that's why you saw mayor pete there willing tough on adversaries like china and russia. makes it harder for the president because that's ultimately what he's banking on. the be smart in this story is the president thinks he can take anybody that eventually runs at him and make them look like a socialist. the kicker to this is, bernie sanders, the original socialist, is ahead of the president by 12 in michigan, in a poll the detroit news just played out. he has softness in places and authentic reason to worry. >> mike allen, thanks for your time. >> have a great day. >> you can sign up for axios' newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for us on this wednesday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside geoff bennett. "morning joe" starts right now. >> i just went to the oval office and found this beautiful letter from president obama.

it was really very nice of him to do that. we will cherish that. we will keep that, and we won't even tell the press what's in that letter. >> a letter was given to me by kim jong-un. that letter was very nice letter. oh, would you like to see what was in that letter. >> tell us. >> how much? how much? >> will you show us? >> that's the agreement that everybody says i don't have. no, because i'm going to let mexico do the announcement at the right time. mexico, they want to go through it. here's the agreement. it is a simple agreement. this is one page. this is one page of a very long and very good agreement for both mexico and the united states. >> president trump, obviously, very excited about his love letters from dictators and secret agreements, especially the very secret agreements.

we'll find out actually if there are agreements or not. anyway, good morning and welcome to "bomorning joe." wednesday, june 12th. we have mike barnicle, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc, and the author of "the red and the blue," steve kornacki. it'll be great to have him with us this morning. a lot of polls and also, of course, back and forth between donald trump and joe biden all day yesterday. we'll tell you what it means. also, washington bureau chief for "usa fotoday," author of "t matriarch," susan page. also, national reporter mike memoli. biden continues his lead in the democratic primary field according to the latest quinnipiac poll. 30% support the former vp, putting him 11 points ahead of senator bernie sanders. however, biden is down a few points since last month. 19% of democrats say they back

sanders. he's up three points from last month. 15% back massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. she's up two points. 8% support mayor pete. he's up three. 7% said they support senator kamala harris. 3% support former congressman and, of course, texas senate candidate beto o'rourke. beto will be with us later on this morning. willie, you look at the poll, and so many of these polls seem to be breaking in one direction, and that is, you've got your top tier. your top tier is joe biden, bernie sanders, and elizabeth warren. it really is starting to shape up. again, maybe it's poll position. i don't know exactly how early this will prove to be -- to mean anything but, boy, you really see joe biden taking the lion's

share. then you have bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. with elizabeth warren doing what we all thought she would do at the beginning, and that is cut into bernie sanders' massive support in the democratic party. >> yeah. it was probably inevitable that vice president biden would dip down a little bit from his astronom maical numbers before got into the case and then the days and weeks into the campaign. bernie sanders is holding steady, but elizabeth warren has come up into the top tier. mayor pete is ticks below there. steve kornacki, we were talking about joe biden coming from the 40% space down to the 30% space. what strikes you as you look at the latest poll? >> i mean, i guess one thing that strikes me, too, when you take a step back and realize there are 24 people right now seeking the democratic presidential nomination, and really you've just got a handful who are registering at all in the polls right now. i think one of the things we've seen the first six months of this year is there has been such

a log jam, so many candidates, it is difficult for anybody to break through outside of the top group. buttigieg got in there. cami kamala harris, elizabeth warren, bernie and then joe biden in a holding pattern. the question is what does biden look like? what does he sound like? what message does he have? what response does he have for those on the debate stage? once he's off the stage, we expect him to accelerate. what does it look like when you're getting an almost permanent, day to day campaign from joe biden? i was struck yesterday,far, the. started out, you saw him at the podium reading from his text, looking down at prepared remarks, looking down at his notes, very subdued. seemed like, in some ways, not a very zestful performance.

then i looked up an hour later, and he walked away from the podium at the next event. he's looking into the crowd. he's walking, sort of pacing the room right there. i said, that's the joe biden i remember from past campaigns. that's the joe biden, i think, who could tap into the vast good will that exists for him among democratic voters. >> maybe so. that seems to me, at least, to be a pretty good formula for joe biden. actually reading notes at the lectern, staying on script at the lecterlectern. when he goes out, shakes hands with people, connects in a positive way. it is pretty powerful and probably his best path forward. mike barnicle, you know, a lot of people will love to dismiss polls that are coming out in the summer of 2019, saying, oh, it's not going to have a big impact. boy, let me tell you something, when the next fec filings are dropped, then you will know, it makes a difference.

if you're sitting at 1%, if you're sitting at 2%, good luck getting the 35, 40, $45 million you need to survive to iowa. you just won't do it. pretty soon, we'll see these polls actually do matter. >> they do, joe. it's really striking, what steve pointed out. i think a lot of people notice that joe's initial presentation yesterday, reading off the notes, then an hour and a half later, you know, out in the crowd, speaking almost as if there were two different joe bidens. the one joe biden later in the day is the one you recognize. back to raising money and the importance of polls now, in speaking to a lot of democrats over the past few daydays, a lof people are struck by a couple of things. elizabeth warren's rise in thei plan. it's taken hold into bernie

sanders', as we mentioned. i don't know if you hear this, steve, but what has happened to kamala harris? she came out of the gate like wildfire. seems to have stalled and is frozen at 7% and can't move from there. >> yeah. it is interesting. the harris strategy, too, there was some news in the last week or so that the campaign is getting ready to and is now investing in iowa aggressively. i think the idea is they're beginning to try to move the numbers in iowa, in the lead-off caucus state. there's that theory with harris that's always been there, that it is sort of like the obama path in 2008. there is a slingshot effect from iowa, from exceeding expectations in iowa, that could change everything in south carolina overnight. that's what happened with obama 12 years ago. that has existed, in theory, for camikamala harris. look, elizabeth warren, lately, has been getting a lot more attention. before that, it was pete buttigieg. in between, you had the joe biden launch. she's really kind of been

squeezed out lately. >> on the question of electability, kamala harris, like many of the democrats, is doing well with a head to head matchup with president trump. the new q. poll shows president trump lagging behind joe biden and five other top democrats in a general election matchup. quinnipiac university poll taken between thursday and monday shows trump trailing joe biden by 13 points, 53 to 40. sanders beats trump by 9 points in the poll, 51 to 42. kamala harris ahead by 8 points. elizabeth warren by 7 points. buttigieg and booker lead by 5 points. president trump failing to break 32% against any single one of them. the general election results fit a pattern of people who view trump favorably in the poll as 42% approving of the president's job performance. 41% credit trump for a good economy. only 41% approve of the president's policy toward mexico, which he, of course, is touting as a big victory.

joe, if we go back to the head to head matchups, it's stunning to me, and it has been in all these head to heads over the last several weeks, that donald trump is no different against joe biden than he is against kamala harris or cory booker or mayor pete or any of the candidates. he is a 40% or 41% president. >> he is. you know, leading up to the midterms, when democrats were so concerned, everybody was so concerned, it was important to remember that despite all the sound and the fury, despite all the tweets, despite the daily controversies, you had to focus on the fact that donald trump was a 40% president. that meant 6 in 10 americans did not agree with donald trump and what he was doing in his presidency. that, of course, what did it lead to in the midterms? it led to the biggest vote total route in the history of the united states of america for democrats against republicans. susan page, you look at the president here, and he's sitting

at 40%, 41%, 42%. you can go back and see everything that he has done. you can see everything that he has said since january 20th, 2017, when he did his american carnage speech. you can see that all of his words and all of his deeds and all of his actions have been focused on one thing, solidifying his base. well, congratulations, mr. president. you've got 40%. that's all you've got, right? >> you know, it's, in some ways, a sign of the president's strength, that he has had 40% support regardless of what he's done. those are people who have been with him from the start and are likely to be with him forever. the question is, is that the ceiling? is 40% or 42% the ceiling for president trump? because if your ceiling is 42%, the only way you win the presidency is in a three-way race. not impossible to have a three-way race. if we have a two-way race, you're not going to win with

42%. if you look at the stability of president trump's level of support, look at where joe biden's advantage comes in at this kwiquinnipiac poll. trump and biden are tied among white voters. they're tied among male voters. those are the groups that delivered the presidency to donald trump last time around. the reason i think the white house is so focused on biden is because of how competitive joe biden is with those particular voter groups. >> yeah. and, you know, the important thing to remember, mika, is that polls don't always reflect the breadth of donald trump's support. we noticed in 2016, we could be talking to 1,000 people and nobody would admit they were voting for donald trump. >> right. >> then you would actually talk to them afterwards, and they would all come up saying they were voting for donald trump. this is a little different. he's now running as an incumbent

politician who hasn't kept his word on mexico paying for the wall, health care for all, universal health care, an improved health care, a cheaper he' held care, or tax cuts for working class americans. there's all of that. at the same time, when it is donald trump on stage against one democrat, it is going to tighten up. >> yeah. >> for now, he starts as a 40% president. >> he does. and mike was talking about the different bidens and how when biden stuck to the script, it seemed different. i will say, it doesn't matter. stick to be discipline. you make this point in your column, in the "washington post," because, you know, for a brief moment in his presidency, trump stuck to the script, in normandy, as you say, and it worked. that's exactly what we need. joe writes this, president trump drew praise from editorial writers and thought leaders

across the political spectrum for a d-day address that temporarily soothed the nerves of nato allies and foreign policy analysts alike. forgive democrats for being less than impressed by their nemesis' reading skills, but they should not forget their ability to dislodge the donald from 1600 pennsylvania avenue next year may depend on a certain scranton, pennsylvania, native doing the same. considering that joe biden, the democrats' best hope for 2020, has a checkered past as a candidate for national office, his supporters can only hope that when the former vice president gets on stage, he smiles for the crowd, reads his speech, and exits stage left, waving as he goes. that's because biden has proved himself uniquely challenged in going off script, taking 20 minutes to answer a question, and causing himself and his staff unnecessary political grief. if you think i'm trying to send biden a message with this column, you are correct. too much is riding on next

year's election for any democratic candidate to shoot from the hip rhetorically. america's future will likely be left in the hands of which ever 70-something politician sticks most closely to the script that is handed to him. and the difference, joe, between joe biden sticking to the script and trump is that joe biden, at least, is intellectually connected to what he and his team are fighting for. and it wouldn't hurt him to do that. while with trump, you see a glaring difference, from being in front of the cameras, crosses in normandy behind him, talking to laura ingraham, calling people names and acting reprehensib reprehensibly, then walking off the stage and looking presidential because he stuck to the script, it was almost jarring. >> well, we would be well served if the president continued sticking to the scripts that are handed to him. >> we would be. >> for the most part. i quoted in the column

a napoleon quote that david innashs i innashs reminded me of. great generals do the average thing when everyone else is going crazy. mike memmemoli, there are peopl who support biden, talked to, i'm sure, you, to me, all of us off camera, and said, my god, i hope he sticks to the script. i hope he doesn't start rattling off things that are off message. stick to the script. look down, read your notes, then you can shake hands with people and be the old joe when you get out in the audience. >> yeah, joe. i think what the past week and a half has shown us is that the only person who can disqualify joe biden is joe biden himself. i was talking the other day with one of the other democratic presidential hopefuls who was in iowa this weekend at that dinner, where you had more than, i think, 19 candidates speaking.

