p.m. eastern with stephanie. you can always find me online. nicolle wallace starts right now. >> reporter: hi, everyone. 4:00 in new york. for an administration that seems to get lost in its own fog of chaos and disjunction that comes with everything and polls, there may be no chapter as terrifying than watching donald trump march to the beat of his own drums with iran with sounds of war around the world escalating with an already fraught escalation with iran donald trump finds himself on two intractable fronts, iran and north korea. writing quote after coming to office vowing to solve two very different nuclear crisis, president trump finds himself in

a bind, familiar to his predecessors careening towards a confrontation with iran and stalemating to north korea. dispatching 1,000 more troops to the middle east in part of the escalation with iran but in the policy schizophrenia, secretary of state out with a more dove-like message. >> we are there to deter aggression. president trump does not want war and we will continue to communicate that message while doing things necessary to protect american interests in the region. >> reporter: the policy whiplash more disorienting than comforting, particularly as abject failure to halt north korea's dispute of a full nuclear weapon is on display as he sounds more like a devoted schoolboy with a crush on the brutal dictator of north korea than serious intelligence of u.s. assessment. here's the president when asked about the intelligence community assessment.

>> do you think he's still building nuclear weapons? >> i don't know. i hope not. he promised me he wouldn't be, he wouldn't be testing. >> do you still trust him? >> couldn't tell you that. it would be very insulting to him. the answer is, yeah, i believe he would like to do something. i believe he respects me. i get along with him really well. i think i understand him and i think he understands me. >> that's nice. we're way past love letters, folks. it is the constant churn of chaos that surrounds everything from trump's twitter pronouncements to contradictory statements to abrupt change of personnel that leaves the world on edge. caught in the middle, the europeans have been reduced to calling for restraint and deescalation while both washington and tehran seem set on raising tensions risking a

con fli conflict by accident or design could disrupt the world's energy supplies. his acting defense secretary patrick shanahan stepping down and withdrawing from consideration to become the permanent defense secretary, trump today naming an active replacement, army secretary, mark espe rescuers, which leaves his department of defense without a permanent leader as some of our most delicate global conflicts escalate. that upheaval starts with favorite reporters and friends. joining us national political reporter, robert cosca and barry mccaffey also an msnbc military analyst, lucky for us, with us on set, republican strategies and rick williams is back, and host of msnbc donny deutsch is here. let me start with you.

this picture of constant gyrations around the deliberations around iran seems to be fulfilling the expression, when america sneezes, the world catches a cold. >> nicolle, i've followed these for years. the biggest problem is we have no structure. the pentagon and home and security office, the white house, except for ivanka and jared and it's hard to know whose voice is being listened to, with an impulsive badly educated president tweeting out u.s. foreign policy. we lost most of our allies. they have no idea what we're doing. they get publicly insulted. even people like the saudis of the gulfcoast states and the president said in a "time"

magazine interview, look, we're not worried about oil. he sort of hung out to dry, japanese, gulfcoast states, europeans, who do worry about oil. there's no coherence what we're doing, we're operating on a whim. >> let me ask you about a whim. a former intelligence secretary general said will we buy miscalculation or design find ourselves in an asymmetric calculation when the theater seems disproportionately stronger. i guess all these utterances from pompeo how trump does not want war may or may not be true. the chaos you described, dysfunction, lack of voices trusted other than the president's daughter and son-in-law who lack the clearance to let them see the intelligence available to national policy security makers may have us tumbling towards something unintended, do you think that's a realistic

scenario? >> i think at the end of the day there won't be a war in the middle east. it would be appalling damage to iranians. we can sync most of the irg forces within 48 hours. the combat forces to do that is there. what we can't do is have impact on nuclear iranian development. that's not doable. i don't think the saudis or the u.s. actually want a conflict. there is a huge possibility of miscalculation. if the igrc goes after the u.s. navy or closes the gulf, i will assume there's 100% likelihood we'll take military action. it will be an ugly war in the persian gulf, if that happens. >> general, john brennan said on this program a while ago, about the way the north koreans were dealing with trump, it was clear

he was a leader who could be duped. what lessons do you think the iranians have taken about the kind of utterances about donald trump either oblivious about the north korean regime or ambitions to obtain a nuclear missile? >> i have no idea what our adversaries or allies are trying to understand what's going on in the united states government. it's without precedent. it's impulsive, chaotic, stupid frequently. contradictory all the time. there's no process to our policy deliberations. when you get to the north searches, for god's saike, one f the most brutal dictatorships. they do have capability to

