hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. it's a white-knuckle moment for all americans as we watch a president who's largely untested standoff with foreign opponents and better known for alienating allies and accusing aver saries respond to escalations with iran. >> iran made a big mistake. this drone was in international waters clearly. we have it all documented. it's documented scientifically, not just words. and they made a very bad mistake. okay. >> mr. president, how will you respond? >> you'll find out. >> are you going to war with iran? >> you'll find out. >> i find it hard to be intentional to tell you the truth. i think it was somebody loose and stupid who did it. we will report back and you will understand what happened. but it was a foolish move. >> trump reacting to the news

iran shot down a surveillance drone. there's a difference of opinion between the u.s. and iran where that drone was flying when it was shot down. iran claiming it was above iran and u.s. saying it was in international air space. the shooting coming days after the president blamed iran on recent attacks on foreign shipping tankers, all of it illuminating with "the washington post's" david ignatius describes as iran's credibility problem. quote, there's still a vast truck gaft abroad and at home, a president who has repeatedly insulted major aiallies and denounced federal intelligence agencies is finding his word devalued what should be america's best weapon for containing iran. given iranian intransigents and in america view washington is the problem these days. that is where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us at the table nbc and msnbc national affairs analyst

john heilemann, former underseblts for diplomacy and public affairs, rick steppingle, former aide to the george w. and bush white house state department and msnbc military analyst and jake jacobs medal of honor recipient, and in washington white house correspoent for "the new york times," annie karni. what a group of heavyweights. we will start with you, the heaviest of heavyweights. >> oh, i'm not very heavy. i'm shrinking, getting older and shrinking. really quite astonishing, isn't it? >> unbelievable. >> the assertion it was over iranian territory is probably complete nonsense. we have the capability to control these things down to -- about that far. so it was exactly where we said it was. the real interesting issue is whether or not the president is actually right.

was the decision to launch this missile, to take out the drone, was that made at a very low level and not made in tehran? one of the things that comes to mind is that the -- we have a tendency to look at iran in particular but all enemies, decisions made at the higher level and trickle down and get executed flawlessly. not so anymore. there's something of a gap between the mullahs on one hand, in particular rouhani, and the republican guard, who constantly push the envelope. we've seen them do it before in the gulf many, many times. in many cases it was because some lower-level commander decided to do something. >> let me say this, it might get me in trouble but somebody made the parallel today and i think i have a statement from the iran revolutionary guard on the drone. this is a more hawkish if we want to apply american terms to their foreign policy

pronouncements. their statement today, we are prepared for war and today's incident is a signal. we have no intention of war but we're standing strong and our message to the enemy is we warn you whenever you are, we will find you. they said the iranian revolutionary guard is like the wolfowitz/cheney/rumsfeld foreign policy wing and the reason your other colleagues, john kerry negotiated with the conde rice, colin powell. is that correct? >> i think it is fairly atp. to call rouhani liberal is quite astonishing but in this case it really is. don't forget also iran is in the predicament economically and there are scarce resources that are even scarcer. if you want to squeeze the last bit of resources to the republican guards, one of the things to do is push the envelope again with the united states. and then you have a real cogent

argument to get more of a very, very shrinking, small and much shrinking pie. so that might be part of the motivation to do something. >> and the irgc was categorized as a terrorist group and that's cut off even more funding and isolated them even more just over the past month. and so i think the iranian currency has lost two-thirds of its value, inflation is about 40%. they're desperate and very much struggling. we could argue that the trump administration sanctions have been one of their more successful moves because they have implemented with some success. >> success in almost causing us to go to war. to your point that you began with, all of the actions that the trump administration has taken has led to this point. gypping, of course, with the cancellation of the iran deal. can you just imagine how dangerous this would be if the iran deal had never happened, if