his read of the room was that the democrats who went after joe biden actually hurt because of that. that the room turned against them when they went after joe biden. we also saw yesterday the president playing into the bide b campai n campaign strategy. the president's attacks on biden only elevated joe biden when his campaign's primary focus has been about his electability argument. what we did see yesterday in the three events joe biden did yesterday is his strongest event, perhaps, was the last event of the day, when he was on the teleprompter. i've been covering a lot of the biden event sos fs so far, and teleprompter isn't as strong when he is reading from notes. he's strongest in a room full of enthusiastic democrats. he feeds off their energy. when reading off the teleprompter, he was at his best there. the challenge, of course, will be in the debate when other candidates go after him and his record, which he is proud of.

will he have the discipline to brush the attacks off? that is the big question, i think, heading forward. >> all right, mike, thank you so much. we really appreciate you being with us. of course, nobody has better insights on joe biden on the campaign trail than you. >> thank you. >> we appreciate you being with us this morning. mika, i remember, it is funny mike is talking about teleprompters at smaller events. i remember seeing john kerry in 2004 studying his teleprompters as he was putting them up before a relatively small event. i was thinking, why would he do that? well, he did it because he was smart. that's what biden needs to do. where two or more democrats are gathered, there, too, should be his teleprompters, mika, as the good lord says. >> my gut tells me that biden needs to, obviously, work hard on staying focused and being on message. who am i to say? but i like joe biden. i don't want joe biden to change from being who he is. because that humanity is very connective to the american public. we saw that through some

challenges he had earlier on in the campaign where, you know, people were trying to bring him down. ultimately, joe biden won the day by being a good man, a good guy that you can connect with. steve kornacki, the polls at this time in the race, you know, president trump is not doing so well. having said that, it worries me for any democrat to say it gleefully. there is a lot of time ahead. >> of course. for a democrat, you only have to think back to 2016. all the poll numbers you saw about donald trump, you know, like he was losing to hillary clinton in the head to head, but he was within striking distance throughout the campaign. you had all these underlying numbers about trump in 2016. i remember going through these. you'd ask voters, is he competent enough to be president? is he qualified enough to be president? is he honest enough to be president? do you trust him with the button? he was getting numbers on those

issues, by and large, that were substantially worse than hillary clinton. substantially worse than any winning candidate we'd ever seen before. you add in the fact he was trailing hillary clinton in the polls, and that's where the widespread expectation came from, that donald trump wasn't just going to lose on election day, potentially, he was going to lose badly on election day. i think that's the cautionary note for everybody, not just democrats, kcarrying on. in terms of a victory scenario, is he able to create the same level of polarization that was there in 2016? hillary clinton's negative numbers, favorable/unfavorable by election day, they were not much better than donald trump's. they were close enough to donald trump's that he was able to get enough voters in just the right places to look at trump, look at clinton, say, i don't like either, but i don't like her more. i don't like her party more. i don't like, you know, sort of the side of the cultural argument that she represents

more. that seemed to be what drove them over the top at the end. it is an open question. he is an incoumbent in 2020, an there is a question if he can re-create it. >> yesterday, there was biden and trump. biden focused on trump. trump focused almost exclusively on biden. biden was talking about tariffs and the impact on farmers in iowa. he went back again to the gut argument he's been making, which is, this is not who we are. how are you feeling about these two and a half years? do you want another four years of this? i can change that. i'm the guy who can beat him. now, the poll that we showed shows that a lot of other people may have that case, as well. other democrats can say, if you look at the polling, i'm beating him by seven, eight, ten points, as well. >> steve makes a smart point to remember, which is that president trump won last time, even though people had deep

concerns about him. he goes into this race with one huge, new advantage, and that is the u.s. economy. he's the incumbent. you look at the quinnipiac poll. three out of four americans said their own financial situation was good or excellent. seven out of ten americans said the u.s. economy was good or excellent. we have no history in modern times of defeating an incumbent president if people are feeling that good about the economy. at the moment, trump is not getting the benefits from the sense that the economy is good and we're in this record-setting recovery, but it is possible that that is a very powerful cord he could strike, even though there continue to be these deep questions about his competence and fitness for office, the kind of things that joe biden was trying to strike yesterday. >> that's a great point. i mean, unemployment at 3.6%. so many other parts of the economy humming along very well. this is a recovery that started in 2010, and it has been roaring

for nine years now which, of course, is unusual in and of itself. the cycle has been up for nine years. we'll see what happens. willie, despite all of that great news, again, i just want to go over the head to head matchups, and one we didn't show before. let's put the head to head matchups up on the screen, if we can, alealex, and show again in this quinnipiac poll, donald trump pounded by biden by 13. by sanders by nine. harris losing by eight. warren losing by seven. mayor pete, losing by five. cory booker, by five, as well. one we didn't put up, benjamin dryer brought it to our attention. waxy yellow buildup, 48%. that's, of course, benjamin dryer of dryer's english. 3.6% unemployment. waxy yellow buildup. >> stop saying that. >> just polling ahead. by the way, what is the margin

of error, willie, when you're -- >> stop it. >> -- talking about waxy yellow buildup. >> why are you asking willie? >> 3.4%. this image of the day, the image of waxy yellow buildup is not what i am looking for. perhaps i speak for the viewers. >> do you prefer it more before happy hour or before having your dinner? >> later in the day, it is great. >> what are you doing? >> thank you so much for benjamin dryer for bringing that important poll number. >> that's your contribution for the day, benjamin. >> you can go back to bed and sleep. >> still ahead -- >> by the way, read dryer's english. >> it's good. >> amazing stuff. still ahead on "morning joe," the former secretary of defense under president obama, ash carter joins the conversation. plus, what will congress do after being called out in stunning fashion by former daly show host, jon stewart? he blasted lawmakers for failing to fund programs for 9/11 first responders. you're watching "morning joe."

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welcome back. here's a look at some of the other stories we're following this morning. riots in hong kong continue to erupt as police use tear gas on demonstrators who attempted to storm the city's government buildings. armed with bricks and bottles, protesters clashed with riot police, who used batons, pepper spray, and rubber bullets to suppress the demonstrators in the city's downtown. the political unrest comes amid backlash over a bill that would allow people facing trials in mainland china to be extradited. the legislative counsel's vote had been scheduled for today but is moved to next week amid the ongoing clashes. a former stanford university sailing coach is expected to be the first person sentenced in the cleollege admissions scanda today. john vandemore pleaded guilty

for accepting $610,000 in bribe money for the university's sailing program in return for falsely qualifying three students for admission. my god. he did not directly pocket the cash himself. his alleged role in the plan ultimately failed when the students did not attend stanford. prosecutors will ask for 13 months behind bars at his sentencing hearing this afternoon. that's according to the "boston globe." as for actual athletes, the defending u.s. women's team made a statement in france, defeating thailand with a tournament record 13-0 victory. seven u.s. women found the back of the net, including a record-matching five goals scored by alex knomorgan. team usa finished with 39 shots,

10 corners, and 75% possession in the blowout. congratulations. >> you know, mike barnicle, you always complain that soccer is like a 1-0, you know, sport. >> that's incredible. >> that's incredible. i mean, sure, they missed an extra point after their second touchdown, but 13-0, pretty impressive. >> well, have you ever heard of such a huge disparity in a score in a soccer game? it's been a while. >> not even close. >> never. >> it is usually 1-0, as they say. still ahead, it's been more than a month since president trump announced patrick shanahan as his pick for secretary of defense. according to nbc news, the president may be rethinking that idea. carol lee joins us with her new reporting. and we'll talk to someone with a bit of experience in the role. former defense secretary ash carter joins us next on "morning joe."

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welcome back. president trump may be second guessing his choice of patrick shanahan for secretary of defense. according to nbc news, while in normandy last week, trump asked at least three people what they thought of shanahan and whether they had any suggestions for different candidates. that's according to four people familiar with the conversations. joining us now, national political reporter for nbc news, carol lee, with more. carol? >> good morning, mika. what we learned is that, you know, president trump never really wanted patrick shanahan as his first choice for this job. he went back and forth about this for several months. shanahan has been in acting capacity since january, when james mattis left. the president was sort of pushed into making a decision because people felt that it was not a good idea to leave this open as an acting position. it weakened shanahan. he couldn't do the job properly. he announces on may 9th that

he's chosen shanahan and, yet, a month or so later, he's asking people, what do you think of shanahan? who else might i nominate? do you have any other ideas? i'm looking for alternatives. this is all happening at the same time the white house has not sent up the nomination to the senate formally. it puts shanahan in a really precarious position. we've seen this before. the president has gone back and forth about aides, where he is second guessing them, ask people what they think of them, who else could do the job. anyone who served as president trump's chief of staff knows what that mefeels like. because shanahan wasn't the president's first choice, there is public daylight between the two of them. shanahan took a different stance on the request from the white house to the navy to obscure the "uss mccain" while the president was in mccain. he called mccain a patriot, obviously very different from how president trump views the late senator. you know, he also said that

north korea violated u.n. security council resolutions with its ballistic missile test. that was a difference with the president. so, you know, the president seems to be second guessing, casting about, looking for alternatives. the problem is, no one really knows who the alternative is. >> good lord. nbc's carol lee, thank you very much. >> thanks. >> willie? new york former secretary of defense under president obama, ash carter, the author of the new book "inside the five sided box," lessons from a lifetime of leadership in the pentagon. mr. secretary, good morning. good to see you. >> good to be here. thank you. >> want to ask you about president trump and his approach to north korea. >> yes. >> yesterday, talking about a beautiful letter he received from kim jong-un. what do you suspect is up here? why is president trump treating the dictator, the murderous dictator of north korea with such flattery? >> well, the only possible explanation i can offer is he's hoping that we'll get progress

on denuclearization of the korean peninsula. remember, it was something they promised -- i've been around this long -- president george bush in 1992. this isn't a new promise. what we need is a plan that goes behind the promise. what we haven't gotten yet is a plan that is actually under way to get rid of their nuclear weapons. so that's his -- our president's style of dloiplomacy. right now, everybody is happy except us. the north koreans are happy because we're kind of off their back. china is kind of happy because they're not threatening war. south korea, which happens to have an administration right now which is sort of a piece type of administration, it is convenient for them. we don't have denuclearization yet. >> knowing what you know about north korea and this regime, does this work? we haven't seen evidence that north korea is slowing down its approach to nuclear weapons. >> i've been part of previous

efforts. '94, '99. i've been to this movie. 2006/2007 when condoleezza rice and colin powell gave it a try. we didn't give it a try during the time i was secretary of defense because i didn't see any way to make it work out, and the president didn't either. we've tried it in the past and made some little bit of progress. so i'm for talking to them and pressing them on this issue and using the leverage we have and hammering china to get in the game. sticking with japan, which is a good ally and friend and is threatened. so far, the action hasn't followed the -- what is really the drama of the two leaders meeting. remember, president bush 1 and all the presidents after him would not meet with the leaders in north korea unless they had a deal to sign. their position was, i'm not going to give them the gift of a meeting with the president of the united states until and unless i have a deal. >> president trump has taken, of

course, the opposite approach. i guess the underlying question to all of this, mr. secretary, is why would north korea give up its nuclear program? it doesn't have much else on the world. it has no leverage in any other area, particularly economic leverage. why would they give up their weapons? >> well, back in the earlier times when we were talking to them, they didn't have them yet. >> right. >> now, they've had the taste. in 2006, when the, as i said, the bush 2 administration was talking to him, is when they exploded their first bomb. that's kind of when they crossed the threshold. now, it is going to be hard to get away. we had some success. remember ukraine, belarus, kazakhstan? those are three countries that did give up nuclear weapons when i ran it. it is possible, but it is tough. it'll take a huge amount of pressure, carrots and sticks much larger than we've offered before to get them to make a move that big.