strike u.s. forces or the japanese or south koreans in the region. there's an element of fantasy to dealing with the white house. i bet they're concerned also. i bet the russians are worried inside moscow. they tend to be very logical and structured in their thinking and risk adverse normally. putin, i think, says, hey, this guy won't respond to me. there's no limits on our behavior. this is not a good situation. >> you took us to russia, so i will stay there. the president for, i believe, the third day in a row, rapidly responding to his own cyber command batting down a story any other white house, democratic or republican, would hold up as good news as long as it didn't threaten sources and methods, news over the weekend reported in the "new york times" the u.s. was on some sort of offensive posture in terms of cyber tactics and tools against russia. the president calling that

treasonous, even though the reporters who wrote that story had a paragraph saying there were no national security concerns of its publication. day two, news cycle three of attacking that story, it is not true we are on offense against russia. why would that be? >> actually, the nsa -- at the end of the day, 90% of the global offensive capacity in cyber warfare is either the united states or uk acting in concert. we have an enormous capability. we're in there doing reconnaissance and preparing to take action if needed to do so. i think what got the president's goat in that reporting was we're not telling him the mechanics and details of what we're up to for fear he will blurt it out to our adversaries, i think is quite possible. again, you know, the russians

are not taking offensive actions against him but i think they wanted that story out, the nsa and national security council, they want to put the russians on notice, hey, you better stop screwing with our elections here an in europe. >> robert, i would say you have your ear to the ground for trump's gop better than anybody, i'm thinking of bob corker and i can't think of anybody else who said out loud what you must hear all the time, to the degree whether the "access hollywood" tape or charlottesville, that trump is unacceptable, these foreign policy gaps that are the most troubling. what are you hearing about these trickle stories, spread of the upheaval at the pentagon, changing posture vis-a-vis iran and troops deployment and pompeo statement sending a very different message tonally at least and constant doubling and

tripling down in favor of kim jong un? >> with top administration officials and republicans this afternoon, my notebook tells me this current dynamic on american current policy is unlikely to change. acting secretary shanahan bowing out, meaning the pressure from senate republicans to nominate someone who is a low-key persona like veterans secretary, mr. dana wilkey. at the same time, you have mike pompeo with a real grip on foreign policy, mr. kushner and john bolton. that dynamic will continue. the idea of bringing in new hands like secretary mattis was, who had a counter view the way the president thinks is unlikely at this point. >> robert costa, i take your point. i wonder if the fact of pompeo and bolton are not performing as pompeo and bolton anymore,

they're simply the tail following the dog around. pompeo goes out and responds to whatever trump has tweeted and they have a body of public utterances and well-known positions on iran and north korea completely at odds with donald trump's impulses and utterances. >> they're playing long game. you talk to people that know them, they point at what not only is happening with iran but with venezuela, and the hawks continue to circle this president urging him toward action if not taking action. the president, at the end of the day, has to decide on military intervention or not. they're in his ear making the case for possible intervention. when it comes to engaging with autocrat, they are on a personal level not in favor of that policy but they want to be in the power structure and close to president trump. they're not fighting him on that front. >> it is rick wilson, of many deals with the devil, the ones

made by the foreign policy folks are the ones the most dark in some ways. >> the biggest problem in foreign policy establishment to think donald trump has any underpinning of things that built the global security warning since world war ii. he doesn't. it's all transactional, impulsive, does he like me or not like me? can i build a golf course there or tower here? those are the things in donald trump's head. not what are our alliances and the shape of the world we want to see in the future or lone super power to china or expansionist into europe. situations in the middle east that they are clearly ping-ponging back and forth on into an area i think we may end wake up a "guns of august" situation where the war starts and we don't really know why. >> i think the other thing in trump's head, can i get a big win that will go down in history? >> what is a win? >> denuclearization of north

korea. he continues down this path despite all evidence, thinking and wrongly, i might add, that somehow he is going to get this -- it will be a great big deal and he'd go down in history as the president who did it. he will lose interest eventually as he lost interest in venezuela and will lose interest, i think, probably in iran, when he sees that this policy has impoverished the iranians and frustrated them and angered them but hasn't made them cap pit late. to take that next step of an actual attack or something like that, i don't think trump wants to do that. we could blunder into it. i'm very worried about that possibility. >> i've said many times trump is not beyond doing anything for his own means. a wag the dog situation. as we get closer to an election, eight months, six months, the

