and i may be right but i'm right a lot. i have a feeling it was a mistake by somebody who shouldn't have been doing what they did. i think they made a mistake. i'm not talking just somebody made a mistake, i'm saying somebody under the command of that country. i find it hard to believe it was intentional. it could have been somebody that was loose and stupid that did it. >> loose and stupid, the title of my upcoming autobiography. that was president trump speaking yesterday at the white house. we've learned that president trump approved air strikes in iran but backed away at the last minute. it's friday, june 21st. we have jonathan lemire, john heilemann, also in gray. also host of --

>> we need the three shot of the gray boys. there it is. great. >> looks good. >> exactly. exactly. you know what, every joke i was about to say i just stopped because it early and there are children in the audience and nobody likes watching those bath tub ads in the middle of football games anyways. host of saturday night politics donny deutsch and susan del percio and associate editor of "the washington post," political analyst eugene robinson in a blue outfit. >>missed the memo. >> no, he got the memo. and heidi pryzbyla. mika is with her daughter having a great week and weekend and

she'll be back on monday. >> missing the gray jackets. >> avoiding you. >> a gray jacket with a light blue shirt. >> president trump approved air strikes on iran but he backed away at the last minute. the strikes would have been in retaliation after the military shot down a u.s. drone. tehran claims it was over territorial waters. a senior administration official added the u.s. retaliatory

operation was already under way with planes in the air and ships in position when it was called off by the president. the white house and pentagon have declined to comment and the "times" said no government official asked the paper to withhold the article. the u.s. strikes would have been on a handful of specific iranian targets, including radar and missile batteries. let's go to the white house and talk to nbc news correspondent hans nichols and richard engel. let's start with you, hans, at the white house. what can you tell us? >> we don't know whether it was a pause or a decision by the president to tamp those in the administration who want to escalate iran. it is clear there is something going on and that they pulled it back. we don't know how far it was

going on, but this could be all part of a message, a message to tehran to let's start talking. and in a lot of way, guys, i think the most important story this morning is the one that reuters has citing iranian officials saying that a message was sent from president trump to iran to let's start talking. so, again, we don't know if this is a pause, if it's indefinite but it seems that the president wants to give this a little more time to have conversations to de-escalate. we won't see the president much today. he will be talking or appearing at 5:30. he's got the congressional pick neck e -- picnic here. we'll see whether there's anything added to his schedule and make sure this is a broader coalition if anything does happen. >> the reports we're hearing is

during the deliberation you had pompeo, haspel supporting the attacks until the president called them off. what message is sent by the president when he wants to sit down, talk and de-escalate? >> reporter: this is from a reuters report citing iranian officials and according to these reports, while these deliberations were happening, the ships in position, the planes in the air, that a message was isn't from president trump to the iranian leadership that it was sent through the sultanate of iman, a country that has played a diplomatic role in past, the message said the united states does not want

war, wants talks but said the military operation was imminent. the iranians did write back saying they would pass back the message to the supreme leader but added that the ayatollah has expressed his opposition to having talks with president trump in the past, but they said they'd pass on the message. a lot of reporting emerging overnight that an operation was under way, that it was called back, that it was this last-minute shuttle diplomacy but added the caveat that the supreme leader has expressed reluctance in the path. the ayatollah khomeini expressed that president trump was not worthy of talks.

>> all right. jonathan. >> we saw the prime minister of canada and he seemed to be ebe telegraphing that he believed it was a mistake. he believed this was shot down in error, that it was not authorized by tehran, that it was a mistake, loose and stupid was the expression he used. this is something that the president wanted to avoid. bolton's been a hawk on iran for decades. military strikes, he signed off on it. it was timed for dawn so it

would minimize civilian casualties, a few radar batteries and other sites and then certainly changed. did the president call it off simply because he got cold feet, if you will, more likely it was because they received some sort of signal from overseas that there could be a next step, if not negotiations, we heard the ayatollah doesn't want any part of that. it's a fluid situation. >> heidi, what have you heard from capitol hill? >> of course on congress can approve going to war under our constitution, joe. here's the problem, the president can willfully do strikes without in approval from congress. we know we have a history of getting drawn into conflicts based on those limited strikes getting out of control. we see a split between the republicans and democrats with mitch mcconnell saying the

president has the authority if he needs it and there needs to be some kind of a measured strike. from the democrats you see much more tones of caution, from leader pelosi, from chuck schumer saying this is exactly how a nation can bumble into a war, that if we learned anything from the iraq war it's that we need to have a robust debate in congress before the president takes any action, that the 2001 authorization for military force is out of date and does not apply in situation. i do not see much of a divide here within the republican conference. in the past republicans like senator rand paul have spoken out against the president acting without the approval of congress but right now they seem to be pretty unified to defer to trump. >> john heilemann, it is fascinating, donald trump has always talked tough on the campaign trail and i remember we

were trying to sort through it during the campaign trail where he was an anti-interventionist, that he was talking about destroying isis, going after iran. there was an inconsistency by here we are two and a half years into his presidency and it's a pretty good bet that his default position is to not go in, to not e intervene, to not have military strikes. it's been one of the few, along with being a protectionist on trade, being a noninterventionist has been fairly consistent. he thinks the american people have been led by people who are suckers who fight everybody else's war and we may have seen that again last night. >> i think you have two contradictory impulses. one is that the

isolationist/nonisolationist/n n isolationist/noninterventionist trump and the i can't be embarrassed, i can't lose face, i have to be assertive on the other side. many presidents has competing impulses on foreign policy. trump has these. the question is who feels comfortable right now that there's a clear strategy guiding our american -- the american approach to what is an increasingly threatening scenario in the middle east? there's some kind of a here's our strategy, here's what we're trying to accomplish, here's plan a, here's plan b. who feels comfortable we are proceeding in that way as opposed to an ad hoc, chaotic way where nobody really knows who's m charge, nobody really knows who is running this policy and whether there's a clear idea whether the president knows

where he's headed or how he's getting there. it seems like the president's impulses are pulling in in different directions rather than a policy with a clear objective. >> i think a definite trend is emerging, and we've been talking about the limits of donald trump's approach which is to threaten, to insult, to bully and then pull back. in north korea, he bullied, he called him rocketman and insulted him and now he's been apologizing for missile acts that any other president would have criticized. this is a president who loves to insult, bully and loves to threaten but what happens when our adversaries understand that he's never going to follow

through? by the way, i don't think we should actually bomb iran, unless britain, france, germany and all of our other allies are shoulder to shoulder and say we need to go in. so independent not here advocating that -- i mean, i'm glad donald trump stopped this operation at the last moment. and anybody who thinks we need to start blowing up things in iran without having the world by our side are fools. but anyway, to me i'm just curious whether you see there does seem to be a pattern emerging here where the president threatens and then pulls back. >> there certainly has been that pattern. i don't think the iran situation will work out exactly like the north korea situation because i don't see the ayatollah, you know, meeting in that sort of summit that the president had with kim jong un or i don't see the ayatollah writing him beautiful letters, love letters

the way kim jong un did. i think actually u.s. policy on iran has been i think personally it's been wrong. it think we should have stayed in the iran nuclear deal. others disagree. but i think it's been consistent actually. i think it's been consistent to increase the pressure on the iranian economy to the point where there is screaming pain now inside iran and to bring us to this point where the iranians are feeling such pain that they are lashing out, that they are trying to provoke us into something that then would require international involvement and might get them to a negotiation where they could get some of this pressure off of them. the problem is we've got steps one and two. there is no step three.

they doesnn't seem to have any a of what to do now. that's why you see the back and forth. what do you do when the iranians predictably start to act up. do we hit them? do we continue to be patient and ratcheting on the pressure? do we really want to start a war? and i thit donald trump, i think he doesn't actually want to start a war but he doesn't know what step three is. >> jonathan, again, he's -- the world now knows that he's going to threaten. they know he's going to bully and then he's going to pull back. and, again, this is one thing people always said about barack obama, the republicans love to say about democratic candidates, when they pull back, when they appear to be weak that sends a message to tyrants across the world. if you are sitting in iran and you've seen how the president has acted towards vladimir

putin, who is your close ally and you see how he's acted towards north korea and you see he's back $ doed down time and , then you don't listen to the threats. unfortunately because donald trump never plays the long game and doesn't build coalitions, all he has is his bullying presence from the bully pulpit. so it's all day trading and it never leads anywhere but here where our foreign adversaries understand they can do what they want, there's not going to be a consequence. >> they seem emboldened by the lack of alliances the president has built. he's strained those alliances, those ties. >> this is where the president needs nato. all those insults, all the pushing aside of pop at summits, all the insulting of ainge la

merkel, of justin trudeau, of macron -- >> dugal. >> exactly. this is where the bill comes to. this is where we -- george h.w. bush could have picked up a phone call and could have had a coalition in five minutes. >> i was in the room in brussels when he did not back article 5. >> i wonder if that is why he was so gracious to macron in transthis past time? >> it's possible. >>i suspected at the time it might be because a showdown with iran was coming. >> tensions have been building with iran for weeks now, though it's been escalated with the attacks on the tankers and now drone strike. the, tent of this military operations han about let's

remember woorks don't have a confirmed secretary of defense. there has not been someone in the pentagon in the current position since january and the acting secretary shanahan announced this week he was leaving but was in the west wing yesterday. we heard heidi talk about how the republicans to be supporting us on the hill. how could you think of that it is something that doesn't necessarily break down on party lines. what's your read of what he'll get? >> i think on the democratic side if the president does decide to take action, they will support him at that moment. they may criticize him after the fact but at that moment, they probably will. i think what democrats and republicans are trying to figure out, though, was it his military advisers that talked him down? was it putin sending out a threat -- not a threat but saying to the u.s. do not engage

