks she made that hinted at president trump. washington, d.c. has passed a major hurdle to potentially become the nation's 51st state. the d.c. statehood bill will be reviewed by the house oversight and reform committee on july 24th. it marks the first time a d.c. statehood bill will be heard since 1993. under current law d.c. residents have no say in congressional or senate elections but statehood would allow them to elect one house represents and two senators. the initiative is backed by more

than 200 house democrats cluing majority leader steny hoyer who penned an op-ed yesterday pledging his support. if hr-51 gets past committee and the house floor it will then face the republican controlled senate. let's get a check on your weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins. good morning. before we get to the weekend forecast i got to show you some of the latest pictures from the flood zone. we're looking at record flooding in arkansas, oklahoma and this weekend we'll see records in areas of illinois and also on the mississippi river. this is areas from little rock, arkansas. this is the arkansas river which starts near the tulsa, oklahoma area and floss towards little rock. you can see the record flooding. never seen water this high. homes that never saw water are now under water in this region and we need the rain to stop. let's look at the weekend forecast. we get a little break. today, saturday, maybe sunday and then next week heavy rain will return to the flood zones.

a lot of these rivers will crest this weekend. this is the rainfall forecast for this weekend. a little bit west texas that's okay. still some flooding issues in southern kansas. we want to keep the rain out of there. much of the mississippi and illinois rivers won't get a lot of rainfall. that's good news. here's what we worried about. arkansas river where we still have record flooding through the weekend. missouri river is coming down a little bit and see those crest this weekend into the beginning of next week. st. louis will crest on tuesday for the second highest record level ever. they are okay because their levees are super high. here's the flood gauges. we have these measuring devices on the rivers that tell us how high the rivers are. anyone that's in this purplish color and pink engineer color that's major flood stage. that's along these major rivers. probably since the flood of '93 have we seen. it this bad.

today's forecast nice and dry through the flood zone. many areas will see a beautiful almost early summer-like day. over the weekend watch out for strong storms from st. louis to chicago. on sunday if you're in areas of the northeast and mid-atlantic we could watch some thunderstorms rolling through. not going to be a wash out weekend in the northeast. majority of it will be dry but especially sunday afternoon, we'll have to watch for those afternoon storms. more of your typical stuff. we just need a break. we went 14 straight days dealing with tornadoes and think today is the first day we'll be nice and quiet. still ahead the backlash against facebook over that altered video of house speaker nancy pelosi grows with hillary clinton now slamming the tech giant. markets in the u.s. are set to face help losses as president trump threatens mexico with tariffs. tariffs. those stories are coming up.

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welcome back. the backlash against facebook's decision to keep a doctored video of speaker nancy pelosi gained another prominent voice as former presidential nominee hillary clinton slammed the company during her commencemen speech at new york city's hunter college. here's what she said. >> it wasn't even a close call, the video is sexist trash. and youtube took it down but facebook kept it up. so, let's sends a message to facebook that those who are in

facebook's communities would really like facebook to pay attention to false and doctored videos before we are flooded with them over the next months. >> so clinton's remarks, they are an escalation of earlier criticism which called the clip which generated many views a sexist attempt to undermine pelosi by her political opponents. but her comments directed blame at the company itself. facebook continuing to defend its decision maintaining an untrue video is not a violation. market watch says the company was reconsidering that policy two days before the clip appeared on its platform. facebook telling market watch they are in the process of determining whether additional rules are needed for falsified media. president trump opened a second front of his america first trade war threatening to impose a 5% tariff on mexican products as part of his plan to curb border crossings.

cnbc joins us live from london. what's the market reaction to this? >> reporter: global markets have reacted negatively across the board to this development. overnight asian stocks traded lower. japanese stocks in particular a here in europe we are seeing markets react negatively as well. auto stocks in particular are taking a step down, the auto sector has a highly global integrated supply chain and tends to be very sensitive to any developments when it comes to trade. of course, investors had already been dealing with u.s. china trade tensions and what means for the markets. in terms of wall street we're expecting futures indicate that we are going to see a drop at the open, the dow is looking like it's going to lose more than 200 points at the outset. shaping up to be a negative day for markets across the globe. >> to keep itself afloat this summer dollar tree is thinking outside the box and into the cooler, julianna, they have a plan to add alcoholic drinks to

the inventories of some stores. what more can you tell us about that? >> indeed. so dollar tree is planning to add alcoholic drinks to p 1,000 family dollar stores. they've been trying to turn around this brand since they acquired it in 2015. they already announced plans to close up to 390 family dollar stores. now this is yet another effort to try to improve conditions there. in addition to offering alcoholic beverages to their product line they're also going to expand their party line and also start offering dollar tree branded merchandise more in their stores. that is going to be in at least 1,000 locations. so a lot going on, a lot of change, we will see if this does anything to improve their prospects. back to you. >> one thinks it might, right? julianna tatelbaum, thanks for that. >> one thinks it might. coming up, everybody, axios' mike allen has a look at this morning's one big thing.