>> what is your view of our relationship today with china, given the fact we withdrew from tpp. the chinese apparently think they own the south china sea, the south pacific, and we have a tariff war ongoing, seemingly escalating with each passing day. what is your view of that situation? >> it -- we have -- it is not a cold war, but it is a sustained competition with what is, after all, a communist dictatorship. last time we had a sustained competition with a communist dictatorship was the soviet union, but we didn't trade with them. we need a whole new play jb bbor this. the huawei thing, whether students should -- chinese students should go back to china or not, the trade talks, we need a new playbook, of which tariffs is one part. i think only one part. i've watched the chinese now. i've been dealing with them and their military leaders since the 1990s.

it's now xi jinping. over that time, mike, the tendency of chinese to be sort of over weaning, looking to dominate asia, has taken over their earlier view, which is, hey, this system, spasinternati system works well for us. we get to be who we are, run our country our way, and trade with everybody and develop our country. we all hope this view would prevail, but it didn't. >> why didn't it? >> maybe it was faded that way. i could always tell when i was talking to chinese military that they were thinking this way, but they weren't allowed to say things that way. it always existed, and it grew. i do believe that we need to protect ourselves. by that, i mean, when our -- the chinese can bring to bear on an american company or an american ally that combination of

military, economic, and political power that only a communist dictatorship can bring. that creates an unlevel field. i think companies expect our government not to be necessarily confrontational but to be protective of them. so i think the things we're doing, to push back on the chinese, are necessary. i think that's true militarily, also, but we're doing much more in the military area. we started that sometime ago, deploying more forces there. >> yeah. >> so forth. south china sea, we need to push back also. >> joe? >> yeah, mr. secretary, i want to talk about your book, "inside the five-sided box." you call it -- your publisher calls it, in part, a user's guide to the military industrial complex. of course, that phrase coming from dwight eisenhower's warning in his farewell speech to america in january of 1961. you see often congress and the

president of the united states supporting weapons systems that the pentagon doesn't even ask for, that the pentagon doesn't even want, but the military industrial complex does want. i served on an armed services committee where there is votes, then another vote would come, oh, wait a second, they're voting for -- wait, are they on the side of lockheed martin? it was hard to follow it all. you knew there was a ton of money there. how do we break the grip of the military industrial complex and make it so it is about running the leanest military organization that we can run without, basically, throwing billions of dollars at every defense contractor that writes $5,000 checks for members of congress? >> well, you're right. the book isn't a memoir. it is a different kind of goobo. it is a guide to the pentagon, including how to buy weapons. i had that job, in addition to

the deputy secretary, defense secretary. i've worked there in every layer over time. look, we don't build anything in the pentagon. we don't do things the soviet way. we buy all our weapons from private industry. that means when i was the acquisition executive, i had to make business deals with the defense industry. i was sitting on the taxpayer and the war fighter's side of the table. they were sitting on their shareholders and employees' side of the table. i understood that. it is not -- it is just business. but you need to stick up for the taxpayer and the war fighter. you need to be a skilled negotiator with them. i need them to be healthy. i need them to do okay on wall street and so forth because i need a healthy defense industry. by the way, i need the tech industry to participate more in defense. one of the reasons we have the best military in the world is we have the best technology in the world. we can't get that anymore, just

by working in the -- with our own programs. we have to reach out to the tech sector. that was another big thing that i did. but we have good acquisition executives. i had tough negotiations with industry, but i had cordial relations with them. they didn't push me around. i was the customer. you mentioned congress. congress gets involved every once and a while. i'll give you an example, joe. the tanker competition. there was huge congressional interest in that. nevertheless, i was the acquisition executive at the time, and we ran a fair competition that one party won and the other party didn't even try to protest because we had it clean. so you can do it right. people see waste. waste is inexcusable, particularly when we're asking for as much money as we are, to protect the country. but it doesn't have to be that way. good management can deal with

the so-called military industrial complex. serve the taxpayer and the war fighter. i felt that that was possible, and we have a lot of people who know how to do that in the department of defense. one of the things the book says is, doesn't have to be this way. here's some tricks for how to manage the military industrial complex for the taxpayer and the war fighter. >> susan page is with us and has a question. susan? >> ash carter, given your long experience at the pentagon, is there ab n impact on the way things work at the pentagon when there is no permanent, confirmed secretary leading it? in particular, drawing on the nbc story that carol lee talked about a few minutes ago, when the president expresses maybe some cold feet about going forward with the nominee he has announced to lead the pentagon, does that have an impact on how things work there? >> well, it does. you're in a weaker position if you're not confirmed.

i don't know pat shanahan well. he is the first secretary of defense designate. i worked in the reagan administration first, so i've known them all. it does probably weaken him a little bit in washington. the department of defense, however, is a very orderly place. it thrives on order and clarity. so i think people looking upward at him in the department will regard him as their secretary of defense, as long as he's the acting secretary of defense. i think internally, things are probably going to be okay. in the larger washington world, doesn't help pat, if pat is going to be the secretary of defense, to go through this period. i don't have any insight. i'm not sure anybody does, into whether he'll ultimately get the job or not. as i said, i don't know him well personally. jim mattis was an old friend of mine. we'd known each other 25 years. used to sleep on the floor of the secretary of defense's plane

in 1993 when he flew around the world. i knew jim since he was a major. >> wow. the book is "inside the five-sided box," lessons from a lifetime of leadership in the pentagon. former secretary ash carter, thank you so much for being on the joe. >> thanks for having me. >> great to see you. >> like wise. coming up, transportation secretary elaine chow is the latest trump official to be involved in a potential conflict of interest scandal. her husband, mitch mcconnell, appears to be shrugging it off. >> of course he is. of course he is. >> we'll show you what he says about the allegations ahead on "morning joe."

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welcome back. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell made light of some serious questions surrounding his wife. transportation secretary elaine ch

chao, who allegedly helped usher through at least $78 million in grant funds for his home state of kentucky. take a listen. >> leader mcconnell, did you receive any special treatment or consideration as your office applied for transportation grants because you're married to secretary chao. >> you know, i was complaining to her just last night. 169 projects, and kentucky got only five. i hope we'll do a lot better next year. >> susan page? >> well, it is not clear that anything illegal happened here. of course, there are often political considerations to the granting of -- for federal grants. it looks pretty swampy. for the administration who promised to drain the swamp, it has an appearance of kind of the favoritism that makes americans not think very highly of washington. >> no, it doesn't.

i just -- sometimes, the response like that, one like that can be very invalidating for those who are concerned about things like this. misuse of funds or using your connections incorrectly. he seemed to be having fun with it. susan page, thank you very much. great to have you on. >> thank you. still ahead, there is no shortage of presidential candidates, but right now, president trump and joe biden are sure making it sound like a two-person race. they both hit the campaign trail in iowa, trading attacks while ignoring other 2020 contenders. tomorrow, we'll take a different white house hopeful. former congressman beto o'rourke will be our guest. we welcome forward to that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ight back.ts biopharmaceutical researchers. pursuing life-changing cures in a country that fosters innovation here, they find breakthroughs...

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and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. but you're not mad, because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler. so you can take on the markets with confidence. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today. said that you are nervous. he called you a disaster. he also called you a nasty, vindictive, horrible person. this is not me. this is the president saying this. he later went on to tweet that you were a disgrace to yourself and your family. i mean, how do you react to the president of the united states calling you, the speaker of the house, ib sansulting you like t? >> what bothers me is that we're talking about that instead of reducing the national debt. i'm done with him. i don't even want to talk about it. >> you have to work with him. how do you work with him after he levels such an insult against you overseas?

>> i just consider the source. >> what do you mean by that? >> hmm? my stock goes up every time he attacks me, so what can i say? let's not spend too much time on that because that's his victory. the diverter of attention in chief. >> oh, my god. my head is -- i don't even know where to begin. she's so amazing. that is so hysterical. she says, number one, she's done with him. number two, she casts him off like this. number three, she points out her stock goes up every time he mentions her. thanks, donald. yeah, that's exactly the problem for donald trump when it comes to house speaker nancy pelosi. that was her yesterday in washington. you can catch my conversation with the house speaker on a special headliners this sunday at 9:00 p.m. on msnbc. welcome back to mt. co"morning " it is wednesday, june 12th. still with willie, joe, and me,

we have mike barnicle, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc steve kornacki. joining the conversation, senior adviser at move on.org and msnbc contributor, kareem john pierre. >> don't get in her way. >> not close to the microphone. >> i feel safe around her. >> national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine, mike leis with it. it is good to have you all. it'll be more than seven months before the first votes are counted in the 2020 presidential nominating contests, but president trump is already focusing on joe biden. while the former vice president is also centering his attention on trump, both were in iowa yesterday, where biden delivered a scathing set of remarks at stops across the state. as the president lobbed his own

barbs, both on his way to iowa and during an appearance in counsel bluffs. >> our politicians let other countries push us around, treat us badly, treat our country with no respect. you see that with biden. we would never be treated with respect because people don't respect him. even the people he's running against, they're saying, where is he? what happened? >> in 2020, we not only had to repudiate donald trump's policies and values, we have to clearly and fully reject, for our own safety sake, his view of the presidency. quote, i have complete power. no, you don't, donald trump. quote from donald trump, i have absolute power. no, you don't, donald trump. or only i can fix it.