in -- >> he said that yesterday. >> he said that yesterday. >> or was it his pal, jim, who said this may be bad p.r. for you? we don't know where this president is coming from. >> has jim gone back to paris? >> i'm not sure. >> it's not the same. >> it's not the same. the big concern is we don't know what our political goal is. that's what we use our military for. think there's going to be a lot of concern over the next few days of how donald trump literally feels. is he wearing the hat of i'm going to be big and strong or is he going to hank on to actually his core belief we shouldn't be engaging in wars. there is a tweet for that. the trump said in order to get elected, barack obama will start a war with iran, which is reflective of how the one thing

we've always been terrified is his lack of disbill clinton. and as a guy who is always piling on on him, you have to give him credit in the most important moments he has shon restraint. so we can pile on and say he acts tough and then he backs off. this i have to give him credit. it easy to push the button. if we say, we, he's not as strong as he says. this is the post importantar where he does show some roo strant so let's go back on that. and the president saying i'm the last person who would start a nuclear war because i'm not a guy who wants o intervene. it's good to know that has been his instinct throughout his life. it is interesting that he has

bolton and others, pompeo and others around him that i think would go full on attack. but during the campaign, he had some conflicting statements about iraq, but i'm sure he remembers, always having to brush aside the parts where he said it would be good for the economy and, hey, i guess we need to go in and he clung to those statements where he was opposed to iraq, said it was a stupid operation. there was a lot of people that were talking yesterday that didn't seem to remember the mistakes that a lot of us made in iraq, going into iraq, supporting a war with iraq. iraq would be a gentle spring shower, picking flowers as you walk throughs rain with puppy dogs running around your feet compared to iran. >> yup. >> and, by the way, here's the most important thing, donny, i think we have iran right where we want them right now.

they are economically squeezed, they are going to their knees. at some point time's on our side, they're going to have to make a deal with us. they just are. they're going to have to go to europe and have europe figure out a way to have us ease these sanctions. why -- why give them any advantage on the world stage by launching mill strikes right now? >> isn't it ironic how we talk about there's no grownups around trump and yet the people around him are saying let's go, let's go and this is the guy putting a yellow light up there. but once again, he is really demonstrating restraint here. >> just so you don't get killed on twitter today, you're talking about the military realm. >> yes. as i said, that is the ultimate

irony of his presidency and him as a man. and is it beyond ---ion than, i want to ask you a question. they let the "times" know. is this a chance this was a little theater that basically let's put this in motion? we're going to set trump up to be the good guy here? maybe it was never intended -- >> oh no, no, no, no. the pentagon would never do that as colin powell once said, you don't use our men and women as toy soldiers. that's exactly what happened. i do want to pick up on a point, though, that you made while we were not advice rating the president for one morning, why don't we just keep doing that for a second. gene robinson, i had one of my children ask me about all the

lies of trump and how devastating it was, and i said it is terrible. it's terrible that he's lying and that he's setting this example and they say, well, what are the kons consequences of the lies and i went through all of it. but you know what, though, one thing that is interesting and i brought up war. just seen ken burns and an stror documentary on vietnam. we've had presidents who have lied before. john kennedy in 1963, ken burns picked up on a tape talking about vietnam saying we could neff win there, the peep hate us there but we can't pull out until after l.b.j. in '64 right after he got in there saying there's no no way.

57% -- i'm not defending donald trump here. i am just saying that presidents have lied and the impact has been deadly and some would say far more extreme of course he'll probably launch a huge attack tonight, but we can at least be grateful when it comes to war is less, not more. >> and i'm grateful for that and so i'll join the or what happens next? the demands that secretary of state pompeo are making is an announcement complete and other capitulation on all the issues.

so there has to be a position of what we're willing to accept, what we're willing o live how we're willing to governor some car ots to the iranians. in order to, you know, to move forward from here. it just doesn't seem to me that is worked out. so what happens pt next time if, you know, if it's not a drone? if it's an aircraft. i'm not sure the iranians actually can shoot down one of our aircraft with all their countermeasures and everything like that but the iranians. the other thing we haven't talked about it what happens to oil prices. at these points of inflexion,

oil and of course the question also is why did we move more troops, more forces, moe ships, more drones into an area where we knew we were going to provoke iran. again, there are a will the of mistakes that have been made. that was one of them, perhaps. another is again not getting together with allies and having a unified response. yes, i'm glad the president didn't go, didn't attack last night. at the same time, a lot of mistakes were made to get us to this point. still ahead on "morning joe," former secretary of state leon panetta -- secretary of defense of defense leon panetta is going to be here congressman max rose. and monomouft you're watching

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secure your home with x1 voice control. and have professional monitoring backing you up with xfinity home. demo at an xfinity store, call or go online today. international polling shows fewer than four in ten voters say they believe president trump should be re-elected in 2020. 37 support for a second term for the president. 59% think someone else should be in the white house. you know, there is, john heilemann, it's an hold rulold maybe it's not the case now because politics has become so divisive, but it used to be at least in the ice age when i was running, if my reelect was below

50%, if i was in the mid 50s, i'd start panicking. >> you know who was never in the mid 50s -- >> barack obama? >> barack obama. i think trump's coming into this reelection with the worst number of any reincumbent. obama's reelect was always at 48, 49 and the right track/wrong track numbers, you'd have people 55%, 60% with the wrong track and he ended up with 52. that was for a lot of people who use the old rules about the reelect numbers and about right track/wrong track, it turned out in this world the fact that obama had such a low ceiling, high floor, he was able to break the old rules that would have

said that guy's a vulnerable incumbent, turns out he won pretty comfortably in the electoral college, won by 110 votes. that doesn't mean trump is going to get re-elected. there is this thing that's gone on with this polarization with the rules of what made for a vulnerable pund it and a lot of people run out the scenarios who think trump is really weak but ten to look at a snacenario whe he could lose the popular vote by 5 million and still thread the needle in the electoral college by one electoral vote or a handful of electoral votes. he's certainly vulnerable and likely will fall short --

>> barack obama, his favorability numbers would who have hover around 50/50 plus. >> i saw one poll -- be cautious these polls. when i see a poll that says elizabeth warren is going to beat donald trump in texas, i say there's something wrong here. the first time around a lot of people were a little shy about admitting they were going to vote for donald trump. now that we've seen so much of his horrificness, people are going to be less inclined to demonstrate they're still behind him. but if i'm the democrats, i am still running scared. i do not look at those numbers. when it comes to donald trump, throw out the polls. so many people are going i'll never vote for him but when they get in that voting booth, yup, i'm voting for him. >> you're right, you look at the

state polls especially were a little off. the national polls were pretty accurate at the end. you were right, though. it's something the democrats have to be careful about. coming up, another shake-up at the nra. introducing the first of its kind lexus ux and ux f sport, also available in hybrid all-wheel drive. lease the 2019 ux 200 for $329/month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. you should be mad at airports. excuse me, where is gate 87? you should be mad at non-seasoned travelers.

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and have professional monitoring backing you up with xfinity home. demo at an xfinity store, call or go online today. let's bring in a member of the house homeland security and veterans affairs committees. congressman max rose of new york, he's a veteran of a war in afghanistan, recipient of a bronze star and purple heart. >> good morning, gentlemen. >> what are your thoughts on the vef developments overnight? >> i commend the president for taking a step back. we need a policy of courageous restraint, one that is layered with strategy and defined objectives. what we do not need right now, yet another john bolton war.

i was in afghanistan six years august. i have friends deployed five, six times in never-ending wars. >> heidi has a question for you. >> i think this is a good time, congressman, to pause and talk about what's happened in those 20 years since we went to war in iraq based on faulty intelligence. these are numbers from brown university. the u.s. has spent $5.9 trillion on wars in the middle east. humans who have died, both u.s. servicemen and women as well as iraqis and people throughout the middle east, about 500,000. of course you have to point out that iraq and afghanistan today remain among the deadliest in the world for terrorism. my question for you is how confident are you, even though you're commending the president for pulling back this time, that with people like bolton, behind him, who advocated for bombing iran even before he came into the office and who himself has never served, who avoided the

draft, how confident are you that next time it won't be a different decision? >> it's never a good idea to surround yourself with insecures, jingoistic draft dodgers. i will say to put thingsctive perspective, we will have people going into the military who were not born on 9/11. this is a war that has got to end and we have to repeal and replace the authorization for use of military force. 80% of congress has never voted for war and nevertheless we're killing people and have killed people in over 20 countries with offensive military actions in the 21st century. congress has got to reassert its authority to declare war. what we are doing right now i do not believe working. it's a waste of blood and treasur treasure. we should be investing that

money in our roads, bridges, education systems. we can have a smart and cost effective national security policy and i don't think we've done that in the 21st century. >> gene robinson has a question. >> congressman, what would be the right policy toward iran right now? iran does provocative things, it creates mischief in the middle east in a way that runs counter to u.s. interests. what would you recommend? >> right. i think we have to separate this into two separate buckets. we have iran's nuclear program and then we have iran's efforts outside of its on territories using non-state actors. this has been something that's been happening for 20 years. i deployed with a guy five years before we went to afghanistan, he was in iraq, hit an iranian-made e.f.p. and is now missing half of his knee. this is something that is not new. when it comes to this nuclear

program we should have one simple objective and that is to reinstitute a new agreement, a new international agreement, one that has either a dramatically extended sunset clause or no sunset clause at all. ten years was not enough. i think right now iran is in a position of weakness and vulnerability, not strength. and it's a prime opportunity for us to reengage, renegotiate with a strong diplomatic effort. we cannot be isolationists towards iran as pertains to what it's doing with nonstate actors but that will be a conflict i believe we'll engage in for a generation or two. >> jonathan lemire. >> switching gears. my question to you is obviously you want it to be passed but

what role can the president play here? he's a new yorker. it was his hometown that was hit. he speaks of his own experiences that day. what does he need to do right now? >> to think that the president of the united states -- thank you for reminding us all that he's a new yorker. he could step out of the oval office and solve this in a matter of minutes by urging the senate to pass this today. think about the opportunity before us. we have an opportunity to be there for those who were there for us, first responsederrespon firemen. i know so many and you do, too, who rushed in again knowing they would get sick. this is a time to put politics and hyper divisiveness aside and get something done for the american people. we can show them that politics can work, washington d.c. can actually work and i sincerely hope this president will rise and be a leader.