they had been two weeks away from nuclearization two years ago and they were doing this now? obviously it wouldn't happen but we are like, as john f. kennedy said, the boy who throws his hat over the wall and has to follow it, we've been doing all of these things to basically spoil for war with iran which john bolton has been doing for 35 years. this is his kind of grand dream. he's one of those people who thinks that iran is behind everything bad and noxious in the middle east. iran is a bad actor, let's say that, but they're not everything. >> by qualifying i'm not saying give them a pat on the back, i'm saying they've surprisingly effective for an administration known for not able to implement very much. this is something within the foreign policy apparatus, they have actually managed to execute, which is scary. >> the fact that south korea, japan, had a waiver and could buy oil from iran was something

that was useful to iran and the administration revoked that, that's causing iran -- >> can i break in a reality burst here. for six minutes i'm sure you're having a conversation donald trump couldn't jum in and officiate it. can i bring this back to the person who will make the ultimate decision, we think, if things are as they always have been, do you think donald trump, one, follows all of the nuances of anything the three of you said for the last seven minutes? and two, who is running the country's iran policy? john bolton and pompeo, who seemed to have been pulled back like pets on a leash who the president going out -- >> just the fact we don't have a policy. it's all fragments. it's not exactly clear whoos running policy. pompeo has been the de facto secretary of defense for quite some time and now he is the secretary of defense for all intents and purposes. but just want to jump in and say we don't really have a policy.

so -- >> but we have a president. i guess my question is what happens next, john heilemann? >> the scary thing about this is i don't think we know because we don't have policy. everyone at this table knows more about foreign policy than me but i will say this, i will say if you're just looking at what happened at this front from 30,000 feet, you had the political who had an instinct, a political instinct, anything barack obama touched was bad. i want to tear it down. i want to get out of iran's deal because it's obama's accomplishment. he got political mileage out of claiming he's tough on iran when obama was weak on iran. then you have his invitation in pompeo and bolton, these hawks who he likes positioning as hawks because his more dovish tendencies, which he plays up often, he likes to set himself up. i like having these tough guys around me. i'm in charge. i have doves. i have hawks. i make the decision. now we're sort of hurdling towards conflict and you see the president today, this is where

i'm going to now turn to those who know more than me because i have heard colonel jack all day talking about this. you see him in the meeting with trudeau talking with seems to be more strength and trying to create space for deescalation. and referring in a way that the president normally would do. seemed briefed, like he knew some things about the intel in a very un-trumpy way. i don't know where it's headed but it seems like it's headed in a direction even more unpredictable because trump is not being trump now. >> let me add to the conversation, because annie's covering this president today. right now the president or at least at 3:00 was in a meeting with lawmakers. this does put the president at odds with his natural allies in his own cabinet, his natural allies in congress, folks like lindsey graham, much more saber rattling coming out of them today. you can almost contrast all of donald trump's utterances on iran and north korea for that

matter with everything we've heard from all of his allies inside his government and on capitol hill today. >> that's certain. i just want to respectfully disagree with john's point he was very un-trumpy in his comments in the oval office this morning. i thought there was something incredibly trumpy about it in it was hard to interpret, like a roers har's test, iran will not take it and left an out saying it might have been an individual, we will see. so i left viewing those comments thinking he made a comment that allows people to interpret it different ways and see what they want to see a little bit. but ultimately it represents the poll in trump, which means he wants to be seen as tough on the world stage. he said for 2 1/2 years he wants to end endless wars and america can't be the world's policeman. and this is coming to a head

where he will have to choose one or the other potentially. and he's meeting with lawmakers in the situation room now. we have not gotten a readout of that meeting. it wasn't over when i sat here in this seat. but there could be discussions right now of what's the next step for him, and it's a real judgment test. >> i will say i'm not sure we actually disagree. trump is always trump. all i meant was partly on the basis of watching smart people who are interpreting his behavior that he seemed to be trying to create not being bellicose, not flying off the handle, obviously creating a little roar shack element here. but smart interpretations are pointing to he seemed like he was briefed, he seemed like he was talking on the basis of specific information that he had been told about and was trying to not --p temperate of, not just flying off the rhetoric, creating a somewhat nuanced