fix yourself first, donald trump. >> he makes his stance in iowa once every two weeks, then mentions my name 74 times in one speech. that reminds me of crooked hillary. she did the same thing. when it came time to vote, they all said, you know, she doesn't like trump very much, but what else does she stand for? same thing is happening with sleepy joe. i'd rather run against, i think, biden than anybody. i think he is the weakest mentally. i like running against people that are weak mentally. i think joe is the weakest up here. the other ones have much more energy. i have to tell you, he is a different guy. he looks different than he used to. he acts different than he used to. he's even slower than he used to be. >> the president today raised questions about your age. he raised questions about whether you had the stamina to run for president. there's been a lot of questions about your schedule, that it has

been a little lighter than some of the other candidates. >> look at him and look at me and answer the question. >> you answer the question. please answer the question. >> it is self-evident. you know it is a ridiculous assertion on his part. anyway, look, people have a right to question all of our ages. that's totally legitimate thing. all i can say is, watch me. >> you know, what did heilemann and others say? everything donald trump says is either a confession or a projection. >> yeah. >> donald trump is talking about not being the same person anymore, not being as quick as he was before. again, we actually know five years ago -- >> seems sweaty. >> -- donald trump was a far different person than he is right now. you look at clips, heck, from the late '80s, the late '90s. a completely different person. now, he's trying to turn things around and say that joe biden is acting differently. let me say this, regardless of

this back and forth, i think what matters right now, and what's bothering donald trump the most right now, are these polls, these head to head matchups that show that he's getting absolutely blistered by everybody in the field. we had a story in the "new york times" yesterday talking about how he asked his pollster to lie about the internal polls showing him losing. here, there is a quinnipiac poll showing him getting trounced by joe biden and bernie sanders. beaten by eight points from kamala harris. elizabeth warren beating him by seven points. mayor pete beating him by five points. as well as cory booker beating him by five points. guy cecil, you know more about the upcoming 2020 race than anybody i've spoken with. you say regardless of these polls, regardless of whatever you hear on tv, this is going to be a close race.

most likely to the very end. talk about what you've seen in the states that matter most, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, florida, north carolina, all the swing states. >> well, first of all, as someone who lived through 2016, the idea that we are talking about polls is a little bit nerve-racking this early in the election cycle. but, yes, it is going to be a close election. i mean, our own public projections out of priority show if the election were held today, the democratic come kn iic nomit 279 electoral votes and we need 270. we expect a razor thin margin. michigan, florida, pennsylvania, the election is much closer. the other thing about what's happening between donald trump and joe biden is the person that benefits most from this is joe biden. for this very reason, the fact we're talking about the two of them really does block out a lot of the other candidates that are running for president on the democratic side. i think what you see so far in

these early polls, both with the general election and within the primary, is that there are two types of candidates that are doing really well at the top of the ticket. the first are those that have a high name id, that most of the american people know. the second are those candidates that have been really clear and concise about wlhy they're running. if you ask pete buttigieg or elizabeth warren in 30 seconds, two minutes, 30 minutes, tell us why you're running for president, they could do it. i think what you're seeing at the top of the ticket right now is a crowding of those people that the american people know well and those that have done a reasonably good job, particularly in the last, say, four to six weeks, of laying out why they want to run for president. >> so, guy, what do democrats have to do, from everything that you have seen, to cut into donald trump's leads in places like wisconsin, mccomb county, michigan, youngstown, ohio,

strant scranton, pennsylvania. the rural areas rounding the i-4 corridor, areas you and i know a lot about. what do democrats have to do to turn the tide and get the people that voted for barack obama eight years ago but voted for donald trump in 2016. how do democrats get him back on their sides next year? >> i think there's actually even a particular subset of that vote. the fact of the matter is, there are actually people that, for example, in wisconsin, voted for donald trump, then voted for tammy baldwin. there are people in pennsylvania that voted for donald trump, then went on to vote for the democrat in the senate race there. so there are voters that are willing to be open or receptive to a democratic message. frankly, the same things that we should be talking to democratic voters about are the same things we should be talking to folks in youngstown about. we should be talking about health care, about wages. we should be talking about economic opportunity.

we should be talking about education. the more we talk about those issues, how we create more economic opportunity for the middle class and for those that aspire to be in it, the better we're going to do. there is a huge disconnect among the american people between how they view donald trump's economy versus whether or not they think that economy is having an impact on their lives. so when you see polls that say 50%, 55%, 60% of americans approve of the way donald trump is handling the economy, those same polls say that 70% of americans don't believe that their wages will keep up with the cost of living or the rising cost of health care. we saw how to beat republicans. we did it in 2018 on health care. we can do it again in 2020 if we focus on health care and wages. i want to just reemphasize this point, it is not just about getting those voters that voted for obama and then voted for donald trump. there are democratic voters that sat on the sidelines in 2016 because democrats did not do a

good job of talking about the economy, wages, health care, and education on a consistent basis, in a way that the american people were ready to hear. i think if we focus on those things, we'll ultimately be successful in the four states that get the most attention today, wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan, and florida. >> a lot of the candidates are talking about jobs, the economy, inequality. to go back to donald trump's criticism of joe biden about age, we can kind of put that to the side. the larger question is a generational one. when you look at a party that views itself as sort of the woke party, a new generation of leadership, you look at the top of the polling and you have joe biden, who would be 78 years old, a white man. you have bernie sanders, 78 years old if he were to win, a white man. then you go down the list. of course, you have kamala harris, elizabeth warren, mayor pete, senator booker. you have new faces and younger generation of leadership there. how does the democratic party grapple with that, that its front runner doesn't necessarily

represent the new generation of leadership and the new view of the world? >> guy laid it out well, willie. he said that we're looking at a race right now that is pretty much in two tiers. what i mean by that, and what he said was, you have to first two who are -- it is pretty much a name id. people know joe biden, as we've talked about. vice president, uncle joe, very nostalgic way of the obama days. then you have bernie sanders, who ran a very incredible race in 2016. people remember that political revolution. then you have kind of the younger crowd that you're talking about, willie, who are talking about their vision, talking about how they're going to move this country forward. in particular, pete buttigieg, the youngest of them all. they're starting to surge, along with elizabeth warren, talking about policy. it is really still very early, and we're seeing some movement there. i've got to tell you, joe biden was given a gift yesterday by donald trump.

i mean, he got exactly what any democratic candidate would want, is a one-on-one in a general election with the man you're trying to beat. donald trump gave him that gift. we have to be careful. like i said, it's early. it is not a general election. it's a primary. we have a large field with really impressive people and diverse. one more thing i want to say that i haven't heard that i fear, that i'm really scared about, is donald trump is a desperate man. he knows that he is individual one, co-conspirator. democrats and republicans said if he wasn't president of the united states, he would be indicted right now. when you have a desperate individual like donald trump going into 2020, that's a scary, scary moment for us that's coming up in 2020. and he has a better operational campaign than he had in 2016. he has more than $100 million.

he raised tens of millions of dollars during the midterms, which is unprecedented for a president to do. so we are -- it is going to be a tight election in 2020. it is going to be incredibly nasty. >> let me counter that though. he may be a desperate man. he may be frightening to some. he's also very damaged. >> yeah, it's true. >> you can see it in his behavior. you can see it in his physical -- what he puts out physically. also, you know, the first time around, no one knew how to deal with him because no one knew what was coming. i mean, some of this stuff that he would say was just so out there that people were just caught flat footed because no one has ever seen anything like it before. we have dealing with this guy for years now. people are tired of it. people are tuning it out. people want to see the punch back. it's a different landscape for him. it is a lot scarier than it used to be. speaking of the very large

field, mark, your piece for the new issue of the "new york times" magazine is entitled "field of dreams." in it, you ask, how do you unite a democratic base and plot a strategy against trump? this is a quote, if there is something that unites the nearly two dozen democrats currently in the field, it is that no one really knows how this works. it is a cliche at this point to say that trump changed politics in 2016, and that everyone is still scrambling to understand the implications of his victory. no doubt trump humbled the experts and blew up notions of how politicians should behave and what voters would allow. he also ushered in a free for all mentality that might account, in part, for the why not me stampede on the democratic side. but focusing too much on trump misses the full degree to which uncertainty has become the overriding new norm in american life.

not just politics. our notions have changed about what it means to be viable, familiar, and authentic, as public actors. so, mark, give us a sense of the big field and who might fall off. there is also the concern that some of these candidates should be running for senate and working for the party as a whole. >> yeah, there is no doubt. you know, if you want to really get under the skin of beto o'rourke or steve bullock in montana or, let's see, john hickenlooper in colorado, you say, why aren't you running for senate? >> yeah. >> that is a good -- there is a large and unruly field, no question about it. i do think that it is not settled at all, that people know how to run against donald trump now. no one cracked the code four years ago. none of the republicans did. hillary clinton did not. even now, he hasn't been on the ballot yet. the democrats ran a focused race

in 2018 around issues. yes, oversight of donald trump was a very, very popular issue that a lot of them ran on, but it was not -- i mean, look, he was not on the ballot. i think to this point, it's not clear whether it's better to ignore, it's better to engage, how do engage negatively about him. do voters want to hear about your health care plan? do they want to hear about your tax plan? or do they want to hear you go after trump? i think there's a lot that has to be settled. donald trump, look, his lesson of 2016 is that in a big field, sticking out is rewarded. no one is better at sticking out than donald trump. in this case, joe biden has benefitted a great deal, largely from donald trump calling attention to him, you know, several times a week. >> one thing that occurs to me is i think there is a strategic or tactical impulse we're seeing on the part of the democratic voters that you don't typically see in primary eelections. you see it in the poll numbers

when you ask about the idea of electability. how do you electability when you look at the field? i get the sense that democratic voters are looking at these candidates and trying to ask themselves as they watch them on television, maybe watch them at events, how would this person look on stage against donald tru trump? how would these skills and attributes match up in a day to day media war with trump. look at elizabeth warren and the trajectory of his campaign. when she made that big move at the end of last year with the video, the dna test, she was making, i believe at that moment, a statement to democratic voters that, hey, look, this is how you take trump on. this is how you beat him. this is the style you need. you put it right back in his face. that episode, i think what was damaging to her in the moment, was that episode ended a couple days later with her apologizing. i think the lesson democrats in the moment took was, maybe from an electability standpoint, this isn't the right approach. warren six months later, i think

she is working herself back in the polls now to where she probably would have been all along if it hadn't had been for that. that moment is instructive. i said how democratic voters are sizing up the field. >> there are also, at least what we see, what we witness here looking at the candidates, especially the clip we played at the beginning of this segment, of the president of the united states going back and forth with joe biden, and joe biden going back and forth with donald trump. i'm wondering, in your reportage on this magazine piece, talking to so many of the candidates, how many of them are aware -- i assume all of them -- that this is, indeed, the highest form of political warfare, going up against donald trump, but how many of them are aware that he is there as president of the united states today because of what he got away with and what he gets away with still every single day? i mean, are they truly aware of that? >> they are fully aware of it. i think the democratic voters

are. i mean, there is not a lot of daylight between where the candidates are and where the voters are on the democratic side. i do think that there is a science to really going after trump in a very smart and systematic way. i talked to -- the last two democratic campaign managers, robby mook, running hillary's campaign, and then bluff in 2008. i talked to them, and there is a way to attack donald trump but sort of calling attention to his failures. when donald trump called pete buttigieg alfred e. newman, pete buttigieg immediately said, i had to google that. getting to the central message of, you know, demographic change. i'm the new generation. we don't know who newman is. when he said, i'd think he'd spend less time tweeting about me and more time about how he is skewing up his deal with china. there is a way to call attention to the fact that he is attacking you, but also pivoting back to