>> congressman, we love having you on. >> thank you so much again. >> always want to thank you for your service to this country. we greatly appreciate it. by the way, that study that heidi talked about, the watson institute brown university report that shows that the united states has spent almost $6 trillion on war since 9/11 with 500,000 people killed, we're going to put that up on our web site at "morning joe." what's our web site? morningjoe.com? i'm a space age wizard. >> you have a web site sm. >> i do. >> do you have an app? >> alex, do i have an app? >> do you have mozzarella sticks? >> do you have a podcast? >> we do have a podcast. >> joe, you have a podcast. haven't i heard you making fun

of people for having one? >> i do have a meditation thing. i do have evening joe meditation. that's the one thing, i have mindfulness. >> you have a meditation app? >> there's a podcast. while we keep that up, i'm going to say, are you ready? >> it was talked about your mindfulness and your meditation practice. >> i want you to close your eyes and listen to the sounds of a bobbling brook. and then he goes on for about two hours. look how happy willie is there. >> holy! >> willie has a lot to be happy about. >> he's not here. >> exactly! >> what is willie looking at in that picture? >> he's gazing off. >> lebron james was sitting right there. >> he's like looking up. he's look star gazing over there. >> he's going on vacation soon.

>> here we go. >> we miss mika. >>. ♪ dream believer >> hacks are break into a florida city system and in an extraordinary vote, the city agrees to pay more than half a million dollars to retrieve those records. that's happening a good bit now, the kids are saying. we're going to talk about how hackers are increasingly targeting governments and businesses ahead on "morning joe." i hope they don't do that to my web site. that's my life, my life! ♪ ♪

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i know we're live but i need to find out when blinders comes

back. >> this fall. they wrap production -- >> i think alfie -- i disagreed with you. i think he may still be alive. >> i think so, too. it seems totally implausible, but we don't know. >> city officials in riviera beach, florida met quietly this week for a vote to pay nearly $600,000 to hackers who paralyzed the city's government computer systems. don't do that to my web site. it's my life. this comes after an employee opened an infected e-mail three weeks ago. even with a plan to pay the ransom, the city says an investigation is under way. let's bring in state official for palm beach county, dave

aar aaronburg. this is devastating for small towns. >> it's devastating because these towns run on a shoestring budget. it's a lot of money for a small town that is cash strapped. my device is to develop serious internet fire walls and data backups to prevent that from happening. joe, you know politicians. they're loath to could things that would be invisible that the public would not see the benefits of from maybe way down the line. there's a reason why the fbi says don't pay these guys, because if you pay these hackers, it encourages more hack and you don't even know if you're going to get your data back because you're dealing with criminals. it's a mess. >> how hard is it to track the information down to figure out who did this? >> it's very tough. our state attorney's office in palm beach county is not

involved in this because these hackers almost always are foreign. you even have a state-sponsored actor in 2017, the wanna cry virus that affected thousands of computers were microsoft windows back in 2017 was traced back to the government of north korea, a shocker that maybe kim jong un is not really our friend. >> you mentioned the foreign governments, which i'm curious about. what are the chances that these are not actually hackers looking for money but people looking for vulnerabilities in our government, could be our voter files, by pecking at small cities like this, they gain a lot more knowledge on how to attack even larger cities. >> it's a good point and scary thought. our election systems are decentralized and they depend on local governments to have a fire wall, to maintain voter files. if they could break into riffvia

beach so much easily, what's to stop them from hacking our elections? you have the city, for example, of atlanta that was hand and that's a big city, but they refused to pay $50,000 in ransom and so now they're cleaning up the messed and it's costing them more than $17 million. the city of baltimore alone has been hacked twice in the past 15 months and they're still dealing with the problem. this is becoming a national problem with the advent of crypto currency that enable these hacks aers to get paid wh remaining and on mosonymous. >> we have got to have paper ballots. if you're in north korea, pick

small towns in michigan, in pennsylvania, in florida and suddenly you can impact who is the next president of the united states and donald trump is not doing anything to stop that. >> they all use similar software. they can get that information and translate it and go after other counties and municipalities. once you crack the code, what else is vulnerable? >> former defense secretary and director leon panetta is going to be our guest in two minutes.

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and that ain't one. that ain't one. and with that irreverence -- because he can't read. let's bring into the conversation former director of the cia, leon panetta. mr. secretary, always a great honor to have you here. i'm curious how you're sorting through the events not only of last night but also of the past week, the buildup of hostilities between the united states and iran in the gulf.

>> well, like a lot of people i'm very concerned about that situation. it's obviously escalating on both sides. i'm not sure either side has an end game but as those tensions increase, the kind of m miscalculations and bad judgments that we've seen over these last 4 hours is the kind of thing that could ultimately lead, whether either side wants it, to a military confrontation. that's a concern. i think this is a moment for a strong, steady hand and a clear strategy and frankly we don't have that right now. >> so, mr. secretary, were you there, what would be your next step? >> i think the most important thing you can do is to obviously increase our strength, our military strength in that region. i would probably deploy another carrier in order to give the united states additional fire power as a deterrent. secondly, i'd make very clear that we will defend our forces

in that region. a clear signal needs to be sent to iran that we will defend them. thirdly, i think you have to keep the straits of hormuz open. that's a red line. it's important to our economy and the world economy and lastly, you've got to open up a diplomacy uk strategy using our allies to try to see if we can't bring this whole controversy to a negotiating table. >> so, mr. secretary, based on reports coming out of the white house yesterday, secretary pompeo, director has pepel supported the attacks. do you believe the downing of the drone required such a response as well? >> i'd be very careful about starting a war over a drone. i think -- i think that it's important to build up our

strength. we had -- when i was a second, there were fighter planes of iran that threatened a drone that we had and what we did is we sent a clear signal to iran that we were going to scramble f-16 jets if they tried to do that again. they never did it again. i think what you need to do here is send a strong signal that this is not going to happen again. >> jonathan lemire. >> there is currently not a permanent defense secretary. what sort of leadership void do you think this now is at the pentagon? >> i think it's a terrible void. obviously there are capable people that will try to keep the pentagon moving forward. you do have the military leader siep that's there. but you need to have a strong secretary of defense, a confirmed secretary of defense because otherwise that d.o.d.

looks at the secretary and has this sense that this is just going to be a temporary individual. that person has to deal with the military, they have to speak with one voice at the white house and that individual may very well have to look the president in the eye and say that he's going to make a terrible mistake. in toward to do that, you've got to have a confirmed secretary. that's what we need right now. >> and the president seemed to push pause last night because air strikes didn't happen but just walk us through. there as been a lot of reminiscing about the run-up to the iran war. what capabilities does iran have? >> well, it's always been a cause for concern in talking about the potential of a military strike in iran.

this is not like syria. iran has missiles. they are a stronger military power. they would obviously in reaction to any kind of military strike possibly strike at our military bases in that region. we've been concerned about that. they could strike at israel. the danger here is if you're going to do a military strike, you better damn well think about what are the consequences that will result and how will we then deal with those consequences. this is not just a simple in-and-out situation. >> mr. secretary, i think it's so important you bring up syria. so many sources i talked to yesterday were quite surprised at the about face the president made in the last 24 hours. my sources believe the united states is not prepared for a

follow-up strooike. as you mentioned, this is not a one-strike mention. if you get into a war with iran, this a long, drawn-out war. this is not even like invading iraq in hunting down saddam hussein. >> there's no question. at one point when i was secretary, we were concerned that israel had intentions of striking the nuclear facilities in iran. and we were able to have israel pull back because we basically made the argument that the consequence of that could be a terrible reaction and a war in the middle east. so the key here is to be strong, to make very clear to iran that we're there and that we are prepared to defend our forces. but then at the same time to try to open up a diplomatic process, i would use our allies from --

that we had in the agreement, russia, china, great britain, france, germany, they have credibility with iran, try to use them to try to establish some kind of negotiating position with iran. >> mr. secretary, let's expand this just a little bit beyond iran. i want to play you a montage of some statements made by the president of the united states. >> president putin, he said it's not russia. i don't see in reason why it would be. >> it sounded to me like he and the crown prince had no knowledge. i have talked about it and i don't think it was in his interest at all. i know the warmbier family very well. i don't believe he would have allowed that to happen. >> do you think it wasn't

intentional? >> i don't know. i find it hard to believe it was intentional if you want to know the truth. >> what are the consequences to continued deference being paid to strong men and auto democratdemocraautocrats? >> well, there are several concerns here. first of all, we have a president who questions his own intelligence operation as to the information provided. and that's cause for concern because a president has to depend on his own intelligence. those individuals are providing information that's critical to our country and critical to the president. so it's important for him not to ignore that information. secondly, i think when the president kind of reflects in these thoughts with

authoritarian figures that he sends a message to the world that the united states is catering to those views and it undermines our strength in dealing with the kind of crisis that we're confronting now. a president has to be strong on behalf of the united states, not on behalf of these authoritarian figures that he keeps trying to relate to. >> mr. secretary, you were in the agency at a time when morale was low, you had to rebuild it, you did rebuild it. i'm curious, one of the debates that mika and i constantly have on and off the air have to do with the lasting consequences of some of the things that have happened over the past several years. one of my main concerns is, again, what you brought up, is the continued undermining of the intelligence community.

