thanks to you for watching. that does it for our hour of nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with my friend kasie hunt in for chuck. if it's monday, president trump fires the pollsters whose polls he said didn't exist. the president's problems piling up as he gets ready to launch his re-election. plus, elizabeth warren surging in some polls, and both the president and joe biden are reportedly worried. and national security officials are reportedly concerned the president can't be trusted with national security when it comes to russia. if it's monday, it's "meet the press" daily. i'm kasie hunt in for chuck todd in washington. right now as the president gets ready to kick off his 020 campaign amid leaked polls

showing him in big trouble in key states. nine of the democrats looking to defeat him next year, including joe biden, elizabeth warren and kamala harris are speaking today just a few miles from the white house. we are going to have more on the democrats and elizabeth warren's surge in the polls in just a bit. but we start tonight with the president's problems. just a day before he officially launches his re-election campaign, we are already seeing signs of major turbulence. over the weekend we learned the trump campaign is firing some of its pollsters after internal polling from march leaked to the press. those leaked polls show the president trailing joe biden by double digits in virginia, minnesota, and maine. states that hillary clinton won in 2016. but also in michigan, north carolina, georgia, iowa, and ohio, all states that trump won three years ago. that internal polling also showed biden with a double-digit lead in wisconsin, pennsylvania,

and florida. also states the president won in 2016. the trump campaign, of course, downplayed the polls in statements to nbc news. first as old news, and then by saying that, quote, all news about the president's polling is completely false, which echos what the president told abc's george stephanopoulos. >> even your own polls show you're behind now, don't they? >> no. my polls show that i'm winning everywhere. >> we have all seen these reports that out of 15 of 17 states, you spent 2 million on a poll and you're behind. >> nobody showed you those polls because those polls don't exist, george. but i just had a meeting with somebody that's a pollster, and i am winning everywhere. >> those internal polling numbers are not the only red flag for the president. his approval rating stands at just 44%. in the new nbc news wall street journal poll which also found

that 52% of all votes, more than half, say that they are very uncomfortable about voting for him in 2020. and the president trails five democratic candidates in a potential head-to-head matchup according to a new fox news poll. with me now nbc's ali vitali. she also of course covered the trump campaign in 2016. with me here on set are juana summers, michael steel, former advisor to jeb bush. and howard fineman, msnbc news analyst. it's great to have you all on board this evening. michael, i'm going to start with you just because there are a few people that you have probably worked with in your professional life in the past who are involved in doing these polls for the president. clearly they were leaked for a reason. clearly, the president is not telling the truth when he says none of it exists.

it very much does exist. what is the purpose, if you're behind the scenes on a campaign like this, was this an attempt to send a warning sign to the president to get him to take this seriously? >> yeah, i think so. almost every incumbent president comes into their re-elect cold. they are used to being listened to, they are used to not having to fight the way they did in the first place. i think trump thinks he can get through this by coasting, and he's going to be in real trouble if he doesn't start laying out a positive vision for his next term, right? he's got to be able to say i'm going to build on tax reform, i am going to build on deregulation. rather than offering four more years of the same rancor and chaos that we've seen for the past several years. >> howard, do we think that the president is going to take these numbers seriously? >> well, i don't think horse race numbers mean a whole lot right now. but other types of numbers do. for example, one that says in

recent polls that four out of five americans consider healthcare the most urgent problem. and that's true especially, i would argue in a lot of the swing states that he's going to have to win, because of the healthcare needs of the people there. the fact that donald trump has now muttered the idea that he wants to do something big about healthcare, i think shows that somehow they penetrated and said you better get this, as mike was saying, better get something positive and forward-looking to say here, especially on the number one issue that the democrats are debating and that he is nowhere involved in at this point. >> i'm not sure republicans on capitol hill want to touch that with a 10-foot poll. >> i know they don't, but he needs to. he needs to have a plan, which he doesn't. >> and i know you've been out on the trail with many of these democrats, and there is actually a new fox news poll out that shows in a head-to-ed, and howard i take your point on it