circumstance. but i defer to experts. >> i think a, he was briefed -- >> how low is the bar, breaking news banner, trump was briefed on iran? are you guys kidding me. go ahead. >> more significantly number two, i think he was told that he needed to do his best to manage expectations how we were going to react. >> and the fact he said it could have been a lower level person that did this, in diplomacy circles it's saying, hey, ayatollah, you can say this was a mistake, that it was lower level people and that would defuse the situation. >> don't you remember when he did that for mbs with khashoggi and we found out it went all the way to the top. color me skeptical. annie karni, i want to get on the record about something that is written, not favorite but truly a foreign policy test for america and the world with the lowest credibility around

foreign policy. most americans would be supportive or not have heard him screaming no collusion with russia for the better of 2 1/2 years. talk about the reporting of the credibility deficit and how they're accounting for that inside the government. >> well, that's a complicated question, but i think that -- like we've been saying, we don't know what the policy coming out of the white house all the time. there's been a switch in terms of the advisers around him. at the beginning of the ex-administration, his foreign policy cabinet was rex tillerson, jim mattis, people who were seen as restraining him. at this point as we sit here, john bolton, mike pompeo are seen as hawks and donald trump seen as restraining them. so we don't know what he's going to do here. he has a track record of sometimes showing force in the face of force and at the beginning of an administration he fired missiles at syria after

a chemical weapons attack. but there's no coherent strategy here so we don't know what his next move is, which makes us all on pins and needles to see what happens. >> annie's making the larger point here. we are applying -- i think i said this last time you were here, 2012's calming and they want their roundtable back. we are applying norms of the amizi analyzing thing that's cannot separate himself from the state. "the washington post" said iran is saying he wants to avoid war. but it also makes his decision to pull out of the iran nuclear deal as fool hearty as critics said it was. he made volatility his calling card and appears to be the biggest testing ground to date for trump's wielding foreign policy.

i guess trump is always trump. he can never not be trump. he goes into this fraught situation, we're all on pins and needles, with no credibility, no knowledge of the region, applies he's not sure. >> and my overarching point, we have no idea what will happen next. in a weird way often trump's unpredictability or trumpiness of trump, leads you to firm conclusions, like on tariffs. you had the sense the tariff thing would all be kabuki and in the end he would not impose the tariff because he understood the economic costs of that. so he would threaten and claim victory when there was not a victory to claim. a front on the national security there. but here in the way the policy evolved and because he doesn't have any actual knowledge of the region, any actual instincts or ideological moorings, it puts you in position where it's a very, very volatile situation

where i have no idea where we're going to end up. >> that's what is scary about it. we're all still banking on his generals keeping him from doing something that was really stupid. i think that's one of the reasons why you did not have an immediate response when the aircraft was shot down. even if they received instructions to respond, i think they established their own local rules of engagement, which precluded them. >> the central point that trump made for a long time, i don't want to be involved long term in the middle east with a middle eastern war and on the other side appearing weak. one of the things president obama was alerted to was at least actions people had to interpret. you can't do that because it would seem weak. he said i'm not going to do things that are not right because it would make me seem weak or strong. but trump doesn't do things that way. he does have a foreign policy. it's called let's see what

happens. >> on a serious note, we can laugh but on a serious level, i think former national security officials feel that there's some peril in that. i think trump has a recognizable impulse to -- and we saw it in the south carolina primary in 2015, he's an isolationist who ran as an anti-war candidate inside a republican primary moving in that direction and he helped pull it there decisively. he's now so uninformed, so careless, so untethered to the public pronouncements of his own cabinet, there's concern even though he doesn't want conflict, he doesn't want to escalate, he may use the word hurdle, he may hurdle his way there. >> that's the concern that this situation has no hope for deescalation just because he has to save face that he can't be seen as weak. right now i'm not confident we have a statesman or stateswoman who's empowered enough by the administration to actually take the steps that are necessary to deescalate the tensions right

