welcome to "kasie dc." i'm steve kornacki. tonight trump administration vetting documents leaked for dozens of staffers. the president goes to the brink with iran. but after campaigning against endless wars for now, he settles for new sanctions. and the president descending on south carolina and on their fractious week are on the best behavior for the clyburn fish fry. first, tonight there's a

crisis at the border, to the addition of tens of thousands of influx of people, new conditions for deplorable conditions for children detained at the border. in our 8:00 hour, i'm going to talk to attorney warren binford, who's part of a team of lawyers who's been expecting border facilities for years and speaking out now because she said she's never seen it this bad. by now you've likely seen the headlines, older children being told to look at younger children, children sleeping on the floor, flu and lice outbreaks. saying there was mucous on their shirts, shirts were dirty, we saw breast milk on the shirts and food on the pants as well. they told us they were hungry. they told us some had not showered or until the day or two days before we arrived. cameras are not allowed in the center in question. and then they sent thus drawing, being shown here for the first time. it was made by a child in that facility depicting what life is like inside.

the facility in clint, texas. it was our only look inside while the congress and federal government grapple how to handle this crisis. and meanwhile, the trump administration is avoiding for now what appeared to be a collision course for armed conflict with iran. the president, of course, calling off a retaliatory strike earlier this week after iran shot down an unmanned american drone yesterday. he announced major economic sanctionle sanctions will begin tomorrow. and on "meet the press" suggested he's perhaps ready for dialogue with tehran. >> i'm not looking for war and if there is, there will be obliteration like you've never seen before. i'm not looking to do that but you can't have a nuclear weapon. want to talk, good. otherwise, you have a bad economy. >> no preconditions? >> as far as i'm concerned, no preconditions. here it is, you can't have

nuclear weapons. otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come. >> with that i would like to welcome in my panel. here with me republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio and in washington, d.c. axios reporter jonathan swan and white house correspondent reporter jeff mason. thank you for being with us. let's start on iran and what is to come apparently tomorrow? we showed you the president promising a new round of sanctions. we can play you mike pompeo, secretary of state, teasing ahead to the sanctions tomorrow. let's listen to what he said -- >> the world should know we will continue to make sure you understood this effort we've been engaged in, to deny resources to build out terrorists, military systems and nuclear weapons. will be a further effort to

ensure their capacity not only to grow their economy but ee vad sanctions becomes more and more difficult. it will be an important addition to our capacity to force sanctions against iran to ultimately achieve the objective we laid out. >> so the administration as we know pulled out of the iran deal a while back. they instead trying to ratchet up sanctions and now the promise of more sanctions tomorrow. what do you know of what we can expect from this? >> number one, this is the administration and in this case mike pompeo being the mouthpiece, saying despite president trump's last decision to pull back from a military strike, that the administration is still taking the threat from iran very seriously. really turning the screws economically. this is a continuation of the strategy they used for some time really since pulling the united states out of the iran nuclear deal. but for now this is the next step in that process, while also leaving the possibility of a military strike on the table, though it's pretty clear that's not right now, anyway, where president trump is headed. >> the other message coming out

as the administration hints -- hints at and says sanctions are coming. the president on "meet the press" today willing to have conversations, negotiations with iran without preconditions. did that catch anybody by surprise in the administration? >> well, he says without preconditions but he also says iran can't have a nuclear program. so i mean it may have caught some people by surprise but look how he conducts talks of kim jong-un of north korea. there was a lot of criticism there wasn't more set in motion before the two summits president trump had with him. you can imagine that he's keeping that in mind and thinking of same lar model for iran but that said, even without necessarily saying that there are preconditions that he requires, it's pretty clear what the president would want. he would want an agreement that would lead to iran not having a nuclear program and an agreement in his words would be stronger than the one that was agreed

with the united states and his allies under president obama's administration. >> jonathan, a lot's been made obviously about john bolton, mike pompeo, among others advocating for a military response for iran and the president ultimately siding against them. do you have a sense in terms of their influence emerging from this change of heart the president had at the last minute last week, does that tell us anything about their influence on the question of iran? on the question of this administration's foreign policy? >> i think people are way too quick to sort of with the who's up, who's down? we sometimes fall into this myself but trump -- president trump really likes having people with different points of view around him. but there's no secret in his mind about what john bolton's views are. he said -- pretty amazing quote in the chuck todd interview where trump said yeah, if it's up to john bolton, will he fight wars everywhere or take on everyone at the same time. he likes that tension. i also think that in terms of

matters of substance, the divisions between pompeo and bolton are perhaps a little overstated. they certainly, there are at times divisions between them but i think they're probably a little overstated. trump has pretty strong instincts on this. the thing that surprised me is i heard him talk about his hesitation to put ground troops into any foreign theater but to hear him talk about something which is fairly abstract, you know, pressing a button and setting off a missile and no new american troops in that context, for him to talk about the collateral damage, i never heard him speak with any caution about bombing campaigns before, and, in fact, having covered his campaign for president and as you all know from covering it too, he was talking about bombing isis so there was not talk about much kinetic action. >> that's the question, what do you think folks take away from this ultimately?

we've seen here -- i can't think of a strong parallel. you have the president going on twitter and the next morning saying hey, i was set to do this and painting a somewhat dramatic scene where he considers supposedly this civilian casualty issue. do people take away from this there was vacillation, instability? do people take away from this, hey, he multly didn't do this and maybe that's a positive? >> it depends if you supported donald trump or you didn't. >> the same line skblxt breaks down on the same line. what i think is worth noting is that he still has not said exactly what the political goal is here. i mean, what's the goal? if it's just no nuclear, then there's nothing to discuss. but donald trump seems more interested in just coming up with any deal say he has a deal. he doesn't show respect for the white house. he didn't do it with kim. and i'm old now remember when john mccain said -- when barack obama said no preconditions and john mccain said that would make

everything -- >> that was extremely controversial. hillary clinton said that as well against president obama. >> it was a tremendous statement to come out that way. republicans were -- her hair went on fire and i don't know how republicans will be with this. we've seen mixed comments. but i think at the end of the day most people learn to take what the president said through a pr lens and that's about it. >> joining me now ranking member of the homeland security committee and member of the armed services committee, retired commander gary peters. thank you for taking a few minutes and joining us. let me just start with the administration saying new sanctions coming tomorrow against iran. what is your reaction to that? >> i think you have to take some action. you certainly can't tolerate the iranians attacking a u.s. asset that drone is absolutely critical to make sure we're able to provide surveillance to maintain freedom of navigation in the straits of hormuz are

actually critical for the world economy. so i understand we need to take some action. but it still shows to me this administration really doesn't have any kind of long-term strategy. there's no thought as to what the end game is. you have a situation with the department of defense where you don't have permanent leadership. it's been over six months and we haven't had a confirmed secretary of defense. there's chaos in the department of defense. i'm not sure exactly what this administration is trying to accomplish with iran. it's just another example of reaction as opposed to being pro reactive and having a strategic approach how we deal with iran and how we maintain the straits for the region to get necessary oil. >> and the president was clanling the other day the sanctions already imposed were having a biting impact on iran and now apparently adding we will see new levels of sanctions on top of that. what is your read on the situation, the sanctions the

u.s. imposed since getting out of the iran deal, have they had an immediate impact on iran that can shed light on these negotiations? >> i think that's yet to be seen. we had a deal with iran. we had the strongest inspections ever to be sure they would not move forward with a nuclear weapon. president trump decided to pull out of that deal and now we have chaos. now there are more sanctions but what is he attempting to do here? what is the plan? we have not heard that plan. i think that's something he owes to the american people and congress to let us know what is the actual end game here and how is he going to achieve that? we're not seeing that. >> also again this line from "meet the press" where he stalked about having conversations, having communications with iran without preconditions. as jeff mason points out also the administration saying absolute bottom line here is iran surrounding all of its nuclear program. what do you make of that from the president?