is that -- again, you've had to do it, you've had to rebuild morale with agency -- will the impact of what's happened over the past few years have a lasting impacts on the morale of the cia or can a strong president, can a strong director like haspel with the right president, can they bring the agency back to what it was before donald trump? >> first and foremost, the people who work in our intelligence agencies are not republicans or democrats, they're good americans who are trying to do their job. they put their lives on line in order to get that intelligence, and they're going to continue to do that. it does impact their morale when a president questions the information they're providing.

we've had presidents raise questions before but never openly challenge the product of our intelligence agencies. i think ultimately that a president -- maybe not this president -- but a future president will stand that president cannot protect the national security of our country without relying on our own intelligence. our intelligence is key to our national security, and a future president had better understand that if we're going to protect our country. >> and i know this may put you in a difficult position. if you don't want to answer the question, obviously, i know you well enough to know you won't answer the question. but i'm curious your opinion of director haspel and how well she's doing under difficult circumstances. >> well, it is difficult circumstances, but i think she's doing the best job she can under those circumstances. she's a good person, she's a

dedicated career employee at the cia. i think part of the problem is because the president has constantly questioned the intelligence product, it's made it much more difficult for her o to have that kind of honest and trusting relationship with the president that you should have when you're head of our intelligence force. >> yasmin. >> jumping of off what joe just said, speaking of the role of intelligence, you can't help but think about a war time president and a what that means. we talk about an attack on land and sea but we also rely on caseworkers, when it comes to this. how is that going to play into it? >> there are people laying their lives on line in order to get the kind of information that can be provided to the president and

to the leaders of our country so that they can make the right decision about our national security. so i'm confident that our intelligence people are going to continue to do their job. what i'm not confident of is that the president is going to be willing to take the time to listen to them and understand that information so he can make a better decision about protecting our country. that needs to change. this president needs to understand that we cannot win wars, we cannot went our confrontation with our adversaries without good intelligence. that is an essential element of developing the kind of national security we need in this country. >> mr. secretary, since you've held every important position i think in washington, d.c., i want to ask you about one other position that you've held and go back to a time when i was in washington and talking to my good friend john kasich, who

said that he regularly spoke with you when we went through one budget negotiation after another and a government shutdown and things were ugly and were testy on the surface but i was uls fascinated -- alw fascinated by the fact that john continued o tato talk to you ev day, newt continued to talk to president clinton, even in the middle of impeachment. i'm wondering if we can move past the tribalism of the past eight to then years and get back to a point where republicans can fight democrats like hell but still at the end of the day like reagan and o'neill have a deal that after 6, sit down, we're going to figure this out and get things done for the country? >> joe, like you, i've seen washington at its best and washington at its worst. the good news is i saw washington work.

i saw republicans and democrats willing to work together and trusting each other to be able to deal with serious issues facing this country. the budget was a perfect example. it took a bipartisan effort to pull together the effort to try to eventually balance our budget. that was bipartisan. john kasich played a role in that along with others. but the problem today is that, washington is dysfunctional. republicans and democrats are divided, it's partisan warfare and the problem is that they're elected to govern. and in order to govern, you've got to reach out. you've got to be able to work together to resolve problems. that's what our for fathers intend. i'm hoping we can get past and

return to democracy. >> leon panetta, always great to have you here. >> thank you very much. >> referencing rocky and bullwinkle -- >> to go to rocket jay squirrel the other day, i actually -- >> so pore something completely now, john heilemann, stay with me, stay with me. blinders, ignore him. >> i've been reading this trump interview on "time" magazine. there's a point where he starts threatening one of the journalists with putting him in prison. >> does he really? >> literally threatens a journalist? >> trump seems to have shown a letter to the journalist that kim jong un wrote him and the journalist apparently took his cell phone out and took a

picture of it and later in the interview with corey lewandowski, trump comes back and says i could put you in prison for taking a picture of that with his phone. >> you handed it to me, mr. president. >> cold play comes -- >> is that the rap music? >> we don't do rap music, alex. >> word association. ready? >> yeah. >> roy moore. he's running. >> the thing about his press conference, he would hope in this campaign he would have more personal contact with the voters. >> pedophile. >> yeah. >> you should probably put -- >> alleged. >> you asked for one word. >> skeevy. >> not slanderous.

this really does put republicans in a bad situation. i again being from l.a., as i am, lower alabama, i have seen roy moore time and time again. thumbs his nose at the republican party, has everybody at the republican party fighting against him and winning the nomination. there wasn't anybody in the establishment that was for him to get to the supreme court. he did anyway. and i think it's great news for doug jones, bad news for the republicans. >> gift for the democrats. this would be bain of republicans' existence. we need to remind ourselves that even though he lost the last election, he lost by two points. almost half of alabamans said

he's okay. >> don't you think he's taking a page out of the president's book right now? this is becoming more about roy moore than anything else. >> yeah. i do think he can win, following alabama politics for as long as i have, think roy moore could be a u.s. senator. we shall see. yasmin, 5 a.m., 4 a.m. eastern on mondays. i will never complain about my 4 a.m. wake-up time again. >> when you wake up, i'm on air. >> you're watching "morning joe." be right back. right back. my experience with usaa

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we have real race issues in our country and we need leaders plural, presidential candidates or not, that can bring folks together, can deepen understanding empathy and get to work on a lot of the issues that have deep, scarred legacies in our country. >> that's 2020 presidential candidate cory booker last night discussing his phone call with former vice president joe biden. the call came wednesday night following their public spat this week following comments of biden working with segregationists. with us now, columnist at the "new york post," john podhoretz,

"what biden is doing, efficacy over emotionality." dude, seriously. >> i don't write the headlines. that's supposed to draw people to the got to -- that's the first i've seen of that. >> efficacy over translucence -- >> it's sensationalism, john. >> that's terrible. >> also republican strategist and co-host of "hacks on tap" and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton and in d.c., we have editor of "the washington post" ruth marcus. rev, i am so glad you're here. but i'd love to get your take on this dust-up over the past

couple of days over joe biden and biden saying, hey, i can even work with segregationists. how concerned are you about that? and are you afraid the democrats may be -- leading question here by the way -- democrats may be beating each other up when their focus should be on a guy who, donald trump, who says horrific things on race, whether it's in charlottesville or elsewhere? >> i think that we must be very careful that we correct each other without being divisive in the end goal of really trying to guide the country back toward a policy of racial equality and racial justice. i think what vice president biden said parts of it was offensive. to say they never called me boy has all kinds of connotations. but i think many of us, me included, have said things that ended up being racially offensive to people, even if that wasn't our intention.

i know joe biden. i don't believe he's a racist, i don't believe anyone has said he is and he took a lot of shots for standing up for civil rights down through the years. he certainly took a lot of abuse as vice president under barack obama. it does not give him the right to be offensive and he should admit when he is, own it and deal with it and move on like many of us have had to, but i think at the same time that cory booker showed maturity in talking with him on the phone, trying to explain to him the hurt and the pain and i think that if we are who we say we are, we need to be humble enough to understand the pain we cause and strong enough to show that is not who we are and prove it with our actions. this president has both in word and deed proved that he is who he says he is. i think joe biden has it now in front of him to continue to show what he has throughout his career, that he may say things that doesn't reflect what he really means but he must prove

that to people. >> and there's a lot of cherry picking going on because as you know, joe biden said that he actually went to the senate and he said this back when he was in the senate, he went to the senate to undermined the policiesof segregationists. he said i'm proud of the fact that i came to the senate because of civil rights and yet i figured out how to work with them. now one of the things i always explain about you, rev, sometimes -- i don't know if you know this -- but sometimes people may look at you and me and not know what wonderful human beings we are and sometimes mischaracterize some of our actions. i always told pee the thing that surprised me most about you is how prague nattic you were and how you could sit down and work with anybody. and you understood that sometimes to get to the goal, you had to even sit down with people you didn't care for. >> you've got to be committed to

the goal. and i think that those that are more committed to the skirmishes than the goal are really not sincere. and i think that the goal line here is to really try to bring the country together around the principles that will keep us permanently equal rather than to try and milk out of every skirmish, which you can. but at the same time, admit where you misspoke, admit where you may have caused damage and then keep the goal line in mind. >> gene robinson's latest piece for "the washington post" is called "biden is being biden." he writes this in part. "i get what joe biden was trying to say but i'll neff understand how he tried and utterly failed to say it. yes, there was a time when the senate was a chummy men's club whose members on some issues put

collegial i collegiality ahead of ideology. i'm curious, what do you think? >> i think this is the fundamental biden problem, why he's a vulnerable front-runner. because he's a back slapper, politics guy. that's exactly what the primary voters aren't looking for. the country is at each other's throats and they want a hatchet swinger. he reminds me of the old vegas act who says screw the casino, i'm going all night, polka time!

and the band plays all night, but you can't bet on biden not being biden over time. with that ability to compare it to the progress of today, it's risk and it trouble and i think that's why he's so vulnerable. >> i want to give a counterintuitive argument for what wide be p biden is doing. his larger theme is no, it's not that the republican party as a whole and the voters who put trump in office as a whole, trump is tash. pull trump out and thing can return to a point at which people can work with other people. >> what you're saying is he's doing efficacy over emotionality. >> ho used either the worst

possible example or the best. that is to say i am the sort of prn i want to be president so i can get things done in washington again. >> it's the lawyer in me that always goes being, how strong is the argument? if he said, that would be one thing. but he said the man that he said when he came to washington motivated him to run to reverse their policies. that i can work with the worst people in american history and get them to do things that i need them to do. so i can also work with mitch mcconnell, a republican party after trump if i win the presidency is going to be chastened, it's going to understand it went the wrong way, it's going to be frightened. and so -- i'm saying that's -- now, it may be a terrible argument, it may not be a winning argument.