being very early. we have biden versus trump. biden plus 10. sanders versus trump, sanders plus 9. harris and interestingly pete buttigieg edging him out as well in a situation where the argument is elect yabltd, this would seem to indicate that perhaps there is no electability to go around than perhaps we assumed. >> absolutely. and that's what i found so interesting. particularly if you talk about former vice president joe biden, his theory of the case so far has been that he is uniquely qualified to take on trump and that trump is kind of an aberration that things would kind of go back to they were. then you have this whole bunch of candidates who say they are campaigning on the theory that there needs to be an overhaul of the system that reverting to the status quo isn't enough, and i'm

really curious to see which one of those competing visions go more towards. >> this has been the news that we have been focused on. what's your sense of how, you know, whether these numbers that show potentially other democrats besides so biden could beat donald trump. is that bad news for joe biden? >> reporter: well, it certainly cuts into his main armtd that he is the candidate who can go toe to go with trump exclusively and win. and so i think that what we're seeing, though, in terms of how these democrats are painting the picture for themselves, they are trying to make the electability argument elizabeth warren, for example, is going to redder states. amy klobuchar is making the argument that she has won in a kind of purple state herself. so they are making it in their own way. but i think the thing that really strikes me is that joe biden is someone who is putting the electability argument first and then filling in the policy, whereas the other candidates

seem to be talking substance and then making the electability argument. and so it seems that the biden -- but obviously other democratic campaigns have to make a larger case because they don't have the kind of name idea that joe biden has as a former vice president. i will say that your panel makes a great point about the idea of trump needing to put something positive into the messaging stream. but when i was out with him on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016, it wasn't a positive spin on here's what i can do for you. it's here's what i can stop happening. it's i can turn back progressive policy pushes in washington. it's i can help stop immigration, i can build the wall. so it's not necessarily that he's putting forth a positive policy structure. it's just a question of can he do what he did in 2016 and 2018, which was, frakly, mobilize voters in a fear-tactic kind of way. >> and i think joe biden needs a health care policy, too. he needs to put some flesh on the bones if he's going to get

in that discussion you are talking about between mere electability and substance. at some point they have to join together, and that's a big challenge for joe biden because if ali's right and trump is strictly going to run a tear-them-down campaign, then the things that democrats put forth are really going to matter. >> and, michael steel, it seems as though the president himself and, you know, if you really dig into some of these numbers, there is some concern that they are losing an enthusiasm edge with their hard-core base. it seems like the strategy is not necessarily to have these big ideas on these big issues but rather to double down on all the things ali was talking about. >> and i think one of the things we have to remember is to a certain extent, only joe biden is very well known. you're sort of seeing numbers that are right now a generic democrat versus donald trump, and donald trump has the next 15 months to tear down, you know, the democrat whose name -- and

that's his only real strategy. he's done nothing over the past several years to increase his support. he polls right in the mid-40s on every poll you ever take. so he's got to make the democrat unacceptable to the voters in the middle there. >> yeah. i mean, our latest data shows that his approval rating is essentially unchanged. for instance, february of 2017, his approval rating was 44%. in june 2019, it is 44%. now his disapproval rating went from 48% to 53%. and our friends at first read note that, you know, the good news for trump is that of course a lot can change in 500 days, as howard has made that point. and back in april of 2011, only 43% of voters said that they would probably vote for barack obama. so, of course, there is the reality that all of these numbers can change really fast. does trump, does he prefer to run as the underdog? is it almost better for him if

everyone thinks he's going to lose. >> well, i think that michael made a really great point that or you had suggested that this could maybe jolt him into action and not getting out there on the campaign trail. i think we certainly saw him really relish being the underdog and the fighter and the person nobody expected to win in 2016 i remember covering all of those debates where he kind of surprised the media, and i think the country with his rise. i think that's a position he is comfortable in. but i question whether or not he could run the same -- as opposed to being a billionaire businessman who came in and crashed the political scene. >> he's going to be selling himself as the underdog regardless because he'll always have the evil conspiracy of the fake news, if nothing else, against him. and he will always be trying to sell that to his people. he's got two choices here, and i think he will try to do both. number one, he's gotta get the equivalent from tertiary recovery out of his own voters.