now. >> annie, let me ask you, there's some weird rumblings coming out of capitol hill about the kinds of briefings they're getting. this sort of rumor that's going around that they've been putting out ties between al qaeda and iran, which are really not well established. sort of some echoes of propaganda that led to the walk-up of the war in iraq. there's questions about whether the attacks on the tankers, whether they went to the higher levels of the iranian government, whether they were false. what is the flow of information like? is there a high degree of confidence that congress is getting really good information about the best that we know, or are there different signals coming in terms of the actual intelligence flowing to capitol hill? >> on specific foreign policy, i'm not sure what the quality of their information is but in general the flow of information between the house and the hill is not good. there's been a lack of trust

built between -- like during budget negotiations. they -- there's bad blood between a lot of the emissaries that are sent to the hill to speak on behalf of the trump. there's a sense that no one really speaks on trump's behalf except for trump. a lot on the staff level. a lot of republican staffers on the hill who really have no relationships in the white house. they're in between a congressional liaison that left. so in general the lines of communication there are not good in terms of foreign policy and level of intelligence briefing, i'm not exactly sure on this particular subject. >> that seems to be the icing on the cake, that not only does nobody know what the president is going to do, the information flow between the executive branch of government and capitol hill is broken. >> you know what happens as a result of this, it forces capitol hill to get all of their

information that has gotten away. they will have close relationships, have have deep, some not so deep, with every little bit of the bureaucracy in every department in washington. that's great for establishing nice relationships with obscure bureaucrats but not very good for formulating policy, but that's what they have to do. >> annie karni, colonel jacob, thank you both so much. after the break, no doubt joe biden's being tested by his comments about segregationist, by the other democratic candidates and even by sniping by some on his own campaign. but is he also testing the rules of politics by refusing to apologize for comments he insists were taken out of context? that debate coming up. and hope hicks says of course we were interested in all of the dirt russia had to offer. next question. all of those stories coming up. you should be mad at tech that's unnecessarily complicated.

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coming out today on the 2020 friemary stage what might be the first real test of the real political rules established in the era of donald trump. joe biden showing shades of the unabashedness that rewrote the playbook during trump's candidacy in 2016. biden today refusing to back down in the face of controversy over his solemn reflections on his relationships with segregationists in the senate. and when his 2020 rival cory booker called on him to apologize, biden lashed out. >> apologize for what? >> cory booker called for it. >> cory should apologize. he knows better.

there's not a racist bone in my body. i have been involved in civil rights my whole career period. period, period. >> in the political arenas of the past, a flashpoint like this may have seemed temporarily disastrous for a candidate under fire but we're living in a new world where the man who was elected president of the united states makes unapologetic divisiveness part of his platform. to be clear, we're not comparing anything biden said or his record to anything that donald trump says or does. the race hating, fearmongering, inf inflammatory investigate irv that has come to define the president. but we're asking a question, do the voters in the era of trump see a refusal to apologize and are the rules different for the front-runner than they are for the man elected in the last election? here's trump in the midst of

turmoil refusing to back down. >> i think it's always okay when somebody says something about you as false, i think it's always okay to counterpunch or to fight back. hillary clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. i finished it. i finished it. pocahontas, i apologize to you. i apologize. to you i apologize. so the fake pocahontas i won't. you have people on both sides of that. they admitted their guilt. yes, i think there's blame on both sides. you look at both sides. i think there's blame on both sides. i have no doubt about it and you don't have any doubt about it either. >> some of the most offensive moments of this presidency. again, i want to make clear i'm not putting joe biden's comments

in any of those from donald trump in the same category. simply asking a question, has the practice of not apologizing become the new normal? joining the conversation, eddie glide, chairman of the department of african-american studies at princeton university and joining us from washington on the 2020 beat for us, garrett haake. garrett, how is the campaign doing? is this a strategy from them? it looks like one. >> yes, you heard from a lot of campaign allies particularly on capitol hill saying the hullabaloo over this is just politics essentially at its worse. what we are seeing is a bad-faith effort by other campaigns to try to punch up at joe biden and make an issue out of something all of these politicians if they have been in the arena a while instinctively understand, you have to do business with odious characters or people you don't really like or respect sometimes to get things done. i think the danger here for biden is this plays until a couple traps for him. the idea he's out of touch within the party and the fact