it's his only and his best argument. so he has to play it out for as long as he can, otherwise you're a 76-year-old old guy saying we can't. >> he's losing the basic argument just in this one narrow example, it's taking too much time for us to figure out what he meant. biden's only saving grace on this is one time and the other is surrogates that are willing to come out for him immediately. he turned on the tap and people were out there. >> they did. >> and that show as lot of strength and what can really help him get through his gaffe. >> i'm not so sure also, obviously he rev and be yes, i just said that but objecting about,s did spite the fact that what nation doesn't want to hear

it, i can work with republicans. oh exoh, you're calling me a baby killer? here, afterwards could you come up front? i want that may not work for a primary but if he needs to win kin oh and biden be biden in this respect gives him a better chance winning os hot spots i'm not sure the primary electorate what i think biden has to do is he has to get on offense i. i'm golden, i've got the scars, i'm always right.

and let me feed them, let me save america. but there is going to have to be some message discipline with this guy, but it is a very hard thing. they're going to have to bottle his jonas, not something every news cycle is about. >> he needs to keep reading the te prompter. people forget and i'm so by the obama administration, by ballpark's staffers, he was frozen out for months after he was the one who stepped up. nobody wants to remember this but barack obama said that as a christian, he believed maerj was

joe biden i don't know stepped by saying in effect i know brac suppo support joe biden is the reason it moved forward. it's not like this guy is some dixiecrat. i mean, he said from the beginning he went to congress because of civil rights and wasn't just civil rights on race, it was civil rights on marria marriage. >> look, the benefit of biden is he comes to the table with a lot of history and a lot of experience with baggage along with the benefit you were just talking about the problem is two fold it seems to me.

everybody who has been watching him, including his opponents has been waiting for biden to biden as you the thing that really surprising is not just that he erupted with a self-inflicted wound but he doubled down on it. after he said something he shouldn't have said that he had been cautioned about not saying, he got into this unnecessary cory booker should apologize situation, which was he was clearly going to have to back out. it's important for joe biden to figure out whether this is a wake-up call for himself and he's going to have some discipline, which is not necessarily the biden way or whether this is just going to be one of many moments that's going to end up eating away at his candidacy. yes, general election biden,

formidable candidate but a very restless primary electorate that might be a little less tolerant. >> i want to follow up on what susan said, how important that jim clyburn, the most important elected politician, rev and i talks about how south carolina is where the democratic race begins, jim clyburn stands in joe biden's corner and he said, hey, i had to work with segregationists my entire life to get things done. >> i think the question is -- and that's an important thing for sure, jim clyburn. i'm going to put a plug in and ask questions in for rev in a set and put a plug in for hacks on attack, there was a discussion on joe biden that was illuminating illuminating -- it was mike talking about whether this hyde

amendment kerfuffle might be foreshadowing things to come on the campaign staff side and on biden being biden side. but this is what i'm going to throw to rev, is david axelrod said there's only withone reaso that joe biden is ahead and he's only candidate that has a decent chunk of the white vote. i ask you this question, if you look at joe biden's record down through the years, there are many positions that joe biden took that were acceptable positions in the democratic party in the 197 0z, 10s, 1980s 1990s that are not acceptable positions now for african-american voters, his position on the crime bill, his position related to segregation

and bussing as a way to handle that problem in the 1970s. he took a lot of positions that were mainstream democratic positions related to a lot of issues that you could never take in 2019, 2020 and be okay with the african-american constituency. put aside the questions of this particular controversy. we are going to have a long discussion over the coming months in the party about joe biden's record related to african-americans and a variety of policies. do you think that this is the beginning of that conversation and how much do you think that conversation as it plays out could threaten joe biden's candidacy because of the centrality of african-american support to it? >> i think that we are beginning to have that discussion. i think that the problem with that discussion is you're going to have to discuss more than joe biden's record. because the same joe biden that i and others were critical of the '94 crime bill, bernie

sanders voted for it. so if we're going to have that discussion, we're going to have to have it across the board about all of the candidates. you can't have people in this woke moment proclaim themselves woke when they themselves were asleep before they announced they were woke. this is not a generational thing. you have a cedric richmond co-chairing biden's campaign who is as woke as you could get. he wouldn't be there if joe biden was all wrong, simone sanders, compare that to some of the woke candidate who is have a lilly white, latte loving staff who are telling folks what they want. we need the discussion but it shouldn't be limited to biden because a lot of phony progressives do not have the record in the last five years that joe biden can be questioned in his last 50. let's have that discussion but let's have it all across the

board, including people who have appointed themselves progressives that have not been that progressive. >> hold on. and the people say -- >> amen. >> what's the term, limousine? >> limousine latte liberals. i'm going to have jay-z cover lift me up. we're doing to lift this conversation up and this country up and we're going to have one standard, old and young and quit playing the generation cop-out, let your record speak for itself. >> exactly. preach it. so it's a great point. there are a lot of people throwing rocks that live in glass houses. >> there sure are. but what's also interesting is we're talking about lifting us all up. we're going into a debate now next week. while the candidates seem to be focused on introducing themselves and showing how they

can go up against trump is now, mike, for example the time that they switch and have the opportunity to go after the -- >> that is a great question. you put them all in a room -- i'll be watching biden/buttigieg and biden bernie -- >> and kamala. >> yes. when will they bail him out or will the silence bei deafening. >> this isn't 1988. we do live in the age of trump. what destroyed candidates ten years ago, chances are good gets lost in a haze in 15 minutes. >> i have three examples, ralph

northam, lieutenant governor fairfax -- >> and the attorney general. >> right. that tells us if you hunker down -- >> by the way, by the way, alex just said you're like rick perry. >> you helped me out. >> democrat primary. instantly those governors can hide. >> what i'm saying is you hunk are down and you let the wave see whether this hurts biden or not. we'll see polls next week whether his numbers have moved across foreign policy events, these sound bite crises are going to knock politicians off their ped stalls and we've had four years in which that just doesn't seem to happen. >> if cory or kamala get top

three in iowa, biden will be at a. >> joe biden a lot of white people talking about ralph north ham having to lead because of himself racism and yet the first polls come out that show the overwhelming majority of african-americans in virginia don't want him to go, want him to stay right there. so kb we separate what candidates and what white journalists and what white woke people are saying about candidates and then focus on what black folks across north

carolina and across the country are saying. >> i think it's a really interesting question about whether in the age of trump you can get away with murder, shooting someone on fifth avenue, saying outrageous things in a way you didn't used to be able to get away with if you simply hunkered down, as john was saying? mean it's easy to dpo if you're governor of virginia. a lots will'ding -- whool it's theage of trum,s instant 24/7, constant exposure. so i would say, yes, the voters are the ones who speak. the african-american for biden but my instinct is trump and

that biden or anybody who hats a gaffe of significance early on, yes, you can recover from it but very, very -- should be very nerve racking to the biten cap. >>make sure you put in pull kra tud and luminosity. how about -- >> no, you don't change the lyrics. reverend, what are you doing in atlanta and what are your plans this weekend? >> i spoke last night in atlanta and i'm on my way to south carolina where i'll be at the south carolina democratic primary talking to the voters. we'll be doing "politics nation"

live from there and other coverage. i'm going to try to tualk with joe biden and cory booker. >> say hi to my good friend jim clyburn. great guy. thanks so much, rev. still ahead, it's an issue sure to come up in next week's democrat debate. how climate change is affecting one state and is now impacting jobs. we're back in two minutes.

kam fer cal perry is back from montana where he was looking into the topic of climate change. >> real tough assignment as you'll see. sth a conversation about not only the trump admin installation doesn't want to have, the dnc doesn't want to have it. governor bullock is having it for a state that for many years

has kept the lights on in the western parts of the u.s. by using coal which is largely inefficient in 2019. >> i'm absolutely amazed at the big, open skies. >> everything we're seeing around us is beautifully carved. >> one of the reasons i wanted to come here was just to enjoy the park, but tell people that this place matters. >> these places are set aside because they're special. these places are changing and they're changing fast. >> it's gorgeous. and you're worried about the receding glaciers. >> while temperatures are on the skies across america, montana is warming twice as fast. the state is home to tiny coal towns, which historically have provided the western united states with its energy needs, small towns that are now fighting for survival, fighting in a state what has the nation's most treasured natural wonders. >> anytime you're talking about climate and politics in america and glacier national park has to be a part of that aconversation.

today, there's only 25. fewer days below freezing and more days above 90 degrees is changing state. less snowfall and earlier melt each year means more fires. they're bigger and burning longer. professor diana sick studies the impact of forest fires. >> this is naturally a fire landscape. so it should be burning. it's just that we're seeing a lot of fires now. >> dan faye green measures the disappearing glaciers for the u.s. geological survey. because of climate change, his field of study is naturally widening. >> when you have changes like this, they tend to cascade through the whole system. the same things melting the glaciers are causing changes in forest fire security. >> montana governor steve bullock is trying to find a way to balance the realities of

climate change in a state with an energy industry that depends on coal. all the while doing it while running for presidented in the democratic party. >> as we make transitions, we can't be leaving communities behind. there are folks that, you know, they've worked their whole life powering this country. and at times, and democrats and others, try to make them into the villains. >> for small towns like coal stripped montana, any discussion of climate change is going to be a discussion about revenue and jobs. the plant behind me is within city limits. between that and the coal mine, officials here say it accounts for 90% of the town's revenue. two buildings at coal strip power plant in operation since the mid 70s will shut down just a week after christmas. >> you're going to see a drop in revenue locally. >> lori shaw is a former city council member. she's also the founder of coal strip united, a pro coal advocacy group. >> when a town, a state, a

community is wholly reliant on only one or two industries, that makes us vulnerable. and i think we should be always looking for ways to diversify and become more resilient. >> even while faced with certain economic collapse, many here want people outside montana to know they understand the difficult balance. >> we're not just, like, a bunch of nature-hating monsters. we have our lives here and we have families. >> i believe that we need to have a beautiful environment. but what people don't get is coal got us where we are. >> climate change is real. we might be not leaving anything for our children or grandchildren if we're not careful. so we have to address it. >> we've got to address climate change. and we've got to do it now. and we actually are at the point now in the country where maybe it was lip service 30 years ago, but if we're not taking an immediate and durable action now, the america that we're going to give and the world that we're going to give to our kids and grand kids will be the

america that we live in. >> this issue is polling higher and higher as we get closer to the election. you're going to hear democrats separate themselves not only from trump but from each other using climate. this is a guy who won montana by 4 points when trump won it by 20. so being competitive against trump, he provides a sort of interesting option. >> boy, steve bullock really does. we're hoping to talk to him when we're all in miami. >> he's holding some televised town halls wednesday and thursday. >> all right, cal, thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> wonderful package. and you'll be back with us in the next hour. cal spent seven years covering the war in iraq and its after effects. we want to get his take on its current tensions with iran. overnight, the president trump approved a military strike on iran, but then those operations were called off. we will be talking about that, plus president trump officially

launches the 2020 campaign this week. a new polling shows where the president stands on his re-election bid. those numbers when "morning joe" returns. mberwhs en "morning joe" returns. my experience with usaa

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to your babysitter. for overtime. or pinacle, to tap into your organization in the office, on the go, or in the stop-and-go. pnc - make today the day. you should be mad at leaf blowers. [beep] you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. but you're not mad, because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler. so you can take on the markets with confidence. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today. iran made a big mistake. this drone was in international waters, clearly we have it all documented. it's documented scientifically, not just words. they made a very bad mistake.