he's got to sow. but i do think it's significant that it passed across his mind today that he has to say something about health care. you know, with trump, his moods matter, and the fact that he said that, i think is significant. it's dawned on him that he's got to get in that ball game at least. >> ali vitali, you watched trump run as the underdog, and he was frankly a candidate who didn't even believe that he was going to win on election night, necessarily. nor did any of the people around him. so, i mean, what kind of candidate do we think he is going to be after he launches this formal re-election bid tomorrow? >> reporter: i will say that is one of the few unknowns because president donald trump hasn't really changed that much from candidate donald trump. he's been pretty consistent in his persona in his way he purports himself on the campaign trail. but i think that there is a problem when you ran so hard on being an outsider and on bashing

everything that washington is. he's now the center of the washington machine. he is the president of the united states. and i do think that he doesn't really have tons of policy to show for it, but i think that in the course of having conversations with republican and more conservative voters, they do like what they've seen for him, for example, on the courts. so he does have something to show for his time in washington. i think it's going to be an interesting needle to thread, frankly, for a guy who wants to run as an underdog to also say but hey i have done things over the last few years. in 2018 when he was out on the campaign trail campaigning for other republicans, he made the argument don't get complacent. so he asked republican voters at that point vote for these republicans as if i'm on the ballot. and so he does i think put a lot of stock in what his name can do at the top of the ballot and letting voters not get complacent is important for both republicans but democrats, that just because you are seeing

these kinds of polling doesn't mean that this is a fight that's won 15 months before an election. >> michael steele, do republicans in washington think this president is going to win re-election? >> i think more often than not, yes, and i think it's because he defines his entire life by winning. the fear of losing is going to make him do anything. >> we are in for it. ali vitali, thank you so much for your reporting today. juanna, michael, and howard are sticking with us. a new report about just how afraid the intelligence community is about the president spilling secrets to russia. plus, as elizabeth warren is rising in the polls, did joe biden just make a play for her supporters? that's next. ♪

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inequality, what's happened is the charlottons have been able to pit white folks against latino and black folks. >> we have a fundamental issue, and that is who is our government going to work for? is it going to just keep working for the rich and the powerful? keep working for a thinner and thinner slice at the top? or are we going to have a government that works for everyone else? >> welcome back. former vice president joe biden and senator elizabeth warren were among the roster of democratic candidates speaks at a forum today highlighting issues facing lower-income americans. new polling shows warren's economic message is resonating with voters. in the latest nbc news wall street journal poll, 26% of democratic primary voters say they are enthusiastic about her candidacy. that is a 6-point bump from last month. while that number dips for both joe biden and bernie sanders.

it might explain why biden's team is also reportedly getting a little worried about her rise. and president trump's campaign is zeroing in on the threat that she could pose. a.m.ly b emily basil. it's a great read. here on set, nbc news correspondent mike who has been covering the biden campaign. it's great to have both of you on board. emily, let me start with you because you spent a bunch of time with senator warren at her home, interviewing her, talking through kind of the challenges that she uniquely faces, but also helping to explain why it is that suddenly she does seem to be gaining traction. knowing what you know, what do you attribute this rise to for warren? >> that's a great question. i think she's been very much getting her message out about her ideas, ruling out different plans, i have a plan for that has become a t-shirt in the time that i was talking to senator