these original comments came at a closed-door fund-raiser, even though there was a pool reporter in the room, that is why we know he said this in the first place, plays into this whole idea of an old washington in which backroom deals were made. people are sitting around drinking their mint juleps talking about whatever they want to talk about after they did the day's business. that sort of vision of an older, smoke-filled room of washington is exactly what a lot of folks in the democratic party want to reject. so it remains to be seen whether this sinks in with voters. i'm flying to south carolina tonight. i look forward to talking to folks down there about this tomorrow. but it's one more day in which you're talking about some biden foible of the '70s or '80s and not what he wants to do for future of this country. >> they will make a mistake if they read this as simply politics only. it was a mistake. he should have said it's a bad example but the point still holds, we have to sometimes work with people we disagree with.

but to invoke ill ulance is something totally different. i'm from mississippi. eastland is david duke times two, three and four. there are bodies at the bottom of the mississippi river because of people like him. you don't i volk him as an example of any kind of virtuous behavior. that's this moment. that's the first thing, kind of tone deafness. the second thing is about the nature of politics itself. we have to ask ourselves the difficult question, what is the ethical line that we draw with regards in terms of who we compromise with? because in the history of this country, we have compromised with certain folk and a certain group of the country had to bear the burden of that compromise. so when we think about what f.d.r. did in the context of the new deal, how we had to compromise with dixicrats, how

it led to the birth of the middle class, who had to deal with the birm of the dixicrats? and over the course of generations and each time it was worded and all of the bodies left behind because of the compromise. we have been on a racial hamster wheel because of the country almost collapsed because of civil war and comments like jim eastland. biden needs to understand that. if he thinks he can play politics with this, he will have an interesting, interesting primary. >> do you think his numbers will be impacted, he made the first mistake and all other democrats -- >> for me it raises the question, the specter, what did he compromise about? >> does it disqualify him? >> no, not yet but i'm asking did you compromise over bird and fritz hollings and jesse helms

over the war on drugs? who -- what was the -- what were the policy implications of your compromise? and who had to bear the burden of those compromises? i understand we have got to get stuff done but i think now we're going to be able to drill down. the issue here is not that he's a racist. that's too easy. the issue, what are the consequences of you bringing that example forward as an example of virtuous politics? >> so i think about this in terms of political analysis, i was listening to you and i will do a plug for a great new podcast mike murphy and david axelrod have, hacks on tap. the first was in the wake of the controversy over the hide amemt and these two very smart guys said two things i really noted, one was mieke murphy say they'r not letting joe biden out to play much, there's not free-range joe biden. they're worried about him making mistakes. he goes to a fund-raiser, he's

supposed to talk for 20 minutes, talks 45. in the middle of all it, he said something like this that walks him into trouble. he could have easily come up with a way of making the same point. you have to work with repugnant people to get stuff done but to recite those people in a party dominated by a non-white vote and where you have to have a nonwhite vote to win the nomination, just thank rurks du dangerous, dumb politics. so they're trying to keep him under wraps and twice over the rope line and hide amendment, you see this illustrates the danger. mike's point was if this becomes a pattern, joe biden will not be the nominee. making these mistakes over and over again, whether it happens this week or next week, these mistakes officer and over will lead to a decline as surely as night follows day. axelrod's point is the reason he's the front runner is he's the only democratic candidate with a substantial share of the nonwhite vote. everyone else is trying to figure out how do you get there

with african-american and hispanic americans? e he seems like he could beat trump, they care about that. he worked with president obama. and if joe biden gets the support, he will be the nominee. if he les the support, he's not. and this topic opens door is the joking about calling people boy versus calling people son, cory booker's point, it opens the door to the conversation about the crime bill. it opens the door to the conversation about joe biden's record on bussing and a whole bunk of stuff on policy that will be properly litigated right now. is -- joe biden has a long record and some of that record you could never adopt those positions on mass incarceration, three strikes and you're out, on a whole bunch of stuff. for african-american voters now, you could never have those positions in 2019. now we will have the