coming up on "morning joe," the president unleashes on the special counsel. >> a fact check to his remarks on the russia probe, firing off a flurry of falsehoods as he digs in under the growing threat of an impeachment fight. "morning joe" is moments away. . "morning joe" is moments away. run with us on a john deere 1 series tractor. beacuse changing your attachments, should be as easy as... what about this? changing your plans. yeah. run with us. search "john deere 1 series" for more. ...depend® silhouette™ briefs feature maximum absorbency, with trusted protection for all out confidence... yeah. run with us. beautiful colors and an improved fit for a sleek design and personal style. life's better when you're in it. be there with depend®.

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welcome back. joining us from washington with a look at axios a.m. the co-founder of axios mike allen. mike, good morning to you. >> good morning and happy friday on the last day of may. >> thank you, mike. talk to us about axios' one big thing today. >> the axios one big thing is behind the scenes of president trump's mexico surprise. so last night everybody saw the tweet, the president announcing a major policy that was very unusual as jeff would tell you, this was followed by an actual fax from the white house, a presidential statement, a long conference call, but, wait for

it, behind the scenes chaos. axios jonathan swan reports that the president had been boiling over with frustration about the border, demanding his staff do something, so this policy was hurried out the door to apiece him. we are told he had been talking about it behind the scenes for a while. he had hinted at it and then, boom, they blasted it out on thursday night. >> let's talk about these tariffs because the president likes to say that these other countries will pay, even though we know that it's u.s. consumers and businesses that pay for these tariffs, they are like another tax. have you heard of any push back from people within the administration or in congress to what is in effect another tax increase on americans? >> that's right. people inside have tried to explain this to the president again and again that of course he is not explaining it accurately. this of course hits consumers, axios up with a story from -- or the axios markets team saying that the auto industry is going to be very hard hit by this.

a lot of supply chain back and forth across the mexican border affects u.s. cars. so that will mean higher prices, it could also mean a loss of jobs. so depending on how this is implemented, the effects could be severe, but the president said that he wanted immigration to stop, it of course won't, so the result is subjective and, just like the rollout of this policy, what happens could depend on his mood. >> yeah. and isn't this entire thing counterintuitive? if you put more tariffs on mexico and hurt mexico's economy then you would have more people fleeing mexico to come to this country for better jobs and a better life, right? >> that's right. mexico very recently became the u.s. number one trading partner. you get more people coming across and a stunning stat that came out yesterday that the number of people coming across the border in groups of 100 or

more has gone from two a couple years ago to double digit to another triple digits. so these large groups coming, and as you point out, like if they have trouble with jobs at home they are more likely to try to be seeking opportunity here. >> let's switch gears here, mike. axios on hbo season two kicking off this sunday at 6:00 p.m. congratulations to that. jonathan swan had a pretty contentious and lengthy sit down interview with the president's son-in-law, senior advisor jared kushner. what took place there? >> yeah, so what you're seeing there is the very first clip of this and we see jonathan swan asking jared kushner what he sees in the saudi crown prince ticking off what we know about the saudi crown prince, and the drama here, the why it matters, is that the administration has never acknowledged what the intelligence community says, what senators said after they were briefed by cia director

gina haspel and that is that the crown prince is clearly complicit in the murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi. so jonathan here in an intense interview with jared kushner, more than an hour and a half spent with him, puts it to him. this will be on hbo sunday night, season two of axios on hbo, 6:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. >> all right, mike allen, thank you. we will see you again on "morning joe" in just a bit and we will be reading axios a.m. in just a little while. you can sign up for their newsletter at signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside geoff bennett. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's friday, may 31st, i'm willie geist. joe and mika are on their belated honeymoon. we will see them next week from normandy for the 75th anniversary of d-day. with us this morning we have

msnbc contributor mike barnicle, msnbc police cal analyst susan del percio, the host of saturday night politics, lighten up msnbc on saturday nights mr. donny deutsch, political writer for "the new york times" nicholas confessore. also with us heidi przybyla and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. donny, let's talk saturday night politics. what do you got dialed up? >> we have diana ross and the supremes. >> again? >> what's interesting is we have a whole segment on a bunch of pollsters looking at the last 40 years of polls as of june 1st ranging from giuliani on down, the leaders are not always the winners. an interesting look at that. we've got ari melber to help us break down the crazy legal things of the week. all kind of hijinks. >> it's a great