>> you'll find out. >> and frltd, that drone was unarmed. it was not -- it was no man in it. there was no -- it was over international waters. clearly over international waters. but we didn't have a man or woman in the drone. we had nobody in the drone. >> are you still open -- >> would have made a big difference, let me tell you. would have made a big, big difference. i think probably iran made a mistake. i would imagine it was a general or somebody that made a mistake in shooten that drone down. i have a feeling, and i may be wrong and i may be right, but i'm right a lot. i have a feeling that it was a mistake made by somebody that shoonts have been doing what they did. i think they made a mistake. i think that somebody under the command of that country made a big mistake. >> are you saying it wasn't intentional? >> i don't know. i find it hard to believe it was intentional, if you want to know the truth. i think it could have been

somebody who was loose and stupid that did it. >> loose and stupid. the title of my upcoming auto biography. that was president trump speaking yesterday at the white house. we've now learned that president trump approved air strikes in iran late yesterday. but he backed away at the last minute. the strikes would have been in retaliation after iran struck down a global hawk drone using a surface-to-air missile. the pentagon has released this video showing the motor vehicle trail left from the attack drone. and the u.s. says the drone was in international air space while tehran claims it was over territorial waters. multiple senior administration officials involved in the briefing at the white house say the deliberation told the times that the military and diplomatic officials expected a u.s. air strike as late at 7:00 p.m. last night and a senior administration official added that the u.s. retaliatory operation was already under way with planes in the air and ships

in positions when it was called off by the president. the white house and pentagon have declined to comment and the times says no government officials asked the paper to withhold the article. the u.s. strikes would have been on a handful of specific iranian targets, including radar and missile batteries. those officials also tell the times. jonathan mere, what can you tell us about your reporting from the white house? >> yesterday, we saw the president address reporters against the prime minister of canada did what happened, about the strike that took down the american drone. and he seemed to be telegraphing repeatedly that he thought this was a mistake. at first, the interpretation was iran shouldn't have done this. but it was clear that he was trying to send a signal that he believed this was shot down in error, that it was not authorized by tehran, that this was some sort of general who made a mistake, loose and stupid is the phrase he used. we know the president has been reluctant for weeks now, for months, to escalate military activity with iran. this is something he's wanted to

avoid, despite those around him, most particularly secured by john bolton, pushing for a conflict with iran. but the pentagon did recommend this series of strikes. and one of a number of options that was presented to the president yesterday. he signed off on it. the planes were in the air. this was going to happen. it was going to be limited. it was in time for dawn to minimize civilian casualties. it was going to away few radar batteries, a few other strategic sites. did the president call it off simply because he got cold feet, if you will? more likery it was because they received some sort of signal overseas that there could be a next step. if not negotiations, at least some sense to try to de-escalate. this is obviously a very fluid situation. >> and what v heard from capitol hill? >> so, of course, only congress can approve going war under our constitution, but here is the problem. the president can willfully do

limited strikes without any approval from congress and we know we have a history of getting drawn into conflicts based on those limited strikes escalating out of control. so here we see a split between the republicans and the democrats with the republican leadership like mccarthy and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell saying that the president has the authority if he needs it. he already has the authority, and that there needs to be some kind of a quote/unquote measured strike. this is exactly how a nation can bumble into a war, that if we learned anything from the iraq war, it is that we need to have a robust debate in congress before the president takes any kind of military action that that 2001 authorization for military force is way out of date and does not apply in this situation. but, joe, i definitely do not see much of a divide here within

the republican conference,lty least right now. we know in the past republicans like senator rand paul have spoken out against the president acting without the approval of congress. but right now, they seemed to be unified to just defer to trump. >> john higheilman, it is fascinating. donald trump has always talked tough on the campaign trail. we were trying to sort through it during the campaign trail where he was an interventionist, yet he was talking about destroying isis, going after iran. there was an inconsistency, but here we are 2 1/2 years into his presidency, and it's a pretty good bet that his default position is to not go in, to not intervene, to not have military strikes. that's been one of the few, along with being a protectionist on trade, being a noninterventionist that has been fairley consistent. he thinks america and the

american people have been led by presidents who are suckers, who fight everybody else's war, and we may have seen that again last night. >> he think you have two contradictory impulses tangling with him on foreign policy. one of them is that the isolationist/noninterventionist trump on one side and then the i must look tough always, i must not be xwargsed, i can't lose face, i have to be seen as strong and assertive. yeah, there's no -- many presidents have competing impulses on foreign policy. trump has these. i guess the thing that most comes through to me in the last 24 hours is the question who feels comfortable right now that there is a clear strategy guiding the american approach to what is an increasingly threatening scenario in the middle east. just that there is some kind of a here is our strategy, here is

what we're trying to accomplish, here is how we're going about it, here is plan eight, here is plan b. who feels comfortable that we are proceeding in that way as opposed to an ad hoc kay ochaoty where no one knows who is in charge of this policy and no one knows where the president is headed or how he's getting there. it feels to me that the president's competing impulses are pulling him in opposite directions rather than an orderly procession to try to pursue a fair objective. >> i actually do think that a trend, a definite trend is emerging. we've been talking about it for some time and talking about the limits of donald trump's approach which is to threaten, to bully, to insult and then to pull back. he, of course, did it most famously in north korea where he bullied, he attacked, he called him rocket man, he insulted him.

and now he's been apologizing for missile tests and can other acts that any other president would have criticized. that was what we've been asking here about iran. this is a president who loves to insult, who loves to bully, he loves to threaten. what happens when our adversaries find out he's never going to physical through. by the way, i don't think we should bomb iran unless britain, france, germany and all of our other allies are shoulder to shoulder and say we need to go in. so i'm glad donald trump stopped this operation at the last moment. and anybody who thinks we need to start blowing up things in iran without having the world by our side are fools. but, anyway, there is a -- to me, gene, i'm just curious whether you see it, there does seem to be a pattern emerging here where the president

threatens and then pulls back. >> well, there certainly has been that pattern. i don't think the iran situation will work out exactly like the north korea situation because i don't see the ayatollah, you know, meeting in that sort of summit that the president had with kim jong-un or i don't see the ayatollah writing him beautiful letters, love letters the way kim jong-un did. but i think, actually, u.s. policy on iran has been, i think permanently it's been wrong. i think we should have stayed in the iran nuclear deal. others disagree. but i think it's been consistent, actually. i think it's been consistent to increase the pressure on the iranian economy to the point where there is screaming pain now inside iran and to bring us to this point where the iranians are feeling such pain that they are lashing out, that they are trying to provoke us into

something that then would require international involvement and might get them to a negotiation where they could get some of this pressure off of them. but the problem is, we've done steps one and two, we got out of the deal, we've put on the pressure. there is no step three. they don't seem to have any idea of what to do now. and so i think that is why you see the back and forth. what do we do when the iranians predictably start to act up? so they shoot down a drone. what do we do, do we hit them? do we continue to be patient and rachet in on the pressure? do we really want to start a war? and i think john was right. i think he doesn't actually want to start a war, but he doesn't know what step three is. >> and jonathan, again, he's -- the world now knows that he's going to threaten.

they know he's going to bully. and then he's going to back. this is one thing people used to say about barack obama and other presidents, when they pull back, it's an appearance of being weak. when you see how the president has acted close to vladimir putin and you see how he's acted towards north korea and you see how he's backed downtime and time again, then you don't listen to the threats. because donald trump never plays the long game and doesn't build coalitions, all he has is his bullying presence from the bully pull pit. so it's all day trading and it never leads anywhere but here, where our foreign adversaries understand they can do what they want. there's not going to be a consequence. >> they seem emboldened by the lack of coalitions and support

he has from our international partners. he has strained those allians, those ties. >> this is where the president needs nato. all those boarish behavior that his supporters loved, all the insulting of angela merkel, all the insulting of justin trudeau, all the insulting of macron, this is where the bill comes due. this is where we -- george h.w. bush would have picked up the phone call and could have had a coalition in five minutes. >> i was in the room in brussels when he does not explicitly back article 5 which is the mutual defense of the pact. >> and i wonder if that is why he was so gracious to macron in france this past time. >> it's possible. >> and i suspected at the time

it might be because a showdown with iran was coming. >> this has been building. it didn't just happen in the last week. but you're right. i also wanted to underscore john opens point earlier is let's remember we don't have a confirmed secretary of defense. this is where there's an escalation of military conflict with iran, there has not been someone in the pentagon since january and then the acting secretary shanahan, this week, announced that he was leaving, yet was still in the west wing yesterday as part of his consultation. still ahead, we're keeping a close eye on what is happening in iran. our next guest has served in both of those institutions. max rose joins the conversation next on "morning joe." oins the next on "morning joe." ♪