>> it's inconsistent. certainly iran is a nation we have to be very concerned about. their activities throughout the middle east are very destabilizing. having a nuclear weapon, the iranians having a nuclear weapon is simply unacceptable. that's why we entered into the negotiations. we did it with our allies. that's what befuddles me. we're strong with the iranen situation with our allies. all of the allies are moving forward that the oil flows and iran does not have a nuclear weapon. that's why we worked with them to create the deal that we did. but he doesn't seem to be reaching out. in fact, our allies don't trust us, even with the attack on the tankers, our allies were not real quick in confirming whether or not that was the case. that's unbelievable. in the past our allies would understand if the united states believed there was attack and

our intelligence service said this was indeed the case. our allies don't seem to trust this administration. the administration is doing nothing to strengthen the kinds of allies we need in order to stand up against iranian transgression. this shows a rutterless administration, no leadership with the department of defense new york city strategic plan and inability to work with common allies on common interests. >> to return to your point there the specific instigating event was iran downing that u.s. drone. you said in the beginning there needed to be some response to that and i heard you say ultimately it's right for the president to back off taking a military response. what would be specifically to deal with the downing of the drone? >> i think sanctions can be part of that. we will see what exactly those were. i was very concerned about the military action. i think it was right to pull back from military action. there was no way to know how iran would react and they would

likely react in some fashion that could lead to escalation of violence. once you start getting down that path of violence and escalation, bad things normally happen. so it was appropriate not to have a kinetic strike. certainly some sort of reaction is important but, again, i believe the administration has to work with our allies. we have to have a united front in standing up against iran, their aggressive actions throughout the middle east. and they certainly should not be doing anything to inhibit the freedom of navigation through the strait of hormuz. it's so important for any folks in the world. and i think it's important to note especially our asian allies and european allies rely on that source of oil. they need to be part of a solution to deal with iran. and this administration needs to use diplomacy. they seem to not understand how democracy works and they're completely ineffective in using it. >> senator gary peters, democrat from michigan, thank you for taking a few minutes. appreciate that. >> thank you. and we are just getting

started tonight. still to come -- more on the bipartisan effort to put the brakes on a potential military confrontation with iran. democratic congressman ro khanna is going to join me live. first, someone leaked page after page after page of vetting documents from the trump transition team after the 2016 election. there were a number of red flags that were raised in those documents. as you will see, many got hired anyway. jonathan swan broke this story in the last hour. he's with us with all of the details next. -we bought a house in a neighborhood with a lot of other young couples. then we noticed something...strange. oh, could you, uh, make me a burger? -poof -- you're a burger. [ laughter ] -everyone acts like their parents. -you have a tattoo. -yes. -fun. do you not work? -so, what kind of mower you got, seth? -i don't know. some kid comes over. we pay him to do it. -but it's not all bad. someone even showed us how we can save money by bundling home and auto with progressive. progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents.

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welcome back. every administration has its bumpy moments and of all of the moments the president could have had, the president chose this one in his interview with chuck todd. >> if you could have one do-over as president, what would it be? >> it would be personnel. if i say i would have had one do-over, i would say i would not have appointed jeff sessions to be my attorney general. >> in your mind that's -- >> yeah. >> speaking of the president's appointments, jonathan swan of axios has new reporting just out tonight. he got his hands on nearly 100 internal trump transition vetting documents covering the whole period of when trump made all of his high level of appointments. susan del percio and jeff mason is here with us as well. this is a huge scoop in the last

hour or so. i want to you take us through the details but first to set this up, because when folks think back to the transition period they remember chris christie was deputized to come up with the transition plan, trump got elected, christie got booted, folks from the rnc were involved. which transition plan are we talking about here and what did you find? >> the documents we have are the documents that were produced after they fired chris christie. this is the documents they produced after the election just before they appoint all of these people to top jobs. the sequence is early in the election year 2016 appoints chris christie to runs his transition, the way you normally do it. christie builds out a team. they develop a list of names, et cetera, et cetera. trump fires -- actually bannon fires him after the election and they toss aside most of his work, start from scratch with

the names. they were not happy with the names. so there was this frenetic frenzied period where the leadership of the -- president trump, reince priebus, were coming up with names for the top jobs in the country. we're talking about cabinet secretaries, top white house officials and they needed to vet these people at some point. and so this enormous task of vetting these people, political vetting, vulnerabilities, things that might come up in a senate confirmation hearing, this was dumped on the back of the republican national committee. they had a team of two dozen -- almost all of them in their 20s, and they did the best job they could on a very, very trying circumstances and these forms effectively went from in some cases 23, 24, 25, 26-year-olds right up to senior leadership and on to president trump's desk when he was vetting people. but look, i think the contents of the forms are really interesting because it gives us

insight into how they, the trump team, viewed the political vulnerabilities and quite frankly the ethical vulnerability of people who took the most powerful jobs in the united states government. scott preuxous, we all remember him, he mult italy lost his job at epa administrator because of serial ethic abuses and clubbing with lobbyists. there was a section in his vetting form flagging, quote, coziness with big energy companies. it was not only foreseeable, it was actually foreseen. tom price, he ultimately resigned as health and human services secretary because of chattered flights and things like that. he had sections in his dossier of flagging criticism of his management ability, dysfunction and division during his time leading the house budget committee. and there were also really interesting analogies of people we've come to know as some of the people who are closest to trump. so you've dot mick mulvaney, now the white house chief of staff.