conversations and he opened the door to t costill win, be the democratic nominee but these last two things showed where you the danger lies for joe biden in a pretty vivid way. >> i want to ask you the question we came in on because i have reason to believe he's giving advice and apologizing to some guests not to apologize and there's some analysis around him what the democrats are looking for is someone who can go toe to toe with donald trump is someone who stays connected to the voters in a way that seems scrappy. this may be the worst example ever, and maybe it's my ptsd for 2016, but i think i said "the access hollywood" tape was disqualifying. i think said blood was coming out of megyn kelly's eyes was disqualifying. never apologized. putting apologies aside, are there things voters will accommodate if they like someone enough, and is biden that guy? >> i used to give advice to young political reporters who started covering politicians for

the fist time, i said there are two questions you never ask. one, do you have any regrets about x? no politician has ever had any regrets about doing anything. and do you apologize for why, because no politician has never apologized. it's a long history of it. not just electing donald trump. maybe he feels he has to be even more righteous about this because he doesn't want to lose those white voters. i don't think there's anything weird about that. i do want to annotate one thing. eddie has changed my thinking about a lot of this, but this idea that this reflects bipartisanship is a misnomer. because tall mutt and eastland were democrats. remember the solid south until the civil rights bill was democrat. and then it became republican. what biden could have done is this isn't about working across the aisle, this is about working within your own party where there are people you can't work with where you need to do something in your own party. that would have been a way to

explain it a little better saying i'm not going to apologize. >> the bigger problem i think is this, i won't speak for eddie but i will say this, when you hear a politician of a certain age say back in the good old days we were able to do this. it's good old days for who, sir? this is what a lot of black voters will say. good old days for who? >> black, white, young and female. >> yes. >> gar snrett? >> i think there's a tactical problem too. not apologizing worked for donald trump in part because he's donald trump but in part because he never turned the fire hydrant off. there was always another thing the next day and he was able to constantly change the subject and control what he wants to talk about. the biden campaign isn't running that way. we have not seen joe biden at a public event since late last week. we won't see him until this weekend. they have to decide if they will let joe biden be joe biden. that means you have to take the good with the bad. but if you bubble wrap him and you don't have him out here,

something like this then gets to fester for two, three or four days and campaign aides out doing cable television will never be able to clean it up or address something as folsomly as the candidate himself. >> that's such a good point. it highlights both of their strategic and you called them tactical vulnerabilities, that he's so limited in terms of our access to him that everything sticks. this is the second day we've been talking about it and he's doing a trump-like tactic without a trump-like campaign. garrett, will you come back tomorrow from south carolina? you said you're heading down tonight. >> we'll make it happen. >> thank you for spending some time. when we come back, did the controversy around joe biden create the opening at least one of his rivals have been waiting for? small things. big things. too hard to do alone things. day after day, you need to get it all done. and here to listen and help you through it all is bank of america.

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apologize for what? >> cory booker called for it. >> cory should apologize. he knows better. >> i know i was raised to speak

truth to power, and i shall never apologize for doing that. i know joe biden. he's better than this. and this is a moment where he should have spoken to the issue and allowed everybody to learn from it and move on. those are the kierpds of things a uniting leader that helps and heals do. this is a disappointment. >> in the early stages of a crowded primar where moments make the difference between sinking and swimming, joe biden handed cory booker a craft. we will see how cory booker uses his turns at the microphone to make the most of this moment. the table is back. elise? >> booker did well in that moment. he showed grace. i'm not sure joe biden deserved it given the way he addressed cory booker telling him he deserved an apology. it was really not a good moment for joe biden at all. and i just had very little confidence that joe biden as he