things that the president is very vulnerable on. i think democrats, at their peril, try to throw it all together and say, look, this guy is unfit. in fact, there are some very, very palpable and, you know, very, very tactile things you could focus on that democrats, i think, are slowly going to learn how to do. >> you know, guy cecil, there is a story that i remember reading about. i think it was in '68, might have been the '72 campaign. it was fascinating, and it was that scene down on wall street when the union people went out and they were protesting against nixon. protesting against republicans. some anti-war protesters got an american flag in the middle of the protest, set it on fire. they grabbed the flag, put the fire out, hoisted it up, and, you know, started shouting "usa, usa," or whatever the 1968 or '72 equivalent was. i always think about that

because, you know, a lot of articles, and i think i read a foreign affairs article a couple weeks ago, talking about how working class americans used to be the left's most loyal base. now, you have le pen in france. you have brexit in britain. you have donald trump in the united states. showing that's just not the case anymore. what happened over the past 40 years to make that remarkable transition happen, and what do democrats do to pull working class voters back? >> i think there's two pieces of it. first of all, working class, black americans and working class brown americans are a part of the democratic party base. i think it is important to separate out those two things. in terms of working class white americans, i think part of the challenge is that in many of the states that democrats had been competitive, there is another strain of thought, which is, this conservative, evangelical, christian nationalism that has

prev pervaded our politics and grew out of right-wing christian conservatives like the christian coalition who sought to do their very best with white evangelical christians to conflate nationalism with their faith. i think we're still dealing with a lot of the repercussions of that. you can see that in the polls. we focus a lot on the working class, but the reality is, one of the biggest indicators of whether someone is a donald trump supporter is whether or not they self-identify as a white evangelical. i think we have to recognize that's a really important challenge, not just for democrats but for the country. the second part is, democrats have done a particularly poor job over the last few years of talking about economic issues in a way that connects with all working class voters, whether they are white or black. the fact of the matter is, when you look at the 2016 election, it was too much about donald trump and about bringing america together and not enough about

how we can build an economy that works for everyone, whether you live in youngstown or milwaukee. in many respects, what we've done is overlearn the lessons from the obama campaign in '08 and 2012. they did remarkable work with analytics and looking at the dynamic of the electorate and doing amazing targeting work on television and radio. we've taken that and turned our party into a coalition of the aggrieved, where we each come with our one issue, our one idea, our one policy. we want to convince people that's the most important thing, rather than laying out one dynamic vision for the country that can lift everyone together. i think the more webetter we're be going into november of next year. >> the chairman of priorities usa, guy cecil, thanks very much for being on the show this morning. >> thanks. >> and mark, we'll be reading your piece for the "new york

times" magazine. great to have you both. still ahead on "morning joe." >> any plan, any thought about another meeting with kim jong-un? >> it could happen but i want to bring it further down the line. in the meantime, he's kept his word. there is no nuclear testing. there's no large, you know, long-range missiles going up. the only thing he sent up were very short-term, short-range. that was just a test of short-range. it is a whole different deal. he's kept his word to me. that's very important. again, the letter he sent was a beautiful letter, very warm letter. it is a very nice thing. i don't say that out of naivety. i say, it was a very nice letter. >> it was a beautiful letter. >> oh, my god. nothing to see here. nothing to see here, other than a dictator firing off rockets whenever he wants. the latest from that part of the world next on "morning joe." >> it's a beautiful letter.

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president trump has responded to a report in the "wall street journal" which says that kim jong-un's half brother, kim jong-nam, was a cia source who met on several occasions with cia operatives. nbc news has not confirmed the report. kim jong-nam was killed in february of 2017 when two women smeared his face with the banned and extremely toxic vx nerve agent in the airport at kuala lumpur in malaysia. pyongyang denies have been orchestrated the attack. yesterday, the president said he would not allow the cia to recruit spies close to kim jong-un. >> and i just received a beautiful letter from kim jong-un. i think the relationship is very well, but i appreciated the letter. the saw the information about the cia with respect to his

brother or half brother. i would tell him, that would not happen under my auspices, for sure. i wouldn't let that happen under my auspices. but i just received a beautiful letter from kim jong-un. i can't show you the letter, obviously, but it was a very personal, very warm, very nice letter. i appreciate it. >> [ inaudible question ]. >> i don't know anything about that. i know this, that the relationship is such that that wouldn't happen under my auspices. i don't know about that. nobody knows. >> i need to understand what the president just said. joining us now, former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, now an nbc news national security analyst, jeremy bash. he said he would not allow the cia to recruit spies close to kim jong-un. so what do you make of that statement? am i okay to be confused by it? >> let's put it as plainly as

possible, mika. the president of the united states wants to put the cia out of business. the business of the cia is to conduct human intelligence operations, to recruit human assets who have information about the capabilities and intents of hostile nations and hostile transnational organizations that threaten the united states. north korea has nuclear bomb fuel of about 20 to 50 nuclear bombs worth. they haven't dismantled that. they've twice flight tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. they haven't dismantled the icbm capability. they're flying missiles in violation of the u.n. security council resolutions. clear violation of the word they extensively gave our president both in singapore and at hanoi. the north korean regime poses a clear and present danger to the united states. the president says, hey, i'm not -- i don't want to offend them by conducting information gathering, by gathering intelligence to protect our country. something is seriously wrong here. >> hey, jeremy, it is willie.

we had ash carter, the former defense secretary sitting here about an hour ago. we asked him about the flattery that the president of the united states continues to offer kim jong-un, talking about the beautiful letters and that they fell in love and the rest of it. he said effectively, if i thought there was strategy behind that that was going to stop north korea's nuclear program, i might see a method to the madness. but he said, it is not clear to me that there is any strategy or that it is having any positive impact for the united states. >> there's no strategy. we know from people who are around the president at the last summit that the president didn't prepare for that summit. >> right. >> part of the preparation is reviewing intelligence reports, trying to discern exactly what position and posture the north korean dictator is going to take in those talks. the president wasn't prepared, so he got taken for a ride. now, he's being led down this path by the north korean dictator, by letters. maybe he likes the language, the flowery pros, the flattery, maybe the penmanship. who the heck knows?

i would trust the cia and our intelligence sources over the north korean dictator not just any day but every day. >> so, jeremy, i'm not going to ask you for an answer to my question, because i would doubt that anyone in washington has an answer. it's reflective of the president saying yesterday that he would not recruit anyone close to north korea under his auspices. it wouldn't happen. it goes to your prior answer about him trying to destroy the cia. also included in this package is the fact that he has given the attorney general of the united states pretty much carte blanche over the intelligence apparatus of this country and this bogus search that he has for, you know, who screwed him, in terms of putting together the investigation on russia. so the dni has to hand over stuff to the attorney general. the head of the cia has to turn over stuff to the attorney general. what are your thoughts about

what people talk about in washington about this aspect of this presidency? >> well, part of a pattern, mike. i mean, strike one was him standing next to putin in helsinki saying, i take the word of the former kgb spy master over the word of my own intelligence chiefs. second was as you noted, not just allowing attorney general barr to have access to intelligence information, but actually empowering barr to declassify, to publish the names of sources, the intelligence source and method information over the objection of the director of national intelligence, cia director and national intelligence director. strike three, he says i'm not going to engage in human intelligence gathering against adversaries, which is the purpose of the central intelligence agency. it is a key pillar of american defense. if you line up those three strikes, most people in the intelligence community are not just shaking their head but they're going to back out and say, we are out of here.

we are not doing this. >> i totally agree. jeremy, i have one more for you. the top diplomat for u.s. arms will be on capitol hill today facing lawmakers who are outraged by an $8 billion arms sale to saudi arabia that they did not get congressional approval for. just last month, the trump administration used emergency authority to sidestep congress to complete 22 separate arms sales to saudi arabia, the unite united arab emirates and jordan, citing a national security threat posed by iran. today, the house foreign affairs committee is expected to unveil four resolutions to block that order. much of the outrage comes after congress blocked arms sales in response to the murder of "washington post" journalist jamal khashoggi. last week, a bipartisan group of senators proposed nearly two dozen resolutions that would block the deal, but it's still unclear how many republicans

might break with the president and their party's leader. take a listen. >> i'm as offended as everyone else by the behavior of the saudis in the khashoggi case. on the other hand, i think fracturing the relationship we have with the saudis, one of our best allies against our iranian enemies, is important. regardless of which path it takes, i for myself am going to support the sale and, therefore, i will be voting against the resolution of disapproval. or sustaining the veto when it comes about. >> jeremy, your thoughts? >> well, there's a way to do this, mika, which is, we can maintain a security relationship with our gulf allies and partners, and we can also respect the will of congress or the prerogative of congress to review these critical defense exports. what the president has done is he's kind of done an end run around congress. i think it is better if the

white house works with congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle to try to get an accommodation here, an approach that doesn't undermine congressional authority. >> all right. jeremy bash, thank you very much. coming up, how speaker noho nancy pelosi says democrats aren't even close to backing impeachment. that may be good news for trump who doesn't want to be impeached but is fascinated with the "i" word. he calls it dirty. we'll have new reporting on that ahead on "morning joe." (indistinguishable muttering) that was awful. why are you so good at this? had a coach in high school.