warren. and i think for democratic voters, there's this sense, okay, here is someone who wants big change in washington and who really has thought through how she wants to do that. >> mike, how worried is the biden campaign about what's going on? >> well, i think obviously they felt like the roll-out went well. the polls reflected a pretty strong position. now they're pretty much at the point where they're all focused on the debate. biden is not going to be on the same stage as elizabeth warren which i think could help them or hurt them. but with warren and biden, we talk about democrats choosing between their head and their heart. and biden's argument has very much been about electability and the concern i think that warren faced very early on was that she was rightly or wrongly pigeon-holed as pocahontas. what we are potentially seeing now is democratic voters now taking over just a little bit. biden has not yet made that argument beyond i can beat

trump. and today he hinted on his health care policy. that's something that they know they need to do more of to keep his position strong. >> emily, what did you learn from talking to elizabeth warren about how they're thinking about the trajectory and how it relates to electability, vis-a-vis this president. i think that there was a real sense initially when she sort of botched the dna test. and of course the president was attacking her and, you know, he even at one point basically said, you know, perhaps i've already beaten elizabeth warren, like, whoops i'm obviously not going to be facing her. but she does seem to be coming back against that. i mean, how worried are they that that's going to all come back if the president starts attacking them again? >> they're hoping that she's left that behind her. they came from behind when she ran for the senate against republican scott brown in 2012, and they feel like they have a

kind of similar possible upswing here. you know, voters in the democratic party, as you have been saying, are very focused on electability. but when you look at recent choices they've made, in particularly the decision to stick with hillary clinton in 2016, that didn't work out in terms of electability. so i think one of the arguments the warren people can make is, look, go with your heart. >> yeah. i think that, mike, you were making a similar point. and this polling, we've seen it obviously in the new national nbc numbers, but it's also showing up in south carolina. and obviously south carolina polls are subject to what happens in iowa and new hampshire. so let's not pretend that that's not the case. but it's still interesting to me that biden is down 9, and elizabeth warren is up 9. kamala harris is probably very concerningly fallen back a percentage point in this poll. but that warren number is really interesting, especially considering how heavily african-american the south carolina electorate is. >> we've seen -- the enthusiasm

numbers are starting to diminish for joe biden. and he's going to be there this weekend along with 21 other democrats. what's interesting about the vice president's team is really focusing on this debate at the moment. they know that this is a moment where, you know, folks gave him a good look in the rollout. he largely passed the test. but his performance is going to be so critical. he is spending a lot of time reading memos, doing briefings with his staff. we saw him for the first time today speaking with a time limit. he had four minutes to race through a little bit of a speech that didn't go well. they very much were at the point where performance is going to be critical in sustaining the enthusiasm that you did see early on. >> are the warren folks nervous that she's on stage essentially by herself as a frontrunner in her group? matt visor who's covered her for most of her career indicated that she often benefits from

being the underdog, and she is not going to be the underdog on that stage. >> yes. it does sort of set her up as being a person who could lose that debate. and when you're on the stage with nine other people, you never know what can ham. i think objectively, it would be better for her to be on the stage the second day with the other frontrunners. but, on the other hand, they have more of a chance to get more attention. it's possible more people will tune in just the first night just because it's the first debate, and she will just stick to her case. there are so many debates to come, so long to go in this race. i think this is just one small stop along the way. >> i almost want to say don't remind me. mike, you mentioned health care and putting meat on the bone for a plan. and biden did a little bit of this today in the speech. we have this sound byte where biden sort of comes out a little bit unexpectedly and says he supports a public option. watch. >> i think everyone's entitled to have total health care. and what i would do is make sure that every single person, as i

propose, every single person in the united states has access to medicaid right off the bat. >> so, mike, you guys followed up with the biden campaign and are now reporting that he is essentially supporting a public option. where is that kind of coming from? they clearly are under pressure to say what he's for on this with everyone else on the medicare for all band wagon. >> he is revealing what they are talking about privately. what he talked about early on in the rollout, well, obviously there were a lot of questions about medicare for all. is he going to sign onto that litmus test issue. he did talk about allowing people to buy into a medicare-like plan. what was new today is he focused very much on red states, republican governors states where they did not expand medicaid. and it was supposed to be nationwide and ended up with sort of a bifurcated medical system in this country. so that's what he's talking about is premium medicaid-free