speaks more on the campaign trail, that he's going to be able to clean up and not dig himself into more holes. >> you know, i think senator booker was making a very important point, that joe biden given who he is and the fact he spent eight years with the first african-american president should know better. and it's not cory booker's responsibility or my responsibility or your responsibility to enlighten him. he should know better. and i think vice president biden's response revealed some work that needs to be done there. but i want to say this quickly -- >> not quickly. take your time. >> we have to ask ourselves the question, what are the costs for dealing with people like eastland? eastland is the bad guy, we know

that. actual imagine, the bad guy. those are the villains. the more difficult thing to identify is our complicity when we work with them. it's time, nicolle, for us to finally banish from our politics those sorts of people. we can't deal with them, because in fact that's the fertilizer for the soil that produced trump. >> and let me press you right here, do you think there's a mindset in the democratic party to let things slide not just with biden but say he's not the front the runner in four weeks, do you think the desire to beat someone who's a villain the way trump is, the way you just described, is going to cloud people's judgment when it comes to these sorts of compromises? >> sure, i think sometimes we get so caught up with donald trump, that we think our problem is donald trump.

the crisis we face as a nation isn't just him. we're at a reflection point, formed our body politic and made him. it seems to me the democratic party, if the leadership doesn't understand that, then they will be complicit in the fall of this fragile experiment in democracy. how do i put this? we've had these moments, nicolle, where we had a chance to be otherwise and we have historically doubled down on our ugliness. at every turn. eastland is easy. the question is why have we been complicit with these folks? >> we're going to go from high to low. you and me are low. >> i can't play on the -- >> he's our poet and our conscience and our brain, so you and i will have a different conversation. does biden have a good campaign?

>> i think they've shown they're not performing at the level -- >> you can be blunt, mr. heilemann. ? >> they're not performing at the front runner of i the level of nominee. and the thing that worries me for them right now is both in the context of the hide amendment thing and seeing these blind quotes from people undermining biden. it's a very troubling sign, a sign of a campaign culture that is not -- that is not rating in the way that it should. i have been surprised. >> explain that to our viewers. in the print stories, there are leaks. >> you saw it first in the hide amendment thing -- he changed his mind. you saw a lot of heroes, unnamed heroes who were the aides who went and told him he had to change his mind and they made themselves the hero. not joe biden had a change of heart. he thought he was wrong now. none of that. your job on your staff is elevate the candidate. it's all about the candidate, making the candidate the hero,

making the candidate the avatar for values and a message and -- >> taking all of the blame and none of the credit. >> yes. >> i worked -- you have a lot of people around joe biden. >> that is just front-runner itis, right? >> no, no. >> that's an example of another bad campaign. >> i worked on a campaign that won and i worked on a campaign that lost. there are not a lot of things to determine an outcome. here's one i have never found flawed, campaign that leaks the least always wins. >> to your point before, and assimilating what eddie said, is it sign of weakness when you apologize? some people interpret that. it's also a sign of strength when you apologize. and biden said you know what, this was a bad mistake. i shouldn't have used them as an example. i will learn from it and grow. that's a sign of strength not

weakness. >> if you want to apologize, strong and wrong the right way to, go the extra step and say cory booker needs to apologize, you can't go there. book her nothing to apologize for. he didn't say biden was a racist. and in fact he was careful with what he said. cory booker, if you look at the field who are underpriced stocks, people who have not gotten traction so far but have potential to rise in the months ahead, we always say it's a long way, there's a lot of field left and game left to play, cory booker was pitch perfect making the points he wanted to make without attack be joe biden, without seeming like he was being a capitalist, he also made a point that connects with american voters. he's underpriced stock right now. >> and it's not his first moment he hit the right note. after the shooting in virginia

on the question and issue of guns in newark and his record and those things not having enough attention, it may take something like this to propel him. >> that was eddie's point. eddie was making a moral point and booker was making a moral point, some people are beyond the pale you cannot deal with. >> and the difference in the language. they didn't call me boy, they called me son. there's a lot of layers to that. really cory booker did a little bit of -- not just for joe biden but everyone -- a little bit of good expository, used it as a teachable moment, as they say. >> he reminded me too much of biden's previous response when it came to the hair sniffing. >> we will stop on hair sniffing. thank you, my dear one. lucky to have you here. up next -- hope hicks may have revealed more than we thought on capitol hill yesterday. we will tell you how she broke with her former boss when we come back. when you shop for your home at wayfair, you'll find just