only thing that would keep him in is a war and he is not beyond that, like general mccaffrey, the scariest thing is there's nobody home. there's jared and ivanka. you take the fact there are no guard rails or bumpers with this guy with his capacity to do anything, my fear is actually the opposite. >> general mccaffrey, let me read you more of the "new york times" reporting we started off with, the theory was he abandoned the deal and imposed sanctions, rather than crack, iranians escalated. as these dramas play out, no one is watching it more than kim jung in north cia and played trump better than the iranians have and rejecting the denuclearization. that is from an iranian

newspaper. my understanding that the president, that's a more nuanced analysis than he's willing to receive in the pbd, reduced to pictures and the kinds of conversations that don't agitate him. how much disadvantage do we have because of the president's inability to sit together but not in an intellectual day but tectonic planes, every action causes friction in another part of the world. how much of a disadvantage are we at strategically because our president isn't a consumer of information, not a consumer of history and doesn't really understand what david singer points out, that he's being played? >> these are actually real issues. trump did inherit them, the iranian situation, north korea, dealing with the russians, venezuela, real issues that require thoughtful coordinated policy options where somebody

makes a choice and orchestrates the tools of american government. that's gone. it's not there. i'm not quite sure the iranians have a clue what to do. we put them in a box. the economics are getting to them. their people are angry, not to much at trump but their own leadership. the europeans are still with them, not with us, because we insulted our allies. i actually don't see any quote off-ramps to this whole situation. that's the danger. the irgc, which was identified as a terrorist organization is also a criminal organization. there's a lot of money making activities. they're losing money. they are capable of being a rogue actor in the persian gulf. i think the potential for a "guns of august" kind of situation is actually there. nobody with a right mind wants war in the gulf, but we could end up in one. >> it's a terrifying thought.

robert, could i ask you to add any of your own reporting. i think of the picture general mccaffrey is painting on iran and the point made around this table about the influence of jared and ivanka in a serious way, they are predisposed to the kind of foreign policy priorities of israel, saudi arabia, uae, which would have the president lean forward even more than maybe he wants to. who are the influencers? who are the people donald trump is talking to, other than the hosts we can all see on fox news? >> based on my reporting the people that matter, secretary of state and national security advisor and they have to rely on the president who makes the decision, will they give breathing room on iran with sanctions? can they give a deal with the japanese and other nations to expand and get more oil revenue for iran especially if they're not going to deal with the united states. if there's not a solution to the iran nuclear deal, will it allow

this pressure to continue on iran? can they let the air out a little bit if they can get concessions on the gulf and shipping lanes in the middle east. they're under pressure, the shipping companies to protect oil in venezuela and shipping lanes in the middle east. these are different factors playing in the discussions right now in this administration. >> dicey stuff. general mccaffrey, thank you so much. i will stay up tonight worrying based on your comments but grateful to have them. up next, when donald trump kicks off his campaign reelection rally in florida he will do so as the most unpopular president and list of accomplishments. what could go wrong. joe biden looking at picking off five states if he is the nominee, all in the south. and news donald trump plans to live tweet the msnbc debates

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go to xfinity.com/moving to get started. doctor bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists. a trump administration will stop illegal immigration, deport all criminal aliens and save american lives. >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured, okay. russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the

30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> we have to investigate hillary clinton and we have to investigate the investigation. >> i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters, okay? like incredible. >> he said all that before he was elected president. maybe that should have come as a warning. it was a look back at the divisive inflammatory campaign. and his relaunch is about to start and about the base in the past 2 1/2 years in office show that's exactly what he made his presidency about as well. in the last week, we saw all those core campaigns, xenophobia, disdain for war heroes and disrespect for allies and respect for enemies on display. we saw him attack an american newspaper for reporting on

actions against russia to secure our democracy. we saw him call for an investigation into hillary clinton's e-mails again! last night on the eve of his campaign's official relaunch a few hours away in florida, trump announced on twitter mass arrests of thousands of migrant parents and children in a blitz operation across u.s. major cities. putting the president's performs as this the coming election is shaping up as a test not just of the man but of the history, will the populist surge that lifted him to the white house run its course or will it transform a nation and the capitol in a way that will outlast his presidency? what kind of country do