option. he talked about this in the context of poverty today. he talked about when he announced he was reversing him on the hyde amendment. he said that was a decision he came to as part of this as sort of his own health care plan. it seems like publicly, but this is very much part of the process that is happening. >> do we think he is going to do this at the debate? >> this is part of why he's doing the debate because he wants to have these answers when they come to them. so that's why they are trying to line up the piece as head of time to know where he stands. >> it is going to be an interesting week or so for the biden campaign. emily, great reporting. i highly recommend reading the piece in full, it's great. mike, thanks to you as well for your great reporting on the biden campaign. coming up, is america inching closer to war with iran? we are going to get an update from the region next. and don't miss a special hour of "hardball" tonight from

dayton ohio. chris matthews talks to voters in the former democratic stronghold now turned trump country. could they rewrite the map again in 2020? watch "hardball" tonight right here on msnbc. ♪work so hard give it everything you got♪ ♪strength of a lioness tough as a knot♪ ♪rocking the stage and we're never gonna stop♪ ♪all strength, no sweat... just in case you forgot♪ ♪all strength, no sweat... ♪no no no sweat... has been excellent.

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giving you a nice big edge over your competition. that's the power of edge-to-edge intelligence. it's unmistakable what happened here. these were attacks by the islamic republic of iran. the intelligence committee has lots of evidence, lots of data the world will come to see much

of it, but the american people should rest assured we have high confidence with respect to who conducted these attacks. >> welcome back. secretary of state mike pompeo says u.s. intelligence has lots of data and intelligence that iran was behind the attacks on oil tankers in the persian gulf last week. democrats like house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff agree with that assessment. but the question now is what happens next. pompeo is urging diplomacy. but the state department says he is scheduled to meet with military commanders overseeing american forces in the middle east at sentcom in florida tomorrow. that move coming as other white house allies are urging a military response. >> unprovoked attacks on commercial shipping warrant a retaliatory military strike against the islamic republic of iran. the fastest way to get -- unleashed on you is to interfere with navigation in open seas and on air which is what iran is

doing. >> and at the same time iran is now threatening to ramp up nuclear fuel production, saying that ten days from now they will break the limit on uranium stockpiles set by the iran nuclear deal which the obama administration, of course, made, and the trump administration pulled out of. nbc's bill nealy is in the persian gulf with the latest. >> hi, kasie. it is a blunt warning, and they issued it at the nuclear plant. so pretty blunt messaging to the rest of the world. i think if they do follow through, the deal is all but dead. and it is, frankly, on life support. at the moment the u.s. has pulled out iran today, not threatening that it will break the deal but that it could. it's saying it's producing so much uranium at such democraticatically increased levels that in ten days' time, it will reach the limit of the deal and it could potentially go through that limit after june

the 27th. the europeans, of course, well, they were supposed to deliver benefits to iran from this deal. and quite frankly, they haven't been able to do that. benefits like iran selling its oil, for example, benefits that would counter act those punishing u.s. sanctions. and indeed europe's foreign policy chief said today that they are finding it harder and harder in a sense to keep the deal alive. so iran's message was very much directed at the europeans. iran also trying to separate the europeans even more from the u.s. iran's president saying to the europeans time is running out to save this deal. but iran was also sending a message to the u.s. flexing its muscle, if you like, and saying to the u.s., look, you can impose sanctions on us, you can strangle our economy, but we also have levers to pull, and one of them is a nuclear lever. >> bill nealy, thanks very much.

coming up next, we are talking to a former ambassador about this in the middle east. plus, the new reporting that the president trump's advisors are keeping government secrets from president trump. look limu. a civilian buying a new car. let's go. limu's right. liberty mutual can save you money by customizing your car insurance, oh... yeah, i've been a customer for years. huh... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ [ laughter throughout ]