they had a striking assortment of what they called red flags for him. most of it was the harsh statements he made about donald trump's personal character. they point out he said trump is not a very good person. another one worth noting, very striking ones we saw, these people didn't etched up getting jobs. so laura ingraham, the fox host was seriously considered for white house press secretary. one of her red flags was, i'm reading a direct quote, ingram said people should wear diapers instead of sharing bathrooms with transgender people. and kris kobach, who we all heard of in the running for homeland security secretary, listed white supremacy as one of his political vulnerabilities. cited vast relations from political opponents he tied to white supremacist groups. >> what is the response you're getting, jonathan, from the white house? are they telling -- what do they

say? >> their official response, which i can read out, is that from hoguely diddly, the principal press deputy -- president trump has done more -- direct quote -- president trump has done more to improve the lives of the american people in two years than past presidents have done in eight and no disgruntled establishment, dng swamp creatures cowardly leaks can change that. i should also say we published all of the results online and redacted anything personal, addresses. and anything put in the documents that the vetters themselves says were rumors and there were a lot of things from conspiracy sources. everything unredacted is from public sources and also verified with four other sources who were involved in the transition who i confidently let them eyeball some of these documents and they verified the authenticity. nobody's disputing the authenticity of these documents. you can read them all on

axios.com. >> it's fantastic reporting. obviously, yes, i encourage everybody if you have not seen it. >> and watch our hbo show, steve! >> i didn't hear about that one. >> on hbo. >> i'm unfamiliar with that channel. if that's indeed a channel. susan, this gets back to a big-picture question leaning over this presidency, we're talking about the origin of the trump administration, transwhigs high-level jobs are handed out. and you've seen many of red flags for what would become major controversies in this administration and transition. as he's noting, it was thrown together very quickly. is this something that -- is there an ultimate history of the trump administration for a more conventional, more traditional, perhaps christie one, he would like people to believe that a transition produces a different administration or was this administration one way or another always going to be like that? >> it was going to end up like

this. let's face it, donald trump wanted to hire people that looked the role. that was the requirement. you had to look like a sengcrety of defense. you had to look like a press secretary. you had to look like more than they could be the part. they still have kushner in there, who cannot get a security clearance. and now if they throw names out with the fed, they throw it out and let the press do it for them. they became even lazier, if that's possible. >> jeff, from perspective to compare what you witnessed or experienced during the trump transition to past presidencies, how difficult was it? >> it comes down to vetting, which is extraordinary. last week even when the acting secretary of defense came down to a big controversy leading him to leave, the question over the

extent to which president trump's team did vetting back then and since then continues to hang over his administration. compared to other administrations, steve, i would say it's not comparable. the vetting is much more stringent and much stricter in other administrations. >> that is a theme we've heard on many fronts the past couple of years. jonathan swan, thank you so much for that terrific reporting. susan del percio, jeff mason, thank you as well. when we return, the presidential field ascends on the first critical in the south, south carolina, to break bread after the first major eruption on the campaign trail. those kbheccomments from joe bi. how did he weather his first big test? did he weather his first bg test ♪ limu emu & doug

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joe biden is trying to quiet the controversy surrounding comments he made about his working relationships with segregationist senators. speaking at a fund-raiser in new york city earlier this week, biden recalled the senate was more civil and productive even when segregation is like james eastland and melt tammage was

serving with him. saying he never called me boy, he always called me son. here's biden responding yesterday in an interview with reverend al sharpton. >> it hurts when you bring up boy. it means something different to us. it hurts when you call i racist and you normalize it. it's not the biden i know and i don't understand. >> that's not what we said though. the consequence was totally different. i do understand the consequence of the word boy but it wasn't said in any of that context at all. >> you understand they would never call me son. >> no, no, no. but they called teddy kennedy boy. that was the distinction. the reason he called me senator -- mine son is because he said, i'm not even qualified to be in the senate. i'm not old enough. i'm a kid. i'm a kid. >> this, of course, just days before the first democratic presidential debate.

joining me now "the new york times" editorial member and msnbc contributor mara gay. in miami, nbc news political reporter maria vitaly. and in washington mike memoli, our expert on all things biden. mike, let me start with you. the timing on this was so interesting. biden steps in to a trefrs involving race as he and the entire democratic field go to south carolina where 60% of the democratic electorate will be black. what is your assessment of how this weekend went for joe biden. >> listen, steve, i think it was interesting. not just do you have the controversy over comments about seg ra gasists but also the reversal on the hyde amendment and across the street joe biden needing to court african-american voters in this important state and also speaking at a planned parenthood event where both of these

conversations were hovering around him. what's fascinating about this segregationist controversy is it might have been a one or two-day story earlier in the week, had the vice president not extended it himself. you can see they know there's a target on his back. biden is feeling that target on his back. and so it was interesting those comments he made the next day asking cory booker to apologize to him when he and other candidates were asking him to apologize. then you saw al sharpton in a tough interview but giving the vice president every opportunity to move beyond it, apologize, acknowledge the real hurt that some people feel over how he characterized these senators and move beyond it but refusing to do so. so i think it's clear these are going to linger beyond this weekend heading into these debates. the other thing that was interesting to me, steve, under than bill de blasio, whose campaign at the moment seems to be all about going after joe biden for these remarks, the other candidates are largely just delivering glancing blows

at joe biden, letting himself, the vice president himself, extend this. clearly these unforced errors are continuing. >> mara, i'm curious, what do you make of that, what mike is talking about there? cory booker, this ended up being a booker versus biden controversy and booker seemed to make a clear decision not to pursue it further. booker was a candidate buried back in the polls and here was a chance to extend the spotlight. deciding not to, et rest of the field making a similar calculation. what do you make of that? >> there are a couple of things going on. i do think joe biden is having such dafl moment that everyone else is so far behind him in the race, they just want to give him a lot of leeway to continue to make those mistakes because the more harm he does to himself and his own campaign, the better it is for them. so i think if you're a candidate who's kind of trying to catch up with joe biden, your thought is go ahead, joe, continue.

>> i guess that's the question, do you think there was lasting harm that came to biden from this? >> i don't know. we will see whether it's lasting. i'm skeptical as to whether or not he will pay a long-term cost for it. i do think his remarks and i would say mishandling of them may suggest he may not quote/unquote get it in a way younger voters can relate to and more liberal voters are going to want to hear. people want to know in the democratic party not just that you can stand up to and beat donald trump but also you understand what modern america looks like and is going through. just whether biden apologizes or not, he's yet to really have a moment where he shows the american people he fully understands not just why people offended by his remarks and why they were completely and historically inaccurate and i think hurtful. he's not had that moment yet. that's why this is being

prolonged for him. >> it's interesting too, we see this in poll after poll, over 45 biden is cleaning up. under 45, a lot more doubts among democratic voters. maria, you were in south carolina and that was where all of the action, jim clyburn, highest-ranking democrat in the state, world famous fish fry. 21 candidates there. set the scene for us. >> absolutely. we were there, hot and sticky and same thing in miami, ahead of the pack. it's going to be crowded this week but it was packed in south carolina this weekend. take a listen. >> let's not flounder! let's get out there and kick some bass. >>s this the jim clyburn fish fry, the democrat right fish fry in campaigning. >> so glad to be in south carolina! >> several democrats took smaller portions on stage. >> that was the shortest speech

joe biden ever made. >> what do a few thousand pounds of fried fish have to do with winning south carolina? >> i don't know if it has anything to do with winning but it gives candidates an opportunity to interact with those people that we have out there working the polls, knocking on doors. >> clyburn's been frying fish for decades here. while the menu hasn't changed much, the political landscape has, especially for one joe biden, who took the stage as the man to beat in south carolina, a departure from fish fry's past when he stood in tshadow of bar obama and hillary clinton. >> ladies and gentlemen, barack obama. >> the former vp won't let that connection be lost this time around. >> it's a delight to be here with jim and it was pointed out the highest ranking of america in history other than president obama. >> it's the state where a

majority of voters who voted in 2016 were black and voters of color make all of the difference. >> everybody has to reach out to the african-american community. you can't take us for granted. >> reporter: candidates are staffing up big and visiting often. one tracker tallying more than 200 events from presidential hopefuls so far. while blackout reach is essential, it doesn't guarantee success. >> the names i hear when i talk about south carolina are joe biden, kamala harris and cory booker. but kamala harris and cory booker's poll numbers have been kind of stagnant. what do you make of how they're doing in the state right now? >> that's from a little bit of an amazement to me as well because i thought, sure, there would be much more of a surge. and i can't quite figure that out yet. >> after a week where family divisions spilled out in public view -- >> he said things that are hurtful and that are harmful. i believe he should be apologizing to the american people. >> cory should apologize.