americans want at this point? ashley parker is joining us. i've been following you and robert and everyone that covered this opening scene, the way trump used it as the trump campaign tv show. tonight, season 2 or season 200 depending how you experience it, starts, just your thoughts on how the re-election, where he's going to stand on this record of brutal hard-line immigration efforts, if not achievements, i'm not sure you can say he achieved anything he ran on, this body of -- i don't know what he would call it, disrespect for once sacred people like war heroes and the rhetoric that really got him there in the first place? that's the thing that's been interesting. usually, when you get elected during the campaign, but when you play base and once you become president, and if you become president the way he did,

by winning the electoral college but not actually winning the popular vote, something you normally try to do is move towards the middle, unite the country and try to pick up moderates and swing voters who you didn't win that first time. that's not really what we're seeing from the president. we hear that a little bit talking to his advisors and campaign. just the i.c.e. raids he announced via twitter. he understands the way he's governed and spoken and seeing him gear into this campaign, he cares about mobilizing his base. those issues are those hard line red meat issues, especially immigration. i talked to a lot of trump voters. one thing worth mentioning they are very hesitant to say anything critical about him at all. the one area you can hear hesitation, they said it was really important he build that wall and be tough on immigration. they said that's something they're hoping to see in his next term and presidency. i imagine you will see him

hitting those hard lines so controversial about immigrants in 2015, calling them rapists and criminals and he will be hitting that hard line again and again. we saw it today and bet we will see it tonight and going forward into election day. >> robert, i guess one of the differences, if you hit those notes having run the country and your own party having run the congress and one chamber still and you haven't done any of those things, do you look weak? you were talking this morning how completely obsessed he is with his ratings and poll numbers. how about the idea he's run the store for two years and accomplished nothing? >> reporter: part of understanding why the president's underscore and position on trade and having this trade war with mexico is because of the lack of progress on the border wall, congress not appropriating the funds he wants, president moved to a national emergency and began this trade war with mexico,

standoff over tariffs. it's all about showing his base talking to white house republicans and officials, he is make hargd line to get money to fund his border wall, to put it to mexico. that's a play to the base as much as anything else he's doing, along with this mass arrests of immigrants being planned by the federal i.c.e. department. this is political agenda for the white house at the moment. they think congress is divided, democrats will continue to investigate. senate republicans really become a chamber for nominations for the judiciary and really very little else in terms of legislating. now all about 2020 and the political agenda. >> you know, what's interesting to me, clinton was always described as being made of teflon. we have some conversation, you always make this point, nothing stick, nothing hurts him. the good stuff doesn't stick either. this is an historically -- not

historically, but a strong economy, even in chris matthews deciders event in ohio last night. business owners say i'm able to hire more people. to the other side, we don't pay enough attention, on people like me, the good stuff doesn't stick either. he's not benefitting from having an economy relatively stable or strong. >> he has plenty of opportunities to say words on a tell prompter and do the right thing for a day. >> not give him a day, an hour. >> -- when he gets a good news story. he will always step in it because his own egos and impulses and own manias drive him. whatever decline he's experienced it made him less disciplined over time and less able to control himself. a lot of those things a normal president would profit from, he could not. >> it's not always the economy stupid anymore. we have two economies, half this country making less than $30,000

a year, you look at the healthcare, a few numbers very very telling. during his presidency they lost 40 seats in the house, seven governorships, net zero in the senate. whoever is voting is not voting on this guy. the two most important numbers i will say glibly but real. 6.1 and 6.1 people watched a family feud and 3.9 watched the interview with george stephanopoulos. there is trump wear-out and giving people nicknames, i believe there is a wear out factor. i just -- he doesn't have a new bag of tricks. my concern, and i'm going to do your part where you say i will push back, i think what will happen 8, 9, 10 months in this, i think trump will pivot move to the middle. everyone who says, no he can't, he was a democrat before he ran for office. >> he doesn't believe -- i want to show you all the broken promises. i think anyone with a pulse can show even if you hated

everything he ran on the failed at even the crummy stuff he ran on. >> we are going to save americans healthcare and repeal and replace that disaster known as obamacare, which is dying, dying, dying. i will build a great great wall on our southern border, and i will have mexico pay for that wall. when we win on november 8th, we are going to washington, d.c. and we are going to drain the swamp. >> i'm glad he failed on the first two. it's still for a branding guy, his brand is colossal failure. >> yes, it is. particularly, as ashley parker said, the literally concrete or i guess metal thing that people expected him to do and he didn't do with the wall. i think that's actually -- you