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welcome back. a double bombin reporting from the new york times this weekend about the president and his relationship with russian president putin. first the times reports that the u.s. is escalating online attacks on russia's power grid in an effort, quote, partly as a warning and partly to be poised to conduct cyber strikes if a major conflict broke out between washington and moscow. but that's not all. the second bombshell in that report that officials are worried about briefing the president. quote, pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with mr. trump about operations against russia for concern over his reaction and the possibility

that he might counter mandate or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in syria to the russian foreign minister. yikes. all right. let's bring in michael mcfaul. it's great to see you, mr. ambassador. let's start there. you know, how concerned should we be that our intelligence community doesn't trust the president with this kind of sensitive information? >> it's incredible. if it's true, it's absolutely shocking. he is the commander in chief. he is the chair of our national security council when they meet when they should to discuss these kinds of issues. and when you have such a disconnect between the president and the rest of his national security team, as you do on russia, that leads to these bizarre cut-arounds and end-arounds where the government is not telling the president what he needs to know. and i think it's really irresponsible of the president but also of his national

security team. they have to play as one team in order to advance american national interests. >> what would you do behind the scenes if this was the conundrum you were facing trying to make a decision about what to do in the best interests of the country but being concerned that the president of the united states wasn't going to be on the same page? >> i think this comes down to the national security advisor, mr. bolton. this is his job. national security advisor, right? that's the title. i worked in the white house for three years for the national security team. your job being on the nsc is to brief the president. and, you know, let the chips fall where they may in terms of decisions, but you can't deceive him. and by the way, it's not just on russia. if you saw the interview that he did, you know, the famous one now on abc where he talks about all kinds of things with george stephanopoulos. at one point he asks him do you think they are building nuclear weapons in north korea. and he said i don't know. well, hold on, mr. president, you are supposed to know that.

there is something called the cia and the intelligence community that can brief you on that to get you up to speed on that. and same with iran. if you listen to what the secretary of state says, if you listen to what the national security advisor says, it sounds like we are almost going to war. yet the president seems to be wanting to talk about engagement which suggests again there is a disconnect between the president and his national security team. that's on john bolton. he needs to do a better job. >> the other piece of this is of course republicans who have frankly publicly said that they don't really seem to have much of a problem with this in many cases. here was steve scalise with chuck over the weekend. >> the press and the white house have already pushed back against a number of elements of the story. but the bottom line is the president's taking aggressive actions against russia. i wish that would have happened in 2016 when they were trying to meddle with our elections.

we are already ready to go after them, and it should happen in 2016. i'm glad that the president's being aggressive against any foreign country is going to try who's going to meddle with our elections. >> do you think that the president is actually being abresive? he seems to take the question and completely turn it on its head. >> did you notice the passive tense on the verb there? the message is being communicated or something like that. he didn't say president trump is stating emphatically if you intervene in our elections there will be consequences. and the reason no one can say that is because the president of the united states has never said that. and there can be all the messaging you want, but if the president is not saying it himself in this case with president trump, putin will read into that that there is a division and they will try to play that division. that is exactly what they have been doing for the last two years. and if you listen to president putin, he talks about, you know,

the state, the deep state, all these other people trying to get in the way of what the good president, president trump, wants to do in u.s./russia relations. that's bad messaging on the part of president trump and his administration. >> let's talk about the substance of this report on the cyber tools that we have lortedly placed in russia's power grid. you have worked on this on your end as the ambassador. are we behind the russians in getting this into their grid? is this a capability they already have with us? and is this in your view directly related to this question of election interference? >> well, what i know, i used to know a lot about this when i was in the government, and it's all classified, so i will be careful about that. >> sure. >> and i don't know what's happened since. what i would say is i genuinely support the idea that we should have these capabilities available to us in times of crisis.