he knows better. >> reporter: in the south at supper time, everyone brought their manners and appetites. >> what do you need to do at a fish fry? fry fish. >> i'm hoping to have fish and a beer. >> i don't know if elizabeth warren got her beer but i can say the last thing out of this weekend was all 20-plus candidates standing on this stage. this week we'll have ten and ten and this is probably the most i have seen in one place at one time in this election cycle and i actually got to ask a few of them about it asking what it was like to be all together given the drama this week and all of the intensity on the campaign trail. swalwell swl told me it was surreal, described biden as taking a lot of pictures. he said he thinks things are getting more intense with the group but then he said maybe he's just projecting. i don't know if it was the socialism comments he's maded. jay inslee told me it was a very

friendly vibe around the group. we will see if that stays in ames but everybody was on their best behavior in south carolina. >> good report and clearly got the message put the t-shirt on and give clyburn free advertising. he didn't miss that opportunity. meanwhile, there was a candidate who did not get to spend as much time in south carolina as he originally planned. that was mayor pete buttigieg, who was in south bend, indiana. he made the national spotlight trying to balance his run for president with his day job. taking time off after a shooting by a black man by a white police officer spokes protests in his city. here he is at an emotional town hall this afternoon. >> we're not running for this. we will have a conversation that i hope will be respectful and i hope, i know people will walk out of this room satisfied, i understand that but i want everyone here at least to be

empowered and i want to make sure voices are heard. >> it's disrespectful that i wake up every day scared! it's disrespectful i have three boys that i have to teach today what to do! >> they keep begging us to reach out and break the gap. we reached out and they said no. >> get the people who are racist off the street! reorganize your department! >> joining me now is nbc news national political reporter josh lederman. he was at that town hall event. josh, clearly an emotional scene there. the political backdrop context for this is we are seeing this in polls. buttigieg has been struggling to connect with african-american voters. here's a controversy in his home state that gets right to the heart of racial issues. take us through what it was like at that town hall today and how the mayor did there. >> yeah, steve, i have never seen a political event desend

into chaos like this, to the point where on a few occasions it seemed like there might be physical altercations. they might have to bring security in. emotions were raw. there was a lot of anger in the community right now, not only about this one incident, this shooting by a white cop of a black man a week ago today but about the perception there had been a lot of other racial incidents in america with police. the issue for pete buttigieg is he rooted his whole campaign in this idea that what america really needs another another senator or governor but a mayor who could make washington look like one of the america's best citys. and now the town he runs is in a very emotional crisis and he's struggling to deal with that, to prioritize that as a mayor while also being attuned to the fact the political optics on a national campaign level are really off-putting, particularly at a time, as you said, he's focused so closely on trying to

expand his thus far limited appeal to african-american voters in the primary. >> josh lederman out there in south bend, indiana. mike memoli, ali vitali, thank you both as well. always great to have you a part of this show. up next, we will be joined by congressman and co-chair of the bernie sanders campaign, ro khanna. cancer is the ugliest disease mankind has ever faced.

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well, we mentioned the debate. let me start with that. your candidate will be up there thursday night. he will be standing right next to the former vice president joe biden. and bernie sanders was talking about joe biden and trying to create some contrasts over the weekend in south carolina. let's take a listen to that. >> i talked about the position of war in iraq. joe's position was different. i voted against the regulation and jees campaign was different. i think the campaign is talk about our record and talk about our vision of the future. >> you hear him making the contrasts with joe biden there. how much will he be making that debate? do you see him making specific differentiations between himself and joe biden? >> i do when it comes to policy, especially as we are possibly getting another war in the middle east with iran, it's very

relevant what the candidates' position was on the iraq war. the sanctions the president is imposing, we tried that with remark for ten years and it didn't work. some of the candidates voted to get us into iraq. and we should know whether our next president will have restraint. i similarly think the issue on where people stand on health care and whether you're for medicare for all or not is relevant. so i think you will see bernie sanders not making personal differences known but going after policy differences so people have a clear choice. >> in terms of where this stands in the debate, i know there are gazillion candidates out there, but i think one thing that's gotten attention, and we can put it up on the screen, the latest national poll from monmouth, theyal look like this, biden out in the front in the low 30s. they have warren moving into second place, 15%, sanders 14%, a bunch of candidates behind them there. this is bernie sanders, who was able to get more than 40% of the popular vote across all

democratic primaries in 2016, win a bunch of states. is his thunder being stolen a little bit in the early going by elizabeth warren, who has in many ways a similar message? >> i don't think so. the politico poll and hill poll still has bernie sanders in a strong second. the polls go back and forth. senator warren is running a strong campaign. i think senator sanders has two advantages. he's got the best ground game in iowa and he's going to organize that state and i think he's going to do it very well. second, he's really a candidate who represents movement politics. it's not just about his specific platform. he really believes in movement politics. and i think that's going to, in the long run, stand him in good place for the primary. >> if sanders for whatever reason were unsuccessful in his campaign, would elizabeth warren be your second choice? >> well, i don't want to get into that because i anticipate that senator sanders will be successful. i think he's going to do tremendously well in those early states and then do well in my

home state of california. that said, i have tremendous respect for senator warren. i think she's offering great ideas. and i actually think this race may come down, like 1968, where you had two progressives, robert kennedy and gene mccarthy, competing until unfortunately senator kennedy was assassinated. you may have two progressives, bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, ultimately competing for the nomination. >> what about you say you may have two progressives ultimately competing. doesn't sound like you're bullish on joe biden's chances. what about that idea that democrats look at him, some democrats, we've seen this in polls, in interviews, look at him and say, there's an electability factor with joe biden. it's just about beating trump and biden gives you the most direct path. how strong is that appeal? >> i think joe biden has a tremendous amount of good will among democrats because he's served as vice president for eight years. he's had an incredible track record of public service. he's got an incredible family and story. but i don't think democrats see him as a change agent.