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foreigners, if someone else offers you information on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the fbi? >> i think maybe you do both. i think you might want to listen. i don't think there's nothing wrong with listening. if somebody called from a country, norway, we have information on your opponent. oh, i think i'd want to hear it. >> you want that kind of interference in our election? >> it's not interference, it's our election, i think i'd take it. >> it sent shockwaves and seems donald trump is eager to collude in the future. now we are learning that one of his closest advisers, a woman who was literally in the room for many key campaign decisions and conversations in 2016 said the president was deadly serious about accepting foreign opo on his on poebt. hope hicks spent nearly 8 hours behind closed doors. ms. hicks made clear that she

understood the president to be serious when he said he would accept interference in our election. she also made clear that even she knew foreign assistance should be rejected and reported to the fbi. a full transcript of her testimony could be released at any time. joining the table, former u.s. attorney and former deputy @sint attorney general harry litman. is hope telling us what she already told mueller? is hope outing donald trump's intent? what is the significant of hope saying dang right in '16 we were open to colluding with russia? >> less than it appears. i think she is telling a lot less than she told mueller. nadler's playing a weak hand and he sort of knows it. his two nemeses, both the white house and time. and hope hicks saying something different on a policy level with the president. i don't think it's going to impress people very much. he wanted the factual moment when she would speak to the

plane encounter where trump was possibly giving a false story, something about comey. and everything about her job the white house gave a blanket objection on executive privilege, a very dubious one but one that's going to take months to work out in courts. i don't think it's a huge talking point, and what they don't have is the sort of fact witness moment. >> on the obstruction side. >> or on anything really. they want anybody up there to make any kind of factual claim that, you know, that is kind of an echo of waregate, and so far they're flailing. >> despite that, the democrats who were for impeachment added a member of house leadership, representative dan schakowski saying that, quote are, a lot of people are going to say, well, nancy pelosi, that she's

ultimately right, but in the meantime i think we have to do everything we can to get the information. and even, you know, political appointment of the justice department said that if impeachment proceedings commence, congress's tool is sharpened and strengthen. why is there so much reluctant on capitol hill to proceed in that election? >> beats me. i think they don't want to look like the impeachment party. i think there is great ambivalence within pelosi's. they're snakebit about it, and there's great conflict. but i think they'd be better off really having the wherewithall to bring forward fact witnesses. that's what they need. >> rick, i am never not surprise when did i hear people around trump say -- i think having worked on campaigns we never took calls from foreign governments, we never took calls

from aligned political interests. >> the other thing, and we were talking about this before when he was with trudeau and we thought he was maybe actually briefed before that meeting, it was very clear he was not breed of at all with the stephanopoulos meeting. he didn't know anything about it. >> and what's just kind of crazy about it to go through it again is it's a president of the united states, the chief law enforcement officer of the united states saying that our federal election crime is fine to commit. >> again! not only in '16 but that he's going to do it again in '20. >> it's just scary that he doesn't -- he hasn't learned anything. that's one of the things we have been talking about since he was president. is he going to actually learn and evolve in any way. it's clear he is not going to evolve. >> breaking news will not evolve. we have to sneak in our last break. don't go anywhere. we will be right back. right ba. and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us.

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i could talk to these friends all day, but we're out of time. my thanks to rick stengel, harry litman. that does it for this hour. "mtp daily" with my friend chuck todd is next. if it's thursday, it's "mtp daily." good evening, i am kasie hunt in washington in for chuck todd who will be back tomorrow. we have a lot to get to tonight including the 2020 democrats piling on joe biden for his comment about working with segregationists. we've got a presidential candidate coming up in just a moment. plus,