i am not so sure it's such a great idea to talk about it publicly. i think that's better left in non-public channels as a way to deter the russians from doing things in the future. so i generally support the policy. i just don't know if i like the public relations component to it that we saw in the new york times. >> is this the i see you trying to send a public message? >> the i see doesn't need to send a public message. they have ways of communicating with the kremlin and with their counterparts, the fsb in this case, inside russia in a private way. if they wanted to get that message across. somebody obviously thought it was in our interest to do it publicly, and, you know, maybe that's right, i'd have to think about what might be positive about that. but my reaction to that report is we don't want this in the public because it creates, you know, interest in other actors trying to thwart our

capabilities. why do that when you can keep it private? >> all right, ambassador mike mcfaul. thank you very much, sir, for your time and your insights. coming up next the fear about the president inside the president's administration. our experts are back at the table coming up next. ble comingt but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. ♪

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you came really close right there. president trump has been very clear. he clarified his remarks later. he made it very clear even if his first comments. he said i'll do both. he said i'll call the fbi. he said make sure that he will always do right for the american people. >> welcome back. that was secretary of state mike pompeo pushing back, shall we say, on a question about president trump's recent comments that he would take damaging information on an opponent from a foreign source and not necessarily hand it over to the fbi. still with us, juanna michael and howard. michael steele, is this an acceptable position for the president of the united states to take? >> this is the hardest thing for every surrogate of president trump. his position is wrong. his position is unindefensible. his position, even when he cleaned it up, wasn't really right. and because it's so central to the questions about the

legitimacy of his election in '16, the president's mind can't be changed about this, which is why everyone who wants to defend him in public has to find their own way of defending the indefensible. >> and basically turning somersaults. >> you were able to get something definitive. >> i think also that reaction of mike pompeo shows the general strategy of trump world, which is to disparage anybody who has the nerve to ask a question. even somebody who is as good an interviewer as chris wallace. the sneering contempt that mike pom pemo showed to chris wallace of all people on fox, i thought, is a window into how they play things and how they're going to continue to do it all the way along. i said earlier in the evening, trump will always be the underdog because of the fake media. well, that's how they are going

to answer every question. the issue is whether the american people accept that or not. >> and, one, it speaks to how depositly bifurcated how our media has become. one lyanne caldwell went to michigan town hall with justin amash. she said i didn't know there was anything negative about the president in the mueller report because she never heard that before. i mean, it seems to me that that is the strategy here, that pompeo and other republicans are now picking up. >> absolutely. and i think, you know, leadership comes from the top. this is something we hear from the president do when he talks about fake news. the george stephanopoulous interview says there are no bad polls about me. i'm paraphrasing here. there is this alternate reality in some ways at times being portrayed. and what's concerning, i think should be concerning about most people, people like that woman in michigan aren't hearing the facts, and the facts that we report out every day. so they're getting this

alternate perception of reality that ultimately will inform their voting habits and all the decisions they make in their daily life, how they run their families and their businesses. it's concerning frankly. >> i think one of the best examples of this exact strategy came in that lengthy interview that president trump did with abc when he talked to george stephanopoulous about the mueller report. let's watch. >> he found no collusion and he didn't find anything having to do with obstruction because they made a ruling based on his findings and they said no obstruction. >> he depth examine collusion. he laid out evidence -- >> are you trying to say now there was collusion even though he said there is no collusion? >> he didn't say there is no collusion. >> he said no collusion. george, the report said no collusion: >> did you read the report? >> yes, i did and you should read it, too. come on, let's go. you should read it, too, george. >> and then he gets out of the car. michael steel? >> there is something almost -- there is something amazing about the invulnerable reality distortion field around the president.