and donald trump ran against the status quo. the biggest mistake we could make is to run someone who isn't going to challenge the status quo and offer a vision of change. so i think many democrats will say, we respect vice president's service, we admire him, but he's not the right person to carry the democratic party forward. >> i want to ask you about iran. you're on the armed services committee. there's been this question of if the president were to decide to change his mind again and decide to launch some kind of strike against iran because of the drone or because of something else in the future, you're out there, i think you're out there with matt gates, republican from florida, saying the president has -- should have no authority to take any military action against iran. you're saying he lacks the constitutional authority at this point to do that because of that 2001 authorization no good anymore? >> the 2001 authorization doesn't cover an attack against iran. matt devia

tuesday we'll introduce a resolution that makes it clear the president has to come to congress before engaging in any wash or attack against war. under the war powers he has the ability to defend the united states against imminent attack, but if he is going to escalate and get into a conflict in iran, he has to come to congress first. our amendment, which is bipartisan, and i expect will pass, will defund any effort for a war in iran without him coming to congress. >> congressman row kahn na, thank you, appreciate that. >> thanks for having me on. next hour, governor jay inslee is going to join me live ahead of that first presidential debate and a major climate policy announcement from him. aww, this is dope. this thing is beautiful. i love the lights. oh man, it's got a mean face on it. it looks like a piece of candy. look at the interior. this is nice. this is my sexy mom car. i would feel like a cool dad. it's just really chic. i love this thing. it's gorgeous. i would pull up in this in a heartbeat. i want one of these.

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keep loving who you are, inside and out. ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. when we continue, harvest of shame. reports of appalling conditions for undocumented children. flu and lice outbreaks. children left to fend for themselves. this as the president delays mass roundups under political pressure. i'm going to be joined live by war rent binford, an attorney who visited one of the facilities where these children are being kept. not this john smith. or this john smith. or any of the other hundreds of john smiths

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president trump says nothing is off the table when it comes to the standoff with iran. using twitter president trump said he had stopped a military strike with just minutes to launch. >> i didn't like it. i didn't think it was proportionate. >> the president made the right last-minute decision. >> iran should not confuse american restraint with lack of american resolve. >> the president has also been very clear -- >> they cannot have a nuclear weapon. >> the administration, depending who you talk to, there's a different policy. >> i have two groups of people, doves and hawks.

>> john bolton has that reputation, hawkish. >> this is exactly what it was designed to prevent. >> we need to get back into the iran nuclear deal. >> he was just doing a limited strike. >> just a limited strike? oh, well, i'm sorry. >> joe biden, who talked this week touting his ability to work with segregationist senators, that led to a controversy over whether biden should apologize for those comments. >> biden handled it in a trumpian way. >> i heard from many african-americans who found the comments hurtful. >> i would not be a member of the united states senate if those men he praised had his way. >> is joe biden a racist? absolutely not. >> this is not an issue about race as it is an issue about pain. >> anybody who runs for president has to recognize what that pain was. >> i think joe owes the country an apology. >> whoever wins this nomination going to be going up against a president who does not apologize. >> i would actually rather run against biden. i think that would be my preference. >> and welcome back to the

second hour of "casey dc," i'm steve kornacki. after threatening to launch raids targeting undocumented families that was to begin today, president trump reversed course and called it off, at least for now. this was an abrupt change from just a few hours early where the president said this. >> these are people that came into the country illegally. they've been served. they've gone through a process, a process of the courts. and they have to be removed from the country. they will be removed from the country. it's having a very big effect on the border. the fact that we're taking them out. the people that came into the country illegally are going to be removed. everybody that came into the country illegally will be brought out of the country very legally. >> more on that in a moment. first, one of the difficulties of covering immigration and detention stories is getting inside the facilities where these events are happening. tonight we're going to give you as close of a sense to what it's

like as we can. new details are emerging about the living conditions at a border patrol facility that houses minors in clint, texas. according to the "new york times," quote, children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they've just met, toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants, teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk. most of the young detainees have not been able to shower or wash their clothes since they arrived at the facility. they have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste, or season. joining me, "new york times" editorial board member and msnbc contributor mara gay. white house reporter for the associated press and nbc political analyst jonathan lemire. former under secretary of state and political analyst rick stengel. in washington, nbc news correspondent julia ainsley. in los angeles, warren binford,

who visited the clint facility as part of a legal monitoring team that raised red flags on the care children are getting there. warren, as we say, we don't get a chance to see through cameras and through tradition along means what's going on but you do. explain to us first, if i understand this right, there's this consent decree we always hear about from 1997 that affects the policy on the detention of minors and families at the border. you are part of a team that through that decree monitors these conditions periodically. you've been watching this over time. take us through what you've seen most recently. >> well, basically steve, what i've seen is something that would truly break your heart. it's something that would help you to realize that we are truly facing a moral crisis in the united states of america. i never imagined that i would see dirty, hungry, neglected children who literally are in the government's protective custody, and this is how we're caring for them. i am a mandatory reporter.

the other team members are mostly mandatory reporters. if we saw this in a person's house or another facility, we would be obligated to report these caregivers for child abuse and neglect. these children are hungry, they are sick, they're being locked up, they literally -- we have as many as 300 children locked up in a warehouse with no windows. it is insane. it's something that you'd never imagine to see in our country. >> what is your sense of where these children are coming from, how they're getting there? these are children with no parent around them, no adult figure around them. >> they certainly came with adult figures. and this is part of what is so hard for me as a children's expert is that we know that children belong with their families. and that almost all of these children came to the united states with family members. and they have family living in the united states. many of them have parents living in the united states. and they need to be with their families. we were able to call up many of

the parents ourselves right there in the conference room and talk to them. they would come and pick up their kids that day if the government would simply release them to their families. they would pay for the children to be put on flights so that they can be in the safe and loving homes that these families have created for their children. and there's really no explanation as to why the government is holding these children in these warehouses, in these cells that are not intended for children at all. >> and you're saying you would -- you would normally say this is a condition, a situation of neglect. is this a function just of well-meaning personnel being overwhelmed by a situation in terms of the folks who are there, the guards, the folks who are running this facility, what is your sense of it? are these folks who are just overwhelmed? are you seeing them making the situation worse at all? the folks who are there in charge of this, what's your assessment? >> well, let me just make clear that everybody understands it is not the border patrol's job to take care of children.

we have always known that. that's why these facilities are not appropriate for children. they are as union set as we are that these children are being put into their care, because they don't have the ability to care for them. they need to be on the border doing their job, which is to apprehend people who are coming across the border, not caring for children. they don't have the training, they don't have the facilities they need. so the government is putting them in an untenable position by abandoning these children in border patrol care. these children need to be with their families. most of the children that i spoke to have been separated from their families when they were apprehended. they have families here. and all the government needs to do is to release these children to their families. a few of these children might not have families in the united states, and for those children, the government has set up a whole system called the office of refugee resettlement that has 12,000 beds. right now we have approximately 2,000 empty beds where we could place these hundreds of children. and they can be cared for until

they can be placed in a safe home with their parents or another family member or another adult who's authorized by the parents to take care of their children in the united states, which is what's required under the law of flores. >> so the president was asked about these conditions at this facility. let's play what he had to say about it. >> what we've done is we've created -- we've ended separation. you know, under president obama you had separation. i was the one that ended it. i said one thing. when i ended it, i said, here's what's going to happen. more families are going to come up. >> it is heartbreaking to see what you see. families that are in these detention centers. it's totally unacceptable. but the american people deserve to know that our dedicated customs and border patrol agents are literally being overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of people coming across our border to take advantage of loopholes in our laws. >> it looks like these kids are being used as some sort of -- is