know, there are a lot of dangerous things for him in the coming election because he has a lot of failures. healthcare is going to be a big issue. the swamp could be so issue since he is so deep in the swamp rather than draining it. but the wall is the wall. that is something his supporters, his core supporter, his most ferrer rent supporters wanted. >> saying i don't need washington, my machismo is so strong they will bow to me and do what i want. i tell them to do it and they will do it. not so much. we have three miles of freedom fence or whatever they call it. >> not even that. a picture where he drew a design about. >> he's done one thing. he lowered taxes for rich

people. those words of broken promise is very important to voters. it's very hard to say to a voter, you made a bad choice versus he duped you. in speaking to the dnc, those words, "broken promises" will be coming up a lot. >> ashley, i want to come back to you on this idea of, you know, the immigration policies are inhumane and supporters, incomplete and not what he sold them. what do you expect? your and bob's papers did an extraordinary body of reporting of scuttled plans, imagined plans, foiled plans, you couldn't imagine if you sat down and tried to make up the most horrifically inhumane things to human beings who just want to be part of the american dream, if you had to pull the thread to the future, where do you think we're heading? >> i think we're heading towards harsher immigration policies. this is an area the president's supporters care deeply about, an

area he, not just now, for decades had a very hard line position on. you talk to people in the white house, we all heard a number of issues and topics he's not particularly engaged on, doesn't like the details. eyes glaze over and turns on the tv behind them and turns up the volume and stops listening. when it comes to immigration this is a key issue he is micromanaging from the white house, oval office. you mention his drawings of the wall. that was him. when we reported before he wanted a wall that had black paint so it would scald people's hands when they were climbing it and wanted spikes on top, that is all the president. that is where his head is and the policies he wants and he is dictating it from the top. i can't say what next it wit be but in line with the president himself. >> burned and impaled. thank you all for spending some time with us. after the break, more bad news

for donald trump's reelection campaign. a series of polls shows trump under water in states he won handily in 2016. we'll bring you that story next. . the first survivor of alzheimer's disease . is out there. and the alzheimer's association is going to make it happen. but we won't get there without you. visit alz.org to join the fight.

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zbrooirs of all, i plan on campaigning in the south and winning north carolina, georgia and south carolina, believe it or not. i believe we can win texas in florida, if you look at the polling data now. it's a marathon, a long way off. >> texas and marathon, joe biden may be putting the cart before the horse maybe not. but looking past the primary where he could upset donald trump in 2020. all the states he just named went two trump in 2016. maybe biden is on to something. a new poll shows biden beating trump by 9 in florida where trump will launch his campaign tonight. it doesn't stop there.

the internal polling has biden by 6 in georgia and up 12 in north carolina and data from quinney peyak hints at an upset in texas where biden leads by 4. there's south carolina. while we don't yet have polling that puts biden head-to-head against trump, the entruce yams for the former vice president is cut and dry. he leads the democratic field by at least 20 points in recent primary polls. maybe biden is not too far off and his optimism and prediction, biden hinted his campaign received donations from 360,000 donors with an average contribution of $55. that comes out to almost $20 million raised. i'm terrible at math. i have no idea. you can check it and tweet me. the fact that biden shared those numbers at a big manhattan fund-raiser wasn't lost on the competition. elizabeth warren said i don't spend time at fancy fund raisers, but instead meeting

voters and grassroots donors chipping in what they can. join us is derek, in from the cold or heat and the director of campaigns at the center of america for progress action funds and happy to see all of you. first, biden. >> his bravado is on brand. his message more than the other candidates, he's the guy that can uniquely take on trump. >> it bears out in the polls. >> you have to say that. i have seen strength against strength. the better you look up one day and the next day you might pick up two, seeing that on elizabeth warren right now. you're not saying i'm taking those off the table. if you think anybody will win florida by 9 points, i have a bridge to sell you. >> as a veteran of the recount,

that makes me sweat. what i think is transferable to the rest of the democratic field, the first 2 1/2 years of trump's presidency does put everything back on the table. he is a shaking kaleidoscope, where everything could be in play with the right kind of candidate. i mean, i think that's a frame that could extend. >> north carolina is actually going to be a competitive state. and if he's not the nominee he can help build something there another candidate can build on top of. there is a lot of things that make democrats excited and the trump campaign have to spend their money in places they don't want to. >> the other thing that jumps out to me, all these promises trump made to get elected, he failed to deliver on. for much to america's benefit he failed. that failure is something voters