no facts that are contrary to his chosen narrative are ever perceived by the president, and he just -- he lives in that alternate universe. you can't get him out of it. >> howard, how do the democrats breakthrough this? >> first i have to say that's like the weirdest version of car pool karaoke i've ever seen. watchable in a weird kind of way. >> he's like almost too tall for the beast, president trump. >> as you say, the beast. i think that you can't, you can't compete in that world with donald trump. you just can't. and i think humor has a role and i think the tone that joe biden is trying to adopt on the campaign trail is interesting to watch, because it's sort of a -- it's a mocking. if you read the transcript, very tough. but it's delivered by joe biden in a kind of evuncular, i'm sorry to have to tell you this kind of way which has an edge of humor to it, bitter humor. that's the way they're going to have to go. there's no way you're going to

outshout or out-imagine donald trump. >> this also, juana, plays into for democrats not necessarily on the campaign trail, but looking at investigating him and trying to decide whether to impeach him or not. frankly they're waiting for the numbers to move. they're waiting for public opinion to shift. and this is i think a prime example of why that is so impossibly difficult. >> i think democrats who are in favor of starting impeachment or impeachment proceedings in some way, when they hear statements like this, they have to wonder when is house speaker nancy pelosi going to get the show on the road because there is such a clear misstatement of what was actually contained in the mueller report that i think is really troubling for a lot of them. one thing i'm really curious about is how this all plays out on the campaign trail to howard's point. i think you're going to see democrats take a variety of approach. kamala harris said she's going to prosecute the case against president trump. she's leaning into that rhetoric. some of that can provide an opening to a candidate like her who made that her mission, to

punch her way more forcefully into a conversation where all of thooz democrats have this issue, right, where they are having to compete with trump who has an endless microphone, anything he tweets gets news coverage in some way. they're trying to figure out how they can cut into that space. >> michael steel, so far they haven't cut into the narrative. they tried bob dean, executives can't claim privilege. they're entering the doldrums of summer when americans aren't paying attention. >> i'm frustrated with house democrats, because they are utterly failing to effectively prosecute oversight against this president. they are not getting the attention. they're not getting the witnesses. they're not working nights and weekends. there is no sign of the sort of fierce urgency you would expect if we are actually facing a constitutional crisis as they insist we are. so when are they going to wake up and crank up -- crank it up to 11 on this thing. let's actually do the things commensurate with the crisis you

say we face. >> it's an interesting point, michael steel. from a republican who used to be on the other side from nancy pelosi. juana somers. thank you all. coming up next, mick mulvaney gets cough dropped. and with new features and richer stories... ...it can show dad where he's from... and strengthen the bonds you share. it's only $59 at ancestry.com. give it to dad for father's day. what sore muscles? what with advpounding head? ..

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quote, barbaric practice. so it should come as little surprise that this happened. >> let's do that over. he's coughing in the middle of my answer. i don't like that, you know? >> your chief of staff -- >> if you're going to cough, please leave the room. >> i'll come over here. >> you just can't. >> just to change the shot. sorry. >> yep, the president threw his chief of staff mick mulvaney out of the oval office during his abc news interview because he was coughing. we hope you feel better, mr. mulvaney. and if you still have that tickle in your throat, might we suggest a cough lozenge. "mtp daily's" favorite brand is cough-feve. grape flavor. make america great again. chuck will be back tomorrow with much more "meet the press" daily and you can catch me on "kasie d.c." every sunday night from

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. but now "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. good evening, ari. >> good -- cough -- evening, kasie. >> can i offer you some covfefe. >> nice to see you. >> we have a pretty good show i would argue tonight. coming up, legal experts say donald trump is officially abusing executive privilege for secrecy and we are thrilled we have kneel here for opening arguments. probably the perfect guest for that. clearly on defense over embracing collusion, and now the famous c.i.a. agent at the different white house probe, valerie plame, jones me on that. interesting perspective. at the end of the hour, a huge music video taking on donald trump's separation policy. he will be here exclusively to explain why he is deploying his considerable influence to attack donald trump. it's his first tv interview about this immigration video.