it hostage? >> well, the thing is they're being used by very bad people on the other side -- >> but politically used. >> money is being made using them because our laws are so bad. because if you have a child, you have an advantage. you know that better than anybody. if the democrats would change the asylum laws and the loopholes, which they refuse to do because they think it's good politics, everything would be solved immediately. but they refuse to do it. >> julia ainsley, let me bring you in here. you know -- you've been covering this. in terms of the policy, maybe you can explain for folks who listened to the president there, who says, i ended child separation. that policy's done. we just heard from warren binford who's in the facility talking about these children having been separated from their parents at the border. from a policy standpoint, what is going on to bring about the kinds of conditions that warren's describing? >> well, steve, i'll tell you what is going on with these children, but then i have a question for warren if she's still there so that i fully

understand what's happening with these children there. but what happens typically is that children come across the border, they stay in customs and border protection, they're supposed to be there only 72 hours before they go to health and human services. which warren described very well, they're better equipped to take care of these children. right now because there's a lack of detention space or they're not getting to health and human services quickly enough, they are staying in these facilities, jail-like conditions, far longer than they should have. yes, the systematic separation of families ended about a year ago now with the executive order. but trump did start zero tolerance. he started to separate children from any parent who crossed the border illow, which is a misdemeanor. prior to that policy, no child was separated from their parent simply for that act alone. they might be separated if they committed a felony or if it was considered too dangerous for this child to be with the parent for whatever reason. the question i have to warren now is, are these children that she's seeing being separated being separated from their

actual biological parents? and are those parents who have only had a misdemeanor of crossing the border illegally? what can also happen is they get separated from families. it could be someone like a grandparent and they're separated because unfortunately our laws don't recognize grandparents as someone who could be a lawful guardian of a child. >> warren, can you clarify that? >> yes. we are seeing children both separated from their parents and being separated from other family members. it's really critical for us to understand that adult sisters, brothers, aunts, grandmothers, that all of these play a role in the care of children. and especially if you have a family that's in crisis, which is what many of these families are experiencing in their home countries, and they're trying to reunite their family in a safe place. many of whom have a lawful status here that their children need to come up here and be with them. and so it's critical that we understand that family cannot be limited to just parents and children, but needs to include

these other family members as well. however, we absolutely positively did see children separated from their parents in this facility, including one little girl who was separated from both her mother, her father, and her younger sibling. it's totally unacceptable and it's severely traumatizing these children. >> did they give a reason for that separation? was it that this parent had done anything more than just cross the border illegally, like so many other parents do? >> no, the process that we conduct when we are doing these site visits is we interview the children. but we are only there for a few days. we only have an hour or two with each child. and we are not allowed to do individual advocacy afterwards. and so all we can do is take the information from the child and then report to the court what this child has experienced. what we are seeing, though, is that the children who are there are not being adequately cared for, they're being abused and

neglected. it's critical people conduct their congress person and demand adequate oversight over this, and that these children be removed from this facility and all border patrol facilities immediately. talking about theme being overwhelmed, we are nowhere near the height in immigration that we've seen in recent decades. so it's not really a problem with the numbers coming across is border, it's a mar -- an issue of mismanagement by this administration. they are paying $775 per day to put these children in facilities when these children have family members in the united states and under flores they are supposed to be released to them as expeditiously as possible. as was pointed out earlier, no more than a few hours, 72 hours maximum, in a border patrol facility. no more than 20 days maximum in an orr facility. we are interviewing children, i've been at walmart, i've been at the tent city, i've been at the family detention center. what we're seeing with the children who are bold held there, sometimes for over nine

months, and it's costing the taxpayers a tremendous amount of money. when they talk about a shortage of resources, it's not really an issue of resources. it is mismanagement. >> let me make sure i'm clear on this. i want to clear up -- i guess it's a source of confusion. because you say it's not a resource issue, the immigration numbers are down, but we've also been talking in the last few months about the number of migrants who are being detained at the border. an incredible increase there in the last year or so. i think 144,000 we're talking about who were detained in may. we were talking about some astronomical increase year over year, over two years. is that contributing? i understand what you're saying about immigration. but is the wave of migrants who have been coming to the border contributing to this? >> so i'm referring to the number of apprehensions that are happening at the border. if you measure it by the number of apprehensions at the border, we are nowhere near our maximum as a country in recent decades. really, if these children were

being moved through the system and reunited with their families according to the timelines that are set under law in the united stat states, including the flores case, we would not have this crisis in regards to these children. on top of that, even if there were a crisis, there is no excuse to keep these children in the conditions where they're being kept. >> all right, we should get this out there. this was a cbp official who released this statement to nbc news. quote, u.s. customs and border protection leverages our limited resources to provide the best care possible to those in our custody, especially children. as dhs and cbp leadership have noted numerous times, our short-term hold facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis. they go on to say, quote, all allegations of civil rights abuses or mistreatment in cbp detention are taken seriously and investigated to the fullest extent possible. john lemire, i want to bring you

in. the president this weekend also call observed this idea of a series of raids involving undocumented families for deportation. and he seemed to say it's a two-week pause, he's saying. suggesting that that is to get a deal through congress that would address the asylum issue. i think this other issue out there is funding. funding for -- of hhs, funding for homeland security. and i know there's a bill there, it sounds like, that dick durbin and lindsey graham have been working on potentially on that front. in terms of the white house and the idea of calling these off and getting some kind of a deal in the next two weeks legislatively, what are the prospects? >> we've seen the president take this tack before where he's threatened significant, dire action in some ways, and right before it comes up, push pause, ask for more time, usually two weeks seems to be his go-to time frame, and we'll see if anything comes of it. yes, certainly it's a pressure tactic to try to get something done.

i don't think there's tremendous hope that that will come to pass. the description that is we're seeing from -- that have emerged from "new york times," "new yorker" ap, suggest maybe that would drive something, that there are almost human faces on this, the vivid descriptions of the squalid conditions there, that maybe that will push something forward. right now it seems like the president doesn't seem like he wants to budge. he's going to be tough on this. he views the conditions at the border and the immigration crisis in his words at the number one issue for his re-election campaign. they're not going to back off, which makes a deal seem somewhat unlikely. >> how do you think of the situation at the border? the conversation with warren was interesting and i'm trying to make sense of what i hear as well. and i've certainly seen the statistics on immigration. i've seen the more recent headlines about a surge of migrants at the border. i know "washington post" had done a story not long ago saying there is, in their view, a crisis at the border because of that. a crisis in this moment.

then you can get into the question of, maybe trump is to blame for that. but what is your take, how do you look at the situation on the border right now? >> first of all, no civilized nation should treat children the way these children are being treated. that's just beyond the pale. it's completely unacceptable. especially from the united states. second, i would applaud professor binford for coming forward and talking about the problems there. but as she mentioned, in the year 2000 there were 1.6 million apprehensions at the border. those of migrants. that far exceeds what we have now, there's been a downturn the last 20 years. there's been an upturn this particular year. part of the problem is, yes, they have funding, but they're overwhelmed they're not particularly well organized. what you could have in terms of legislation is increase funding for hhs, increased funding for the border, increased fudding for immigration courts, for asylum workers, for having an immigration court at the border. all these things are logistical things that should be done. there is a political crisis there and it can be solved through some logistical means.