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less bring in a member of the house homeland security and veteran affairs committees. congressman max fair of new york, a recipient of the bronze start and the purple heart. thanks so much for being with us. how is it going, joe? >> doing good. what are your thoughts on the developments overnight? >> a commend the president for taking a step back. what we need right now is clearly a policy of courageous restraint, one that is layered with strategy and defined objectives. what we do not need right now is yet another john bolton war. i was in afghanistan just six years ago. i have friends that have deployed four, five, six times in neverending wars. we need clear strategy. >> max, heidi is with us and has

a question for you. heidi. >> i think this is a good time, actually, congressman to pause and talk about what's happened in those 20 years since we went to war in iraq based on faulty intelligence. these are numbers from brown university. the u.s. has spend $5.9 trillion in wars in the middle east. humans who died both u.s. service men and women as well as iraqis and people throughout the middle east. about 500,000. and, of course, you have to point out that iraq and afghanistan today remain among the dedzliest in the world for terrorism. my question for you is how confident are you, even though you're depending the president for pulling back this time, that with people like bolton, they're behind him who advocated for bombing iran even before he came into the office and who himself has never served, who avoided the draft. how confident are you that next time it will never be a good decision? >> it's never a good idea to

surround yourself with insecure jingoistic draft dodgers. right now, we will have people enlisting in the united states military who were not born on 9/11. this is a war that we have got to end and further beyond that, we have to repeal and replace the authorization for the use of military force passed in 2001. 80% of congress has never voted for war and nonetheless, we are killing people and have killed people in over 20 countries with offensive military actions in the 21st century. congress has to reassert its authority to declare a war. what we are doing right now i do not believe is fruitful. we should be investing that money in our roads, bridges, education systems. we can have a smart and cost-effective national security policy and i don't think we've done that in the 21st century. >> gene robinson has a question.

gene. >> congressman, what would be the right policy towards iran right now? iran is the head -- does provocative things. it creates mischief in the middle east. what would you recommend? >> i think we have to separate this into two separate buckets. we have iran's nuclear program and then we have iran's efforts outside of its own territories using nonstate actors. this has been something that has been happening for 20 years. i deployed with a guy five years before we went to afghanistan, he was in iraq, hit an iranian immediate efp and is now missing half of his knee. so this is something that is not new. when it comes to its nuclear program, though, we should have one simple objective and that is to reinstitute a new agreement, a new international agreement, one that has either a

dramatically extended sunset clause or no sunset a clause at all. ten years is not enough. en aright now, iran is in a position of weakness. it's a time for ugs to reengage with a strong diplomaticest. we cannot be isolationist wards iran, but that feel be a conflict that i believe we'll engage in for a generation or two. >> switching gears as a last question, you've been a proponent for the september 11th first responders fund. jon stewart spoked about this before congress. my question to you is, not just -- obviously you want it to be passed, but what role can the president play here? it was his hometown. he speaks of his own experiences that day.

what does he need to do right now? >> to think that the president of the united states, who thank you for reminding us all that he is a new yorker, he could step out of the oval office and solve this in a matter of minutes by urging the senate to pass this today. think about the opportunity before us. we have an opportunity to be there for those who were there for us. cops, firemen, first responders, they rushed into harm's way and would do so again knowing the fact that they would get sick. this is our opportunity to put politics aside and get something real done for the american people. in the process, we can show them that government can work, politics can work, washington, d.c. can actually work and i sincerely hope that this president will rise to the challenge and be a leader . >> thank you so much. coming up on "morning joe," now polling census staged for the president's re-election battle. we'll show you those numbers and what they mean for battleground politics in 2020. cs in 2020 discover card.

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new national polling shows fewer than 4 in 10 registered

voters say they believe president trump should be re-elected in 2020. 37% support for a second term for the president. 59% think someone else should be in the white house. and, you know, there is, john heilman, as you know, it's an old rule, maybe it's not the case now because politics has become so divisive, but it used to be at least in the ice age when i was run, if my re-elect ever came close to 50%, i hold ten town hall meetings that weekend. your re-elect never goes below 50%. and if i was even in the mid 50s, i would start panicking. >> you know whose re-elect was almost never over 50 until election day? >> barack obama. >> barack obama. >> was it in the thirds? >> no. i'm just trying to say that old rule, to your point, i think trump's situation is radically worse than obama's was. trump's is coming into this

re-election with the worst numbers of any incumbent in modern history. so they're not comparable. but i was more reflecting on the point you made a second ago which is one of the things we all looked at in the 2012 re-elect which is obama was never over 50. his re-elect was always at 48, 49. you would have people at 55%, 60% of the wrong track and he ended up at 52. so it's like that was a -- just for a lot of people who use the old rules about the re-elect number and about right track/wrong track, it turned out the fact that obama had a low ceiling, high floor, he was able to break all the rules you that said that guy is a vulnerable incumbe incumbent, i won't. there is a thing that's going on with this polarization that has changed some of what the old rules used to be about, what made for a vulnerable incumbent

in the national electorate. there's a lot of people running out the scenarios who think that trump is really weak, but continue to look at a scenario where you could lose the popular vote by more than he lost in 2016, lose by 4 million, lose by 5 million, and still thread the needle in the electoral college with, you know, by maybe one electric tore vote, a handful of electoral votes. i think the likelierer scenario is that he will fall short. >> but, joe -- >> really important thing on that just to follow up on the numbers. barack obama, his favorbility numbers would often hover around 50, 50%. at least half the country liked him. donald trump's unfavorable numbers are right down there with his re-elect numbers. >> i want to caution everybody. i saw one poll that said to me

this says elizabeth warren is going to beat donald trump in texas, i saying there something wrong here. and i believe more than ever, the same way the first time around, a lot of people were shy about admitting they were going to vote for donald trump. now that we've seen so much of his horrificness, people are going to be less inclined to date demonstrate that they're behind him. but if i'm the democrats, i am still running scared. i do not look at those numbers and -- throw out the polls. to me, i would never vote for them. >> you're right. you look at the state polls, especially. they were a little off. the national polls were pretty accurate at the end. >> they were. >> but you are right, though. it's something that democrats always have to worry about. coming up on "morning joe," a member of the democratic leadership committee, barbara lee joins the conversation. that's next on "morning joe." lee joins the conversation that's next on "morning joe.

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mr. president, are we going to war with iran? >> hope not. let's see what happens. it's all going to work out. >> we're back with the republican strategist susan debpercio, jonathan lamere and cal perry. joining the conversation, congresswoman barbara lee of california, brett mcgurk. he recently served as special presidential envoy to defeat isis at the state department. barbara, it's great to see you again. curious as the one member that voted against authorization in 2001, what are your thoughts about what's happened over the past 24 hours? >> well, i think that we're at a very dangerous moment. and we need to, one, work with our allies to de-escalate this

very troubling, intense situation. and secondly, it appears to me and i think to the entire country and the world that this administration really has no plan. now the 2001 authorization was a blank check, it was very broad. however, every expert, every foreign policy sxers and level expert will tell you that this has no relationship to iran and it should be be used to use force against iran. i put in an amendment that stayed we would repeal that authorization and give it eight months to come up with new authorizations and, in fact, if we are going to war, if we're going to use force, then the administration, any administration, must come to congress. joe, that is what this is about. we have to make sure that congress debates the costs and consequences of any military

action. hopefully this signals to the administration that they cannot use force unless they come to congress. >> i think a strike last night would have been hasty. if you're going to do this, you have to have your allies on side. there's a key phrase in the art of war by the chinese philosopher about knowing your enemy and knowing yourself. iran sees themselves as acting defensively. they decided to counter with their own version of counter pressure. and knowing yourself, we don't really have a clear objective in iran. the president says he wants to

get back to the negotiating table. but this pressure is not bringing iran to the table. so we don't have to act urgently. we can collect ourselves, revisit the strategy, gather our allies and the president needs to look at his national security team. the policy being executed by particularly john bolton is boxing in the president to a choice of very pore options. >>. >> it moved the united states close to military conflict last night, provocative statements, moving our forces into the gulf, and then having a drone shot down. i'm not executing the iranian regime, which i will say again. the epicenter of terrorism across the world since 1979. but if we are putting ourselves in that position, we can't be

shocked when they respond. >> 22 veterans every day commit suicide in this country and we need to have that as part of this conversation on the iranian side. you have people living under an oppressive regime, as you've laid out, but also under oppressive economic sanctions. and last night at some point, word probably spread he in and across tehran that u.s. planes were in the air and they turned around. the crazy people in the room who always told you the americans are coming to bomb you were proved almost right yesterday and it changed things. it changes the way that you view the united states. and it 'em boldens radicals in iran. that's what happened last night. >> the president does not have a permanent secretary of defense currently.