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i am awfully tired of hearing that it's a 9/11 new york issue. al qaeda didn't shout, death to tribeca. they attacked america. and these men and women, their response to it is what brought our country back. it's what gave a reeling nation a solid foundation to stand back upon, to remind us of why this

country is great, of why this country is worth fighting for. and you are ignoring them. >> that is, of course, former daily show host, jon stewart, testifying before congress, where he called out lawmakers for failing to attend a hearing that would set up the fund, set up after the attacks, never runs out of money. >> behind me, a filled room of 9/11 first responders. in front of me, a nearly empty congress. shameful. it's an embarrassment to the country, and it is a stain on this institution. your indifference cost these men and women their most valuable commodity, time. it's the one thing they're running out of.

they responded in five seconds. they did their jobs. with courage, grace, tenacity, humility. 18 years later, do yours! >> if you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and watch all nine minutes of jon stewart's speech yesterday. the hearing was not slated to take place before the entire judiciary committee but, rather, a subcommittee of only 14 members. 2 of the 14 members were absent, both co-sponsors of the bill. mike barnicle, for as great a stand-up comedian as jon stewart was, as influential as the daily show was, this, to me, is his greatest legacy. this didn't start today. he's been working on this for years, sticking up for the first responders to 9/11, that so many politicians talk about on the anniversaries of 9/11, put out

tweets that say, hashtag, never forget. when it comes to taking care of them and their health, their families, taking care of the growing number of them, the number of first responders who die soon will exceed the number of people who were killed that day on september 11th. this, to me, is jon stewart's greatest legacy. >> well, willie, the headline right there, shameful, i mean, that speaks to part of what goes on with the renewal of this legislati legislation. obscene might be another adjective you could put on it. the idea that these men and women, first responders, have to go down to the house of representatives and literally beg for something that should be their right is obscene. we both know people who perished in those towers that day. we both know first responders who perished. the idea that they are not given their due. i understand, you know, the lack

of attention span today, with all the things we have, twitter and looking at our phones and everything like that. but maybe they should be shown the clips of what actually happened in the first 15 to 20 minutes of that horrific morning, september 11th. see who was rushing into the building. who they were helping out of the building. who stood in the pile, going through the debris for weeks, days, and months afterwards. the people who were there yesterday with jon stewart. the idea that congress can't take care of them is truly ab seen. >> and the good news is it looks like this will pass. the chair of the committee says this will pass hopefully today. the fact, as you say, that these men, many of whom will not be there at the next time because they will die from what they breathed in on that pile over those months. the fact that they have to go begging every single time is appalling, and it is disgraceful. i say god bless jon stewart for

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when people say, oh, chairman nadler is pushing pelosi on this, that's basically true or basically not true? >> well, nancy pelosi has said that all options are on the table. they are on the table, and when we get more information as this process continues, we'll have to make decisions down the road. house judiciary chairman jerry nadler who has pushed to open a formal impeachment inquiry was asked about his

disagreement with pelosi. she says the dems are not even close. she said they need answers regarding the mueller report. msnbc contributor ashley parker's new piece is about the i-word, impeachment. also, ezra levin, chairman of the co-group the individual project, which recently polled its membership and found that 80% want the house to begin an impeachment investigation. welcome to you both. >> ashley, let's start with you. donald trump obsessed with the i-word even if it doesn't mean he necessarily wants to be impeached, but talk about how this is playing out in his mind and playing out in his strategy for 2020. >> sure, so president trump is really hearing from two camps.

there is one camp and there is the larger camp that is telling him, you don't want to be impeached. that's absolutely crazy, it's grueling, it's brutal and it mars your presidency forever. it's an asterisk. then he's hearing from the other side of the people who aren't exactly pushing impeachment but they're saying, look, the silver lining is this would really benefit you politically. when we look into the data, we believe that democrats going after you would boost your approval ratings and reassure your reelection in 2020. so the president doesn't want to be impeached but he's intrigued. he's interested in how president clinton's numbers were increased and it backfired on republicans, and he wants to go after sore losers who just won't drop this witch hunt. >> donald trump's new book "i am impeachment curious." >> thank you, ashley, for this

great article. i'm assuming the reason why donald trump is worried about the i-word is that the house is now in the democratic hands, because he's essentially been running on impeachment, i feel like, for 18 months, for a really long time. is that the difference, is that the fear he has with nancy pelosi? >> well, what it really is, and this is why i tried to report this out, there was a theory that the president and the white house in general was trying to sort of double dog dare the democrats into impeaching him because he thought it would be good for him politically. and i can sort of say that's not the case. at the end of the day, the president does not want to be impeached. as of now he sort of believes he has the best of both worlds in the sense that he's not actually facing impeachment proceedings and all that entails, but he still does sort of in some ways get to run against impeachment and use the democratic chatter as a political weapon. so the real question, and it's a question that the white house concedes is out of their hands, it's up to the democrats, is

will there ever be a tipping point where speaker pelosi is under pressure with her members and actually has to go forward, and at that point is the president in real trouble? >> so 80% of people surveyed in your polls believe the white house should begin impeachment proceedings against president trump. nancy pelosi makes this point probably louder in private is that the impeachment would help president trump in 2020. he would like something that would be a dead end in the republican senate. how do you weigh that versus the number you found in your poll? >> great question, willie. i guess i find myself impeachment curious, too, because what we're talking about here is not impeachment itself. i think nancy pelosi is exactly right that we've got to find out more information, and there is a great way to do that. it's called impeachment proceedings. there is a reason why the

judiciary committee, jerry nadler as you pointed out here, is in favor of moving forward with impeachment proceedings. there is a reason why the house democrats on the judiciary committee want that. we need more information. so i think that's how we move the ball forward. that's how we educate the american public, is by putting on these impeachment proceedings, letting everybody know what exactly has gone on, getting more information so we can actually consider whether or not donald trump should be impeached. >> ezra levin, thank you very much. ashley parker, thank you as well for your reporting. still ahead, president trump is attacking joe biden, calling him mentally weak and claiming he lacks respect. but new polling shows the former vice president leads trump in a big way. >> he's trouncing him. >> we're going to look into those new numbers, plus the united states is planning to put

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kim jong-un, and that letter was a very nice letter. oh, would you like to see what was in that letter? how much, how much? that's the agreement that everybody says i don't have. i'm going to let mexico do the announcement at the right time. >> president trump obviously very excited about his love letters from dictators and secret agreements, especially the very secret agreements, and we'll find out actually if they're agreements or not, but anyway, good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, june 12, and we have nbc contributor mike barnicle. mr. kornacki will be with us this morning. a lot of holes and back and forth between donald trump and joe biden all day yesterday.

we'll tell you what it means. also, washington bureau chief from usa today, the matriarch susan page, and reporter mike nimily. so joe biden continues to maintain the lead according to the latest quinnipiac poll. 30% of democratic voters say they support the former vp, putting him 12 poin1 points ahe bernie sanders. 15% back senator elizabeth warren. she's up two points. mayor pete is up three. 7% support kamala harris, and 3% support beto o'rourke. beto will be with us later on

this morning. willie, you look at the poll, and so many of these polls seem to be breaking in one direction, and that is you've got your top tier, and your top tier is joe biden, bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. it really is starting to shape up. again, maybe it's poll position. i don't know exactly how early this will prove to mean anything, but you see joe biden taking the lion's share, but then you have bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, with elizabeth warren doing what we all thought she would do in the beginning, and that is cut into bernie sanders' massive support in the democratic party. >> it was probably inevitable that vice president biden would dip down a little bit with his astronomical numbers in the early days and weeks of his campaign. bernie sanders has kind of been holding steady, but you're

right, elizabeth warren is one that has come up to that top tier, mayor pete ticks somewhere below there. we talked about joe biden coming from that 40% space down to that 30% space. what strikes you as you look at that latest poll? >> i guess one thing that strikes me, too, when you take a step back and you realize there are 24 people right now seeking the democratic nomination, and you just got a handful who are registering at all in the polls right now. i think one of the things we've seen in the first six months of this year, there are a lot of candidates. it's been difficult for anybody to break through out of that top group. buttigieg got in there, kamala harris, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders. nobody registers after that. there is an opportunity coming up for them. when you look at joe biden, it's sort of in a holding pattern right now. it's a question of what does joe biden look like, what does he sound like, what messages does he have, what response does he

have for his opponents when he gets on that debate stage in a couple weeks. as soon as that debate ends, as soon as he's off the stage, he accelerates. we're expecting his campaign schedule soon, and what do you get in a day-to-day campaign from joe biden? i was watching from afar these events he did in iowa. you saw him at the podium reading from his text, looking down at prepared remarks, looking down at his notes. very subdued. seemed in some ways not a very zestful performance. then i looked up an hour later and he walked away from the podium at the next event. he's looking into the crowd. he's walking, sort of pacing the room right there. that's the joe biden i remember from past campaigns. that's the joe biden, i think, who could tap into that very vast goodwill that exists from democratic voters. >> maybe so, and that seems to me to be a pretty good formula for joe biden, actually reading

notes at the lectern, staying on script at the lectern, and then when he goes out in the crowd shaking hands, connects in a powerful way. that's probably his best path forward. but mike barnicle, a lot of people will love to dismiss polls that are coming out in the summer of 2019 saying, oh, it's not going to have any big impact. but let me tell you something. when the next sec filings are dropped, then you will know if it makes a difference. if you're sitting at 1%, if you're sitting at 2%, good luck getting the 35, 40, $45 million you need to survive to iowa. you just won't do it. pretty soon we're going to see that these polls actually do matter. >> they do, joe, and it's really striking what steve pointed out, because i think a lot of people noticed that joe's presentation yesterday reading off the notes,

and an hour and a half later out in the crowd speaking contemporaneously. it was almost two different joe bidens, and at the end of the day, you see the joe biden you recognize. back to raising money in the polls now. in speaking to a lot of democrats in the past few days, a lot of people are struck by a couple things. elizabeth warren's rise in the polls and her intensity in terms of issuing, i've got a plan. it's really taken hold, and bernie sanders, as we've indicated over the past few weeks, but the phrase i hear repeatedly, and steve, i don't know if you hear this, is what has happened to kamala harris? she came out of the gate like wildfire and seems to have stalled and is frozen at 7% and can't move from there. >> yeah, and it's interesting, the harris strategy, too, there was news that the campaign was

getting ready to move to iowa aggressively. they plan to try to lead the numbers in iowa, the caucus state, and there is a fear with harris that's always been there, it's sort of like the obama path back in 2008. there is a slingshot effect from iowa, exceeding expectations in iowa that could change everything in south carolina overnight. that's what happened with obama 12 years ago that has existed in theory for kamala harris, but you're right, look, elizabeth warren lately has been getting a lot of attention. before that it was buttigieg. in between you had the biden launch and she's been squeezed out lately. >> kamala harris, like many of these democrats, is doing very well in a head-to-head matchup with president trump. that new q poll shows warren trailing behind biden, sanders

and harris. bernie sanders beats trump by nine points in the poll, elizabeth warren by 7 points. cory booker leads the president by 7 points. people who view trump favorably in the poll, 42% approve of the president's job performs, 42 give him credit f-- 41% give hi for a good economy and 41% approve his mexico policy. joe biden is a 40%-41% president. >> he is, and leading up to the midterms when democrats were so concerned, everybody was so concerned, it was important to remember that despite all the

sound and the fury, despite all the tweets, despite the daily controversies, you had to focus on the fact that donald trump was a 40% president. that meant 6 in 10 americans did not agree with donald trump and what he was doing in his presidency. that, of course, in the midterms that led to the biggest vote total route in the history of the united states of america for democrats against republicans. and susan page, you look at the president here and he's sitting at 40, 41, 42%. you can go back, you can see everything that he has done, you can see everything that he has said since january 20th, 2017 when he did his american carnage speech, and you can see that all of his words and all of his deeds and all of his actions have been focused on one thing, solidifying his base. well, congratulations, mr. president. you've got 40%.

and that's all you've got, right? >> you know, it's in some ways a sign of the president's strength that he has had 40% support regardless of what he's done. those are people who have been with him from the start and are likely to be with him forever. the question is that the ceiling is 42% for president trump. if your ceiling is 42%, the only way you win the presidency is in a three-way race. not impossible to have a three-way race, but if we have a two-way race, you're not going to win with 42%. if you look at the stability of president trump's level of support, look where joe biden's advantage comes in this quinnipiac poll. it's interesting. trump and biden are tied among white voters. they are tied among male voters. those are the groups that delivered the presidency to donald trump last time around, and the reason that i think the white house is so focused on biden is because of how competitive joe biden is with

those particular voter groups. still ahead, much more on presidential politics. joe's new column in the "washington post" is sending a clear message to joe biden. stick to the script. we'll talk about that next on "morning joe." about that next "morning joe." when i was diagnosed with breast cancer, i went straight to ctca. after my mastectomy, i felt like part of my identity