that is not to say that the sigh limb laws and immigration laws what are they should be. they should be reformed. but to have that done in an election year is really, really unlikely. >> on the money front, i think the funding for the resettlement program which hhs, i believe, is running out in a month or something, there is an immediate funding issue here. >> for sure. the democrats say when you talk to them they don't want to just hand over more money to the administration to have them use those funds for law enforcement, to continue to use children as political pawns and keep them in detention. so the fear is that you use that money for law enforcement rather than actually management and true reform. i think americans right now feel pretty helpless. i think the vast majority of americans see these images, hear these stories, and are horrified. the best thing they can do is call their member of congress.

let that member of congress know that they want to see these children released to an appropriate family member before any kind of conversation goes on about comprehensive immigration reform. there's no reason for these children to be held in these conditions at all. or held by our government at all if there is an appropriate adult, as warren mentioned, to take them. so let's take care of these human beings first. and then we can have a political conversation. >> okay. mara gay, julia ainsley, warren binford, thank you for joining us. covered a lot of ground and i appreciate the it very much. when we return, conversation with presidential candidate and governor jay inslee. plus it was this week that the president launched his re-election campaign. with warning signs in his polling. i'm going ton joined by anthony scaramucci. first the president tempers his national security team as things fall apart with iran.

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crisis averted at least for now. president trump halting a missile strike on iran, announcing new economic sanctions set to begin tomorrow. this coming after iran downed an unmanned u.s. drone in international air space earlier this week. during his conversation with chuck todd this morning on "meet the press," the president discussed the role his advisers are playing amid these rising tensions. >> do you feel like you were being pushed into military action against iran by any of

your visors? >> i have two groups of people, i have doves and i have hawks. >> serious hawks. >> john bolton is absolutely a hawk. it was up to him, he's take on the whole world at one time. that doesn't matter because i want both sides. some people said -- i was against going to iraq, for years and years, and before it ever happened, i was against going into iraq. >> the panel is back with me. rick, let start with you on what's to come now. the administration is teeing up the idea there's going to be new sanctions announced tomorrow. they've already put a round of sanctions there after pulling out of the iran deal. it sounds to me when i listen to them they're trying to say eventually iran is going to say uncle, give in when it comes to the nuclear issue, what the administration's asking for. how effective have the sanctions been so far? how effective will more sanctions be? >> countries don't say uncle, basically, in history. trump is to be applauded for not having started the military action even though he set up the mechanism for it, but it wouldn't have been

proportionate. i think that was a good decision. i also want people to know, steve that this idea of sanctions, there is no trade between the u.s. and iran. we're not sanctioning them so they can't buy peanut butter from america or something. this is to punish other countries trading with iran. so the idea of ratcheting up sanctions, which as high as they were ever before during the obama administration, before the iran deal, is not going to have that much effect. what you didn't play was something trump also said, which is, i'd sit down with the iranians without a precondition. and it's not even a precondition to say you can't have a nuclear weapon because that wasn't a condition of the iran deal that the obama administration negotiated. i mean, to me the best that could be hoped for is trump tried to come up with his own deal which he can say is even better than obama's iran deal, and basically get the same thing. that would be the thing to be hoped for. >> well, so john, take us through -- i think people too also, as we look ahead to this week, are trying to figure out what the heck happened last week. it was sort of a -- an intense series of events there.

you had the downing of that drone. you had the administration, you had the president making it sound like something was coming. we wake up friday morning, find out something almost happened and the president pulled back. take us through the key steps thursday between the president walking towards this and walking away from it. >> pressure had been building for months and weeks, including the attacks on those tankers that the u.s. blamed on iran. the last couple of days things reached a new crisis point with the drone being downed. and trump, it will not surprise you in his recounting, played up the drama a little bit. it wasn't quite like they were 10 minutes away. certainly he was presented a series of options by adviser, including bolton, secretary of state pompeo, the pentagon. one of them was to launch missile strikes on iran, take out a number of targets. and he then was actually told hours earlier what the casualty estimate could be. it wasn't just at the end, which raised questions. people wondering, wait, the president was only told right before he had to give the go order, that it would be 150 or

so people died? he was given a rough estimate hours earlier. it's not unusual for a president to double-check before your final decision, has the situation changed, circumstances changed? the last minute he decided it wouldn't be appropriate to launch this, and according to our reporting, spent much of the day friday being very pleased with that, felt he did the right thing in focusing on the military strike and did the right thing again by pulling back. believing that this was a warning, perhaps, to iran. look, we almost went there last time, we can go there again. as part of the move with the sanctions to try to bring iran to the table, to try to get some sort of concessions out of them. will it be successful? remains to be seen. >> that's the question. what do you anticipate? practically speaking from iran's standpoint. emerging from this and then dealing with whatever the administration announces tomorrow? how do you think they're going to react? >> you know, it's hard to say. i mean, the iranians are a very proud country. they're a country of 80 million people. they have a 2,000-year-old

history. they obviously don't like to be pushed by america. part of the reason that the iran deal worked was because basically we took everything else off the table. the support for terrorist groups, for hezbollah, all of that. let's shoot the crocodile that's closest to the boat. they're two weeks away from having a potential nuclear weapon, let's get that out of the hands of a terrorist state. so that to me is still the existential issue. it's not even trade or anything like that. i think the idea there could be a move saying and maybe it's a multi-party conversation -- pompeo is going to saudi arabia and uae -- that to me is the best to hope for, to keep just pushing away them nuclearizing those devices. >> also it must be said, the president certainly didn't launch the air strike last time but he's not ruled out the fact of military action down the road. >> the other question is he takes shots, he does take shots at bolton, pompeo as well, who was advocating for it. who is he listening to right now? >> a few people. john bolton is one of them,

although he is a little bit in the doghouse, not just on this issue, venezuela and others. the president listens to his counsel but he hasn't agreed with him for a while. pompeo was advocating military strikes remains largely in grace. tucker carlson, the fox news host, the president not only listened to as carlson said on the program that they shouldn't have military action with iran, but fielded calls privately from the white house residence during the nights before. that's another voice that he does listen to. and i think he was pleased with the media coverage, according to our reporting on friday, of his decision not to strike. he was praised, mostly in a bipartisan way, and on networks like this one and cnn, where he doesn't usually get a kind word. >> the other thing is there were generals at the pentagon who have been looking at this issue for over a decade who realized, there's no winning in having a nuclear strike or any kind of strike on iran. they've hardened their weapons, they've hardened their silos. iran has a lot of the ways of hitting back, in the gray zone,