it's an acting and, in fact, we're about to get a second acting defense secretary. is he being well served by the people around him? do you have faith in this administration that it is going to do the right thing when it comes to an is increasingly tension situation with iran? >> i don't believe that this president has the people around him who understand that diplomacy and moving forward to at least bring our allies to the table and work to de-escalation this tension and the possible use of force makes sense. first you have wendy sherman who we met with yesterday. she wrote an article in the new yorker and she said what we have now are the hard liners. we have to address the human rights and the terrorism that they're promulgating throughout the world. but, in fact, what you have are

the hard, hard liners in iran who never wanted a nuclear deal. then you have the hard, hard liners in the united states who have always talked about the use of force with regard to iran and regime change. so when you have these two sets of hard, hard liners on both sides, what the possible mistakes that could be made and the drum beat to war is very, very loud. so this president needs to bring forth new people in the administration who really understand not only what the dangers and the risks are in the region, but also come up with a plan so they can move forward with diplomatic initiatives and with a political settlement and address all of the issues that are outstanding. but pulling out of the nuclear deal was exactly what the hard hard liners in the united states wanted and what the hard, hard liners in iran wanted. talking about our allies, not only do they probably not

know what was going on, they probably didn't necessarily trust what they heard from our country due to the relationship with the president. i also think they probably have an additional concern which is they don't know how iran will retaliate. that country may not just come after the u.s. if they take any type of action, but they could start going after oil tankers or whatever from other countries. can you kind of get into the eve that this is creating internationally? >> yeah. two problems right now with the allies. first, a year ago when the maximum pressure campaign began, they warned the administration that this is where this will lead. the administration view is that the maximum pressure will bring iran back to the table in a much weakened position. those who have been dealing with iran for many years said it's going to have the opposite effect. they're not going to come to the table. they're going to leave the nuclear deal and they're going to act even more aggressively and play with matches in the middle east. that's one. second is exactly as you said.

there is an assumption that giveng that iran has taken these profactive measures, the problem is iran. the question is how to deal with it. they have calculated in tehran that if this draws a response, they are prepared with a counterresponse already. that will put the onus again back on the president and the national security team to respond to that. so there is a real concern about thes ka latory ladder and not a good feeling or understanding of how the administration prepares to deal with that. at that time when you have a secretary of defense on his way out the door, second of defense is in the chain of demand. so there is a lot of concern about where this is heading and the risk of a real escalation in the region and outside the region, it is real.

so this has to be thought through. now it's a question of what do you do with the time and how do you come up with a strategy to match your objectives and your resources and your means with what you're doing. >>. brett, thank you very much for being with us. brett mcgurk. let's go into another story to talk to the congresswoman, our panel about it. the ap is reporting a dangerous situation is unfolding for migrant children in texas. the teens are taking care of other children and there is inadequate food, inadequate water and inadequate sanitation. three girls told the attorneys that they were trying to take care of a 2-year-old boy who had wet his pants, had no diapers and was wearing a mucus smeared

shirt when the legal team encountered him. the attorneys say at least 15 children at the facility have the flu and some are in medical quarantine. children told the lawyers that they were fed oatmeal, a cookie and a sweet drink in the morning, instant noodles for lunch, a burrito and a cookie for dinner. no fruits, no vegetables, said the children, and they had gone weeks without bathing. they had gone weeks without bathing or having a clean change of clothes. according to the attorneys, many children arrived alone at the mexican border, but some had been separated from their parents or aunts and uncles. before they're transferred to the custody of health and human services, which houses migrant youth in facilities across the

country. so you've been down there an awful lot. respond. >> we need to flood the border with judges and aid workers and health personnel. i saw a story i think it was on the "today" show. jennifer garner was down there with save the children. and i was hit with this thought that save the children is now operating within the united states because there is a humanitarian disaster that we have cautioned through the trump administration that is putting unbelievable pressure on the u.s. personnel and the children bearing the brunt of this policy. we don't want to be in this business. that means more judges and a better system. >> what in the world can we do all these months later sivens we started seeing children being separated from their parents at the border, ripped out of their mother's and father's arms. here we are hearing just deplorable situations for

infants, children and teens. what do we do? >> this is a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions. this was a result of the policy established by the trump administration in terms of family separation. this is horrendous. it is inhuman what is taking place. we have to make sure, first of all, these children receive the type of medical care, the type of food and the humane conditions that they deserve. no child deserves to be treated like barbarians. i went to brownsville last year. i saw what was taking place. we have to make sure these children have the legal assistance and yes, they deserve that. we have to make sure that they are taken care of and quickly removed into the appropriate sponsored facilities or with their responsers or reunited

with their xarnts. weir going to work and try to pass a bill next year for this humanitarian crisis. but long-term, we need comprehensive immigration reform and we have to make sure that the policy of family separations is stopped. the administration said they halted it, but they really haven't. and what i see taking place in el paso, texas, and in other border cities is just un-american. it's wrong and it is people of our country should stand up and say this is a stain on our country that we cannot accept. we're going to take care of these children and get them into decent facilities and we're not going to let them be treated like they're not human beings. it's horrible what is taking place. >> it is just absolutely

deplorable. congresswoman, curious what your comments are, what your reaction is to joe biden over the past couple of days. he's been talking about being able to work with steg -- policies. and yet he said some things, some insensitive things. what is your take on joe biden's argument that we have to work even with people whose views we find offensive? >> well, i don't think that's the point. i think the comments were really tone deaf. you don't talk about being treated like a son and not a boy, and i think that is going to not be taken as very offensive. and i listened to senator booker. he and the vice president biden. they talked. but i tell you one thing, we've got to understand that we have to move forward and that institutional, systemic racism is alive and well in america and

we cannot really embrace these behaviors of the past and look at how we take on people who are racist and who are zdexenophobi and have these biasses based on insensitive -- sometimes conscious and sometimes not bias but we have to come to grips with that in this country and begin to talk about it and i think that senator cory and the vice president had the conversation. but let me tell you, saying something to the effect that i was treated like a son and not a boy is quite offensive. >> would you consider vice president biden to be throughout his career a champion of civil rights? >> when you look at his record and when you look at the record of other members of the house and the senate you can see that he has supported and led on many civil rights issues. i don't think that's the issue. i think the issue is being tone

deaf to what is offensive and what comes out in terms of attitudes and in terms of dialogue and in terms of making statements that really are very offensive. i don't think that should be connected to any record on civil rights. look, we're talking now about looking at and studying and establishing a commission on reparations, hr-40, to look at how we repair the damage. this is the 400th year of the first ships brought to american shores when slavery started. these were crimes against humanity. we still see these huge gaps in education and housing. look at the wealth gap in the black community. when you look at what's taking place in terms of mass incarceration. when you look at all the damage that still has not been rectified from the institution of slavery, we have to move forward and really pass hr-40 so we can establish this commission so we can begin some truth

telling so we can move ahead in this country and ensure liberty and justice for all and that includes the fact that black lives do matter. >> all right. congresswoman barbara lee, thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being with us. what are you working on next? next is the debates. if only they had something to talk about on wednesday and thursday night, right? we go down to miami and we see how that goes. keep an eye on bullock. >> all right. coming up next a look at nbc's new docu series on stonewall 50 years later. as we go to break incredible video. a massive fire. a series of explosions ripped through a refinery in south philadelphia this morning. according to the local nbc affiliate the blast jolted people from sleep miles from the scene but, fortunately, no injuries reported. n't know what. i've done all sorts of research, read earnings reports, looked at chart patterns. i've even built my own historic trading model. and you're still not sure if you want to make the trade?

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>> people fought back and said they weren't going to take it anymore. that was a clip from "stonewall" exploring the past, present, and future of the lgbtq rights movement. with us now lgbtq writer, journalist, and advocate, and also the managing editor of msnbc app. this is an exciting project. tell us about it. >> stonewall 50 the revolution is a look at the past, present, and future of the lgbtq rights movement centered on the stonewall rebellion. a lot of people think stonewall was the beginning of the lgbtq rights movement and it is actually not. for 20 years prior to stonewall

there was a nacent but growing homophile movement as they called it. so the first part of the series looks at the movement and what set the foundation for the stonewall rebellion. >> we talk in shorthand so much. my 15-year-old daughter is watching. what was stonewall? >> stonewall was a riot. we celebrate it right now but understand it was a riot and it was a fight for our lives. it was a fight against institutions that ignored us, against the systems that discriminated against us. it was a fight against the families and the churches that abandoned us. i think that is really important for people to understand and i take it so much to heart because it is because of those people i stand on the shoulders of them that allowed me to be here. >> as a middle class white guy born in the middle of the century, whatever, i just barely remember 1968 and black power at the olympics. that was like oh, my god that's scary. that's horrifying. they're doing that at the olympics?

but stonewall, that freaked everybody out. you're talking about standing on the shoulders of giants. nobody understands just how radical that was. >> yeah. >> absolutely. i mean, it started as a bar raid. it was when people finally said, nauf. and at bar raids cops would go in and people just get out of dodge. you could be ashamed, humiliated publicly, you could lose your job. and these were people who said, you know what? we have dealt with this one too many times. it was really a turning point. >> what is the stonewall of today? what is the fight most out there right now? >> i think today we're really looking at the right of transgender people. so far this year there's been ten murders of black trans women just fourth month in the month of june. and there are still trans people who -- you know, transgender people are 40 times more likely to live in poverty, 40% of trans people not only have suicidal id yags but tried to commit

suicide. people are still not understanding gender is something self-determined not imposed. the fight is really looking at the gender variance and the spectrum of gender and making sure we create a culture of love so the culture of lovelessness we've been seeing around trans people and globally -- >> ahead of this video the nypd apologized for their officers' conduct during the stonewall riots. what did that mean and what more can police departments be doing to help out with some of the crimes we're seeing against transgenders and so on? >> i'll take the first part of that on. i think a lot of people felt they were, five decades later, owed an apology. the police officer that led the raid did apologize on behalf of just himself. but for years people have been asking the nypd to officially apologize. i think it meant a lot to the community. i think people, you know, there are words and then there is action. i'll let tiq take it in terms of

what people would like to see police officers and figures of authority do in terms of repairing relationships with the community. >> it comes down to really comprehensive and compassionate training for police officers. if you are here as a servant of the people you don't just serve some of us. you have to serve all of us. too many times the nypd and police departments across this country criminalize transgender and gay people just for being gay. that is a matter of training and being intentional and deliberate about wanting to be better. i think that is what people want to see is the police department just saying we want to be intentional about being better and we understand where we went wrong and are we ready to move forward. >> thank you guys so much for being here. we greatly appreciate it. the series "stonewall 50 the revolution" at msnbc news.com/stonewall50 film. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. good morning. it is 9