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welcome back to "morning joe." in a new op-ed for the "washington post "washington post "washington post," joe wrote this. president trump drew poise from editorial writers and thought leeds across the political spectrum for a d-day address that temporarily soothed the nerves of nato allies and

foreign policy analysts alike. forgive democrats for being less than impressed by their nemesis's reading skills. but they should not forget that their ability to dislodge the old donald from 1600 pennsylvania avenue next year may depend upon a certain scranton, pennsylvania native doing the same. considering that joe biden, the democrats' best hope for 2020, has a checkered past as a candidate for national office, his supporters can only hope that when the former vice president gets on stage, he smiles for the crowd, reads his speech and exits stage left, waving as he goes. that is because biden has proved himself uniquely challenged in going off script, taking 20 minutes to answer a question and causing himself and his staff unnecessary political grief. if you think i am trying to send biden a message with this column, you are correct. too much is riding on next year's election for any democratic candidate to shoot from the hip rhetorically.

america's future will likely be left in the hands of whichever 70-something politics sticks most closely to the script that is handed to him. it wouldn't hurt him to do that, while with trump you see a glaring difference from being in front of the cameras with the crosses in form annormandy behi talking to laura ingram, calling people's names, and then wa-- p then walking up to the podium and reading a script. it was almost jarring. >> we would be shocked if the president stuck to scripts that are handed to him for the most part. i made ai napoleon quote when everyone else is going crazy. mike nemily, there are a lot of

people who support joe biden bhwho have talked to me, and i'm sure talked to you and all of us off camera, my god, i hope he sticks to the script. i hope he doesn't start rattling off things that are off message. stick to the script, look down, read your notes and then you can shake hands with people and be the old joe when you get out in the audience. >> yeah, joe, i think what the past week and a half has shown us is that the only person who can disqualify joe biden is joe biden himself. i was talking the other day with one of the other democratic presidential hopefuls who was in iowa this weekend at that dinner where you had more than -- i think it was 19 candidates speaking. his read of the room was that the democrats who went after joe biden actually hurt because of that, that the room turned against them when they went after joe biden. we also saw yesterday the president playing into the biden

campaign strategy. the president's attacks on joe biden only elevate joe biden when his campaign's primary focus has been about his electability argument. so what we did see yesterday in the three events, what joe biden did yesterday, his strongest event was perhaps the last event of the day when he was on the teleprompter. i've been covering a lot of the biden events so far and his performance hasn't been as strong when he's reading from notes, he does better when he's reading extemporaneously, but he's stronger in a room full of democrats and when he's reading from the teleprompter. the challenge, of course, is going to be in this debate when other candidates go after him and his record which he's very proud of. will he have the discipline to brush those attacks off? that's the biggest question, i think, heading forward. >> all right, mike, thank you so much. we really appreciate you being with us. of course, nobody has better insights of joe biden on the campaign trail than you.

we appreciate you being with us this morning. coming up, we look at other headlines this morning. some startling news when prot t protesters are clashing with police. and one suspect is staring down jail time today. more on that next on "morning joe." more on that next on "morning joe. everyone's got to listen to mom. when it comes to reducing the sugar in your family's diet, coke, dr pepper and pepsi hear you. we're working together to do just that. bringing you more great tasting beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all. smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels and reminders to think balance. because we know mom wants what's best. more beverage choices, smaller portions, less sugar. balanceus.org

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welcome back. here's a look at some of the other stories we're following this morning. riots in hong kong continued to erupt as police used tear gas on demonstrators who attempted to storm the city's government buildings. armed with bricks and bottles, the protesters clashed with riot police who used batons, pepper spray and rubber bullets to suppress the demonstrators in the city's downtown. the political unrest comes in a backlash over a bill that would allow people facing trials in mainland china to be extradited. the legislative council's vote was scheduled for today but has since been moved to next week

amid the ongoing clashes. a former stanford university sailing coach is expected to be the first person sentenced in the college admissions scandal today. john van demoore pleaded guilt toy to racketeering and fraud services for accepting $610,000 in bribe money for the university's sailing program in return for falsely qualifying three students for admission. my god. van de moore did not pocket the money himself, and his plan ultimately failed when the students did not attend stanford. prosecutors will ask for 13 months behind bars at his sentencing hearing this afternoon. that's according to the boston globe. and as for some actual athletes, the u.s. women's team defeated thailand with a

permanent record 13-nil victory yesterday. seven u.s. women found the back of the net, including the final score by alex morgan as team usa finished with 39 shots, 10 corners and 79% possession in the blowout. congratulations. >> mike barnicle, you always complain that soccer is a 1-0 sport. that's incredible. sure, they missed an extra point after their second touchdown, but 13 to nothing, pretty impressive. >> let me ask you, have you ever heard of such a huge disparity in a score in a soccer game? >> not even close. coming up on "morning joe," the death of politics. keith warner is writing about how to hale a fractured public. that conversation is just ahead. we'll be right back. l be right .

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. if you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them. i will pay the legal fees, i promise. go home to mommy. bye. we're not allowed to punch back anymore. i love the old days. you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were at a place like this? they would be carried out on a stretcher, folks. i'd like to punch him in the face, i tell you. >> we've got a lot of great people here -- >> joe, what are you going to do about killing babies? >> what i'm going to do is -- >> no, no, that's okay. no, no, this is not a trump rally. let him go. tell you what, i promise i'll answer your question. come on up. come on over here and we'll do this after this is over, okay? i promise i'll sit with you. >> wow. joe biden dealt with a protester

during one of his campaign stops in iowa yesterday, purposefully contrasting his behavior with the president's. joining us now, "new york times" contributing opinion writer keith werner. also with us, columnist and deputy editorial page editor at the "washington post," ruth marcus. >> pete, thank you so much for being with us. your book is fascinating, certainly fascinating to me, buzz like myself you grew up conserve ti conservative and republican and evangelical. i grew up in the baptist church. and getting elected four times because of their support. now support a president who i believe has not only damaged the republican party and the conservative movement but also to the church. >> yeah, i agree. i think that the damage that donald trump has done and his

supporters being such ferocious defenders of him to the civic and cultural fabric of the country is enormous. and evangelicals, of all the people who have rallied support for donald trump, the evangelicals to me are the most heartbreaking. not because i didn't understand their decision, i appreciate the fact they were conservative and they thought his agenda was better, the fact that they've degraded themselves in the movement so badly in this has been a very, very difficult thing, and it's a warning of what can happen in politics when it goes wrong. i've got a chapter in the book on faith and politics on what's gone wrong, but also what we have to do to make it right. >> you know, two people that unfortunately seem to typify the views and, i think, unfortunately, the lost direction of many evangelical leaders are the sons of billy

graham and jerry falwell. >> that's exactly right. >> it is breathtaking the hypocrisy of what they say today compared to what they were saying in 1989 when bill clinton was not morally fit to even walk into the oval office, according to them. >> that's exactly right. they took 2x4s against bill clinton. back then character mattered. today it doesn't. so there is the hypocrisy, but it's even beyond that, joe. it's the fact they're standing for a person who is an embodiment of the kind of cruelty and dehumanization we never really seen in a president before. and to have the evangelical movement, followers of jesus, proclaimed followers of jesus, to act that way and to rally around a man who not only doesn't stand for the christian ethic, but for a meacham ethic. the rise in power is stunning to see and they seem blind to it. whether they are deep in their

hearts or not, i don't know, but it is a cautionary tale about the temptations of power and what it can do to people and what it can do to a movement. a movement, by the way, which over the history of the country, has done great good. some of the great movements, the anti-slavery movement, the anti-segregation movement, were movements that were born in christian churches and given so much moral power. martin luther king jr. is one example. there are a lot of others. >> you know, pete, i told this story to some friends. i'm not sure i said it on tv, but in my mother's funeral, there was someone i grew up with in the first baptist church of pensacola when, while i was shaking hands with people who were consoling me because of the loss of my mother, these people said to me that they were praying for my soul, that i had lost my soul. i said, really, why do you say that? they said because you're critical of donald trump. i was so shocked because, first of all, to do that at my

mother's funeral from an old friend, but secondly, i just said to her, i said, poor thing. i'm praying for your soul. have you not read the attitudes lately? have you not read "sermon on the mount"? go to one of those b attitudes and tell me one that does not apply to donald trump. just this blank stare. but it's almost a robotic mindset that everything they grew up reading in the gospels now does not apply to their life since a guy named donald trump got into politics. >> it's a great point and a powerful anecdote. i've had my own versions and variations of that. very close friends of mine that told me they're worried i'm disgracing the gospel because of my criticisms of evangelicals. it's a symptom of, i think, joe, and you've probably experienced this, too. one, it's a sense of a lot of fear that the evangelicals have

which is performed into anger and grievance. and it's also a sense that i've heard from a lot of people some variation, some christian, some not, but they're supporters of trump. and it is that they believe this is an existential and an apocalyptic struggle. they believe if a democrat wins the white house, if democrats win control of congress that the country they love will be lost, the faith will be destroyed, and that is creating a lot of very, very dangerous sensibilities and actions. and, you know, if you believe that's the stakes and the struggle, you make deals with the devil to defeat satan, that is so wrong-headed, but i think that explains some of what's going on. i try to deal with that in the book. >> yeah, and you know, willie, i certainly understand -- what pete just said, we grew up, our parents grew up believing in the late '60s and the '70s that our culture was under siege, our

faith was under siege, our political beliefs were under siege, america was under siege, and that really is what shaped so many of our lives as we were growing up. but jim garrity in the national review said, boy, for a faith under siege, america sure is funny. abortions at record low, divorce rates plummeting like never below, and 70% of americans identifying themselves as a christian. for a christian nation under siege, that certainly is an interesting state of affairs. >> kind of a lame siege, isn't it? as you and pete have been -- >> they're losing. >> as you and pete have been talking, i've been thinking about a line that you and i have both heard a lot over the last couple years from evangelical friends who said, look, we elected a president, not a saint. we're willing to sort of look the other way and swallow some of the things we've seen out of donald trump, a guy who under any other circumstances if he weren't donald trump, if he

weren't a republican, we would be appalled by his behavior publicly and privately based on what we know about his having affairs with porn stars and everything else. but i'm curious, pete, as i look at the title of your book, "how to heal our frayed republic after trump," i believe one of the core questions, when donald trump looefeaves the white hous a couple years or sinx years, whenever that is, how do we stitch it back together? how do we get the corners who have been fighting for six years to come back together? >> it's a great question, and it's one i've heard from a lot of people. maybe it is a simple question we face and i try to untangle that in the book. let me tell you what i think is part of the answer. i believe christians create their own antibodies, and sometimes in the life of a vigil and the life of a country that