are aware of and probably why he's performing at such low levels in states he secured in 2016. i'm not surprised by that at all. i think we will hear more of those false promises tonight at his relaunch. >> the idea he fired his pollsters. if what was real were internal polls that showed anything else in these states, those would have leaked. trump is a guy that used to leak his own news to the tabloids. these are the polls, what biden is talking about and trump is calling fake is definitely real. >> it's where the money we're talking about meets that road map. if you are someone like biden. biden's strength was supposed to be the fact he could fund-raise quite a bit of money and would give him options to play a broader map. if you're someone that doesn't have those means, you have to pick an early state or two and double down to hope you win them. biden doesn't necessarily have

to win all of those states nor does a candidate like bernie sanders but can put together a few here and there and gather the numbers he wants. >> i want to caution these polls. when i see polls about elizabeth warren even or beating bernie in texas, i love elizabeth but, no. we missed by a few points because people were guilty about not admitting they were voting for trump. they're more guilty now. think about the way polls are fun. i believe it's all about racism, make america great again or make america white again and he goes down and down. a stranger called you up and you're endorsing this behavior. i think these polls are less accurate. doesn't mean he's in trouble but not to this extent. >> and we're going to see the most negative campaign we have seen. donald trump in 2 1/2 years have not been able to move his numbers up at all and he's pretty effective bringing others

down. if you work for the trump campaign, i think that's what you will do. smash them into bits. >> i'm not sure about that. elizabeth warren with the racial slur, did i take her out too soon. she's rising in the polls. i'm not sure if his name-calling will be as effective. >> she chased that slur for a while and it slowed her down. >> it was problematic in response to it. the polls still show her rising, donny, as much as you don't like it, shows she's still rising. >> there is a thing about so many smears in the system. trump has called everyone everything. if he tweeted about all five of us and said dumb donny. >> that was last week. >> it doesn't do any harm because it's so ever present. >> i think it does do harm with his own voters. >> a unique thing with joe biden

specifically. i think there's trump inoculating joe biden against his peers calling him low energy. people cannot see joe biden stand on stage and call him low energy. it's a trump attack line. that is now trump's thing and he owns it. it protects him in that weird way from those same attacks. >> i was saying the tweeting still hurts trump less so he calls his competitors in general but his own voters who want him to stop tweeting and actually start leading, that's been a vacuum for his president and i think will follow him. >> i was struck today coming out of the report from biden's trip to new york the fact they had him say, i know i'm high in the polls. i don't believe in those polls and those polls mean i have a target on my back setting expectations with his donors. >> you think that's smart, right? >> speaking of donors, they have such a pile of money. republicans, guys, i'm really

worried. the worst thing the democrats can do at this point is in any way feel good about themselves. they should be running terrified. >> i don't see any republicans who feel good about this -- i mean democrats. every one i know is terrified, bracing themselves. when we come back, thank you for your viewership, mr. president. revealed in the "wall street journal," he plans to watch the democratic debate on msnbc. we will tell you what he plans to do during that debate next.

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there are only eight days left until the first presidential debate. and "the wall street journal" is now reporting that donald trump plans on live tweeting the whole thing. a departure from the advice he's getting from his political advisers and a sign that he has like, literally nothing going on. like, what a -- >> it's a long flight to the

g-20. >> casual. casual. >> we were debating -- no pun intended. it's interesting, nicole. let me say your piece, that you would let the moderators read his tweets. i would let go completely the other way. obviously, how you take on trump is going to define who is going to win this. i think at that moment, you inoculate and keep him out. it's interesting, i thought you were going the other way on that. >> my point is, if he's sitting there as president of the united states and so insecure and so obsessed with the two nights of debates that he's chiming in with attacks on joe biden or pete buttigieg or elizabeth warren. if i were a moderator, this is the race that the eventual democratic nominee will run. how to run against trump. how to do what michelle obama said, when they go low, we stay high. but also how to keep him at bay. >> that's the race for 18 months. i'm saying that night, you're giving him more power than he should have. >> forget about power. he's at 40%. he's the most unpopular president ever. he's obsessed with cable and television and the democrats.