there are certain advantages you take for granted, and when they're stripped from you, you suddenly realize why they're important to begin with. then i begin to fight for them and make the case for them. i think that's ultimately what we're going to have to do. we're going to have to figure out for ourselves that politics matters. if you love your country, you can't have contempt for politics. part of what politics is about is how we engage with one another, how we treat one another, and right now this is an age of anger, of rage, of tribalism, of animosity, but we have it within our power to change that. the whole history of america is a history of movements and counter-movements, of setbacks and steps forward. we've had harder times in america. jon meacham and i were talking earlier about what history reminds us. we had the civil war, we had the late 1960s and 1970s. there have been harder times in america. we need political leadership to

rise up but we have to take on the citizenship. one thing joe knows more than any of us, the political system is responsive to the people. one person acting alone can't do much. but a lot of people acting together create a political culture and a civic culture. i will say very quickly the fact that donald trump is as low in the polls as he is given the economic conditions is a sign that people are pushing back, and i see a lot of signs of people trying to take back the country they love. >> you know, there are so many things, pete, just the constitution is such a remarkable document and has grown into such a remarkable document, even more so over the past 240, 250 years after we got past many of our original sins, but, you know, ruth, one thing pete just said that was so moving is that we do self-correct. the viruses do create their own antibodies. anybody who has listened to this show more than one day gets sick

and tired of me talking about what happened in 2004 and 2006 and 2008 and 2010. every two years over the past 12 years, americans have corrected the mistakes, the overreaches of the left, the right, and of donald trump. and there is no reason to believe they will not do that again in another year. >> i think that's a really important insight, and we've seen it time after time in different branches of government when we have a president who is flawed in one direction, voters tend to pick a president who is -- every president has flaws that's in a different direction, so you have richard nixon followed by jimmy carter -- gerald ford followed by jimmy cart. the supreme court, i'm writing a book about justice kavanaugh, so i've been thinking a lot about the frayed senate institution and our frayed country.

it's a little about a gyroscope. it steadies itself when it gets too far in one direction, even with changes. the thing that worries me, because donald trump is both a cause of our fraying and a symptom of our fraying, we wouldn't have gotten him if we weren't kind of pre-frayed, to use pete's word, is whether that self-correcting mechanism in american politics and american government has limits. i really hope so, but i'm just not certain. >> you know, pete, the subtitle of your book, "how to heal our fractured republic," we saw an example of that leading into the segment with joe biden and the protester at his rally. but is a part of healing our fractured republic the ability to place things in context? i mean, in 1963 -- this week in

1963, medgar rivers was shot and killed, assassinated in mississippi. the evening that john f. kennedy gave the speech which literally became the civil rights bill of '64-'65. last month, 50 years ago in 1969, hamburger hill occurred, an iconic battle in vietnam, a waste of american lives. the context of all these things we've been through, we have been through and survived and prospered through, arguably, more difficult times. >> no, that's a great point, mike. the book is about ideas, but it's also a book about stories, the great stories in america, great figures in america. i actually end the book -- it's one of my favorite speeches, you'll remember it. i'm a huge fan of bobby kennedy's speeches. i used to go to the library in washington and listen to bobby kennedy's speeches. i think my favorite bobby kennedy speech is the university

of capetown. >> south africa. >> yeah. he was in south africa. it was a five-day visit. it was an extraordinary visit because it was a senator. he gave a beautiful speech. in fact, the words are at arlington cemetary etched in stone. it's his ripples of stone speech. he talks about if a person stands up against injustice and strikes out against indecency, how that creates ripples and those ripples together create currents and those currents can wipe out the mightiest walls of oppression. that was south africa in 1966 and it worked and apartheid was defeated. we're not 1966 south africa. we're not in a period of apartheid. we have challenges. but we have it within ourselves to correct them. sometimes in my conversations with people, they speak as if

our political maladies is a term cal illness, there's nothing we can do about it. one of the things i say in my book is we have to shake out the cynicism, we have to shake out the fatalism, and we have to retain the country we love. politics matters. it's a complicated profession. it has its down sides. everybody here knows about that. but finally and fundamentally, politics is about justice. and you can't be indifferent to politics because politics is about human lives. if you get your politics wrong, there is a huge human cost. so much of what you love and care for can be swept away, and if you get your politics right, you can create the conditions for human flourishing and human dignity. we have to do that because there is a lot at stake. we don't have the luxury of sitting back and giving up. >> you know, ruth, it's very interesting you used the term gyroscope. it reminds us every time walter isackson comes on the show,

he'll talk about how albert einstein was so intrigued by the gyroscope that sat at the center of american politics that always righted the ship, that always steadied the course. and as pete says, it has in so many times for difficult and challenging these days. mike was talking about the early '70s. oftentimes 50 young boys would be killed in vietnam and sent home in coffins. 50 a day. we've been through more difficult times than these, and that gyroscope does always right the ship, doesn't it? >> it always has. i remember so vividly being a child in the '60s and what a scary moment that was in american politics, and the series of terrible assassinations and the killings

at kent state and the eruptions on college campuses and the fury. we do tend to forget, as everyone has been saying, that we have lived in more difficult times and that we have a system that is perfectly designed, or at least well designed, to keep us in that -- from toppling over too far. but we do have forces that we need to contend with at the same time, forces of social media and technology that do risk -- i wonder, you know, the gyroscope is a marvel of a certain kind of technology, but i wonder about the modern technology, and we probably need einstein here to explain what happens when those two forces collide. >> ruth marmarcus, thank you so much. pete wehner, thank you to you

also. up next, pete buttigieg takes on the president and democrats. we'll talk about that coming up. after we knowyourvolume.com, we are celebrating our fathers, all of our dads. and i'm remembering moments like these. he's co-hosting. >> i'm hyper vent lating. >> good morning. are y are you still a good girl? >> i am. that's what he always says. >> what are you wearing, dad? he's going to the serengeti next. >> i'm sitting here in this ice box. if you were sitting here, you would be wearing a fur coat. >> oh, my goodness. >> he was a challenge and fantastic. ahead of father's day we're focusing on the men who supported us, raised us, kept us

going through thick and thin. for me, i take a really personal look at the moments in my life that my father was really there for me. how he give me courage, strength and inspiration to get through mft most challenging times and personal disappointments and failures. >> by the way, the article you wrote so moving. i hope people will stop and read about how much your father -- how much your father loved you and how he was always there for you. >> we're also going to have a piece, you and willie, talk about your dads as well. go to knowyourvolume.com to read my piece. we also want to hear about your father's too. send me your stories at know your value@nbcui.com. i want to hear them all. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah, and now business is rolling in.

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current president, the united states hardly has a foreign policy at all. unless that seems like a partisan jab, i should acknowledge for the better part of my life time it's been difficult to identify a consistent foreign policy in the democratic party either. >> that is mayor pete buttigieg at indiana university yesterday outlining his views on foreign policy while taking a swipe at his open party. president trump meanwhile will meet with the polish president at the white house today to unveil a deal that will bolster u.s. military presence in poland. one senior trump administration official called it a significant anoupsment that will strengthen the u.s. commitment to nato. joining us now, the consul general of poland, it's very good to have you on the show, sir. i guess first of all explain to you how you think these developments with poland will help ultimately with the american relationship with nato.

>> well, first of all, poland forms a very important part of nato, so-called eastern part, as the late president of poland and russia moved on with aggressive actions to ukraine, we were weak anticipated. so we're playing catch-up in nato. strerpgenning poland is strengthening the whole reegion of nato. a week before coming to d.c. it was introduced the framework of the agreement and stoneburg was very clear saying the more american troops in europe, it's good for nato and it's good for all of europe. so the security link between the united states and europe is vital and continues to be vital. the united states is still the sole guarantor of security in europe. >> it's very interesting, donald trump has been skeptical of american troops going overseas,

but this poland move actually does make an awful lot of sense. poland is, as you said, the eastern flank of nato and is really sort of the tip of the sphere. is president trump and are the people of poland trying to send a message to russia that further aggression in the east and eastern europe is a nonstarter? >> absolutely. as i said, we started with our own president, late president-elect in 2008 when he was with the russian troops standing right outside the capital of georgia, he said look, now it's georgia. a few years later it will be ukraine, maybe later the baltics and then maybe poland, maybe my home country. so we're very, very glad finally we'll have those troops present. yes, this is a signal, this is a signal that western europe does not end in germany. the borders of the west shift a little more to the east and that enduring presence of american

troops and the president signed agreement today, will ensure and send a very clear signal to russia, i'm sure. >> you know, willie, during the crisis many people around the table were asking the crisis in the ukraine invasion of crimea were asking what in the world barack obama could do, and some suggested actually send more american troops to poland. for every troop sent to the ukraine, send an american troop to poland, not to be productive, but just to show vladimir putin that if he was trying to flex his muscles for support at home, it was going to backfire. >> that's why we're expecting today, and perhaps you can shed some light on this, there may be more an thousand american troops send into poland. there has been talk about request from poland a permanent army base built there, the president suggesting it could be called ft. trump perhaps.

do you expect this prinesence t continue to grow beyond today? >> yes, this is the beginning of the process. it was very clear the president in an interview a few days ago this is the beginning of an open of a new cycle. there's a commitment american troops will stay and continue to stay at an increased fashion, so quantitatively we're talking about enhancing various capacities for american troops as far as nato in poland but those discussions will follow. the presidents today will hopefully sign the joint collaboration and also a framework agreement with components of what that mines. symbolic for trump is basically a code word for a large qualitative increase of that american presence. and in the months to come, not years but months to come, there will be more working group level discussions between the minister of defense and advisers of president's chan

president's chancellory on both sides to hammer out details and set the path forward even more. >> given the activism of put anticipate's governme putin's government over the recent past, has the presence of the american people changed? >> can you repeat that? >> given putin's activism and danger he presents with russia, has the view of the united states among the polish people, has it changed? has it altered? >> the people of the united states among polish people given putin's actions? poland has always counted on the united states as i said, the united states remains the sole guarantor of security in europe. so pol's were always very clean to have american presence in europe. this is a bipartisan issue. so when poland looks at the united states, it doesn't look at just one administration or the other. president sandberg said this is the politics at america's edge. bipartisan is within the

longstanding framework and put anticipate's actions and russian's action prove it is to the mutual benefit of both countries and both continents. so i don't think fundamentally nothing changed but i think it increased the urgency in the eyes of the polish citizens of some concrete steps and measurable steps that now translates into hopefully will be an increased presence of the american troops in poland. >> the consul general of poland, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. that does it for us. stechny ru ste stephanie rules pic stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage now. thank you. we have a lot to get to this morning, including the senate intelligence committee back to question donald trump jr. behind closed doors again. and the committee laser-focused on the one very clear thing robert mueller said