lean in. if he tweets about you, ask them how they'd respond. >> i would leave that to the candidates. . >> he's going to be shooting missiles at them from air force one. >> at the korean or the democrats? >> at the democrats. you'll have the president on air force one on his way overseas to do the country's business firing back at these democrats back on stage. do you respond to that at all? does politics stop at the water's edge? if the president is using the wi-fi on air force one to attack you -- >> it's a hat jack violation to begin with. >> so far on the other side of the looking glass. >> it comes down to what i said before, he's too busy tweeting, not leading. and if he's supposed to be representing the u.s. and preparing to represent americans at the g-20 summit, get offline, get off twitter. >> i can only imagine a few things he could be doing. >> let me remind you, some of the things that have gone down at the g-20. he pulled putin aside without an american translator, just with a

russian translator, and told some sort of malarkey lie about the meeting being about adopt -- i mean, it's not like he does america's business necessarily at foreign summits. >> so this is less whacky by comparison. but i do wonder how it forces -- if you talk to any of the democratic contender who not the front-runners, they know that they have a big challenge, right? they're sharing that stage with a lot of people, they're going to get a few minutes, they'll have to introduce themselves to most of the american public and make a very sharp case for why they can beat donald trump. and then there's been this question i know you've been asking about whether or not they're going to go after biden, sanders, the front-runners and create that type of tension. this potentially complicates that for them, right? like, do you just all stay in your lane and speak to your common foe? or then, do you take that opportunity to try to bring down someone who is leading in your field. >> i think you look, though, at the people that are doing the best. and this is the campaign strategist in me. this is not a television programmer.

i'm not making any comments about what my colleagues at msnbc should do. if you work on a campaign and your mission is to show that your candidate the best person to beat the opponent, the best way to show the voter that is to try to beat your opponent. the reason biden is ahead is because in part he announced with a 2 x 4 to donald trump's apparent racism. the reason elizabeth warren is number two is because she has been the loudest, most succinct voice to trump's impeachment. >> there's only one element in this race, who can beat trump? i'm saying, that's not the night to introduce it. >> i think we and the folks who are paying super close attention to this are a little bit ahead of ourselves. there's still a plurality of voters who don't know who kamala harris is. they literally don't know who these people are. i think there is an element of introduction that's going to come to this. there will be plenty of time, if you can make enough money and get yourself on the stage in july, august, and september, there will be time for all of that. people don't know who these

folks are. and to alicea's point, it's, yes, stand up against trump, but get your message out and inform people about who you are. educate them about your vision for the nation. you can't proceed in this race without doing that. because they need to know who you are. >> it's not a vision race. it's a beat trump race. >> i think it's both. i think it's both. >> and i'm sure you're right. i think republicans have ptsd. because in a field of 17, there were people that had ideas and they were all demolished by trump who smeared him. so i hope -- >> but he's not in this primary. >> you know my position. i'll vote for y'all's bus. alicea, what do you make of sort of where this democratic primary is at this moment? >> wow, that's a big question. i think it's still early. i think is the truth. and i think a lot of those polls have to do with name recognition. i think a lot of those -- a lot of the fund-raising numbers have to do with really boring and unsexy things like the infrastructure of a campaign. so if you are bernie sanders, if

you are joe biden and you have run for president before, you have a hell of a list. you have a hell of an infrastructure. even if you're a kamala harris, cory booker, you've run in a big state before for federal office, you, too, have a national list. i was interviewing julian castro and he said to me, part of the reason i'm having trouble breaking through is because i've got no list. i had to build that up from the start. and some of those pieces, which are not the things we talk about on cable tv are what actually determine those first few months of a race. who can stay in and where they can place their bets. >> and you're on the road. what's your ground truth for me? >> wow, gosh, this is tough. the enthusiasm gap, i think the joe biden enthusiasm gap is kind of a real thing. he is drawing an older crowd. it's a very nostalgic crowd. folks who love him for being barack obama's best friend and sticking with him. but i think he'll have to maintain that as he wears further on into this campaign. all right. we're, i'm told, we have to sneak in a break. i won't tweet at anybody.

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donnie outed me in the break. some day i'll out him. today is not that day. my thanks to garrett, juanita, alicea and donnie. that does it for us. thank you so much for watching. i'm nicole wallace. "mtp daily" starts with chuck todd right now. if it's tuesday, the campaign that never stopped officially begins. and ahead of the president's big re-election rally, there are signs he's got some big problems. tonight, i'm talking to one of the 20 plus 2020 candidates vying to take him on. plus, cabinet chaos and a lack of leadership. the number of vacancies in the trump administration is so vast a , an acting secretary is now being replaced by, wait, an acting secretary. perhaps the best