cyber, all those things. the generals are saying, this isn't a good idea. >> the pentagon is reluctant. there's no permanent secretary of defense either. >> yes, no one has confirmed to run pentagon at this point. thank you both for joining us. i'm joined by former white house communications director anthony scaramucci when we come back. every innovation, every feeling... ...a product of mastery. lease the 2019 es 350 for $379/month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. ♪ mmm, exactly!ug liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. nice! but uh, what's up with your partner? oh! we just spend all day telling everyone how we customize car insurance because no two people are alike, so... limu gets a little confused when he sees another bird that looks exactly like him. ya... he'll figure it out. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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we wanted to talk to you bus the president among other things announced his candidacy for re-election. i want to talk to you a little bit about first the strategy he's running on here. i guess this is the way to set this question up that i had in mind. it's this -- here's a poll result from a few weeks ago asking people about the state of the economy. how do they consider things going economically? you can see 70% in this poll said things are either excellent or good. 28% said not so good or poor. normally a president with those numbers would have an approval rating 55%, 60%, 70%. donald trump's approval rating right now is in the low 40s. it's been there throughout his entire presidency, pretty much. can a president win re-election if voters aren't giving him credit for the economy? >> well, first of all, thanks for having me, steve. you know, in your book you describe the whole split that's going on in the united states right now. and so the president is taking a

position, it's his strategy that he's going to focus on his base. and he's willing to make the bet that the rest of the people that he needs to win re-election are going to come along with that base. and so that's basically, if you're inside the mind of his strategy, i mean, he's actually said that to me directly. and so that's where he's moving right now. i look at those numbers, i accept those numbers. but i also take you back to four years ago where there was a lot of uncertainty and the numbers were moving around all over the place. and we both know the one number that really matters is the one that happens on election night. so for me, i think it's hard to really assess what we're doing right now. moreover, we don't know who the president's running against. we both know that it's impossible to beat somebody with nobody. and so until we can find out who the president's running against and who the comparison and contrast is there, it's going to be very, very hard to see a crystallization and definition of those numbers.

but if you looked at that turnout last week, it was a legendary turnout. so much so that michael moore, who predicted president trump's victory in 2016, he scanned the audience for everybody and said, hey, you're going to be up against a formidable opponent with a very strong base, steve. >> i hear you on 2016. i think about it all the time. in 2016, the president defied, as a candidate, defied pretty bad poll numbers on a lot of fronts and still got elected president. but i wonder when you sort of project that onto 2020, if you're looking a little bit too much in the rear-view mirror. here's what i mean. you allude to the president's strategy of firing up the base. the president this week was even saying he just needs his base. i want to put a piece of analysis, henry olsen, a political analyst in the "washington post" this week, he said the trump campaign has a terrible 2020 strategy. president trump's campaign told "time" magazine its strategy for re-election relies on stoking turnout among his base.

if that's true, the president is much likelier to lose than many republicans think. and the reason he said that is, he said in 2016, the thing that allowed the president, allowed donald trump to win with those poor numbers was reluctant trump voters. they didn't have a high opinion of donald trump, but they had an equally low opinion of hillary clinton, and they voted for the outsider. and the problem the president faces in 2020 is he's not the outsider. he's the incumbent. >> okay, so i didn't read that article, but i think that's a pretty good analysis. you know, and i've often argued on television and to the president that there's a 7% to 10% millstone on the president's neck as a result of some of the things that he's doing stylistically. and so when you look at the economy and you look at what he's doing, like okay, what he's doing is pretty fantastic at least economically. when you look at how he's doing it, i think that's the problem. i think that's holding back moderates and independents that

would like to vote for the president. again, i've said this publicly. when you're calling rex tillerson dumb as a rock, it may galvanize the base, it may make you feel good at this point. but there's white women voters or all women voters or just people in general, frankly, that are trying to teach their kids about anti-bullying and they don't love the comment. so i'm hoping that the president will transition into that state of the union-like style that he used earlier in the year, steve, when he gave the state of the union address. it's an inclusive thing. it's an all-american sort of a thing. >> is there any reason, just based on -- he's been president for 2 1/2 years. he ran for president for a year and a half before that. the state of the universe of trump, when you see it, it seems to last for maybe 36 hours. is there any reason to believe that fundamentally, he's going to be any different over the next year than he's been far the last four? >> only because the president likes to win. i've never seen anybody that likes to win as much as the

president. during the justice kavanaugh proceedings, you can go back to his tweeting. it was way more measured. it was way more toned down during those confirmation proceedings. it's my prediction that he will curve into that direction going into the election. if he's got the economy behind him, and he's spending a billion dollars, traveling the country on air force one, again, depending who he's going to be up against, it could be a very good dynamic contrast for him. and it's his to lose, frankly. because you and i both know, and from your book, nobody loses in a rising economy. go back 100-plus years. sitting presidents in a rising economy, they don't get dislodged -- >> that's why i ask -- >> this could be the exception. >> right, because those presidents who have won with the rising economy have had much stronger approval ratings at this point. but let me ask you, you have a good sense of who trump is. you have a good read on him. he said it again today, he keeps saying he'd like to run against biden.

would he really like to run against biden? or does he sense vulnerability there? >> well, i think he thinks he is running against biden. he's got arguably among the best political instincts of anybody out there. he went from being a business mogul to president, 17 short months. he's saying he likes biden because i do think he can cut holes into vice president biden, given the fact that joe biden represents four decades of the establishment. so i think he would have an easier time frankly if he was running against bernie sanders or somebody that had proclivities toward socialism. the country's not ready for that. but the president also feels that in a debate, you know, vice president biden has been prone to gaffes. and the president's literally like the ronnie lott of verbal contact when it comes to debating. so he beat 17 other establishment competitors four years ago. he's the sitting president now.

and so vice president biden, i like him, he's been to my conference. but he does represent that to the president. so i think -- i do believe him and take him at his word that he would like to run against him. >> anthony scaramucci, thanks so much, appreciate it. when we return, the governor of washington state and presidential candidate jay inslee. of a lifetime. it's "progressive on ice." everything you love about car insurance -- the discounts... the rate comparisons... and flo in a boat. ♪ insurance adventure awaits at "progressive on ice." tickets not available now or ever. at "progressive on ice." hey allergy muddlers... achoo! ...do your sneezes turn heads? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day.

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headline. climate change is the major theme of your campaign, and this was a headline in "the new york times" a couple of weeks ago. honestly it's the question i'm wondering. i climate change is catching on with voters, why isn't jay inslee? >> we haven't had the first debate yet. i'm still introducing myself to voters and i am proud to carry this flag of being tclimate change candidate because it is clear we have to have a president who will commit the united states to making this the number one priority of the united states. and it has to be the organizing principle for the next president, for three reasons. one, the science is clear on this. we just don't have much time. and donald trump can tweet, he can say wind turbines cause cancer all he wants. but we know they cause jobs. we know this science is clear and nonnegotiable. you just -- he can't repeal the law of gravity or physics. so we are now showing -- i'm rolling out the fourth part of

my plan tomorrow in miami. a community that's frequently been inundated by rising sea levels. so people do want a solution to this. i've talked to the people and seen their tears that have had their homes burned down in forest fires in california. and their towns flooded in the midwest. and now i roll out a plan to put 8 million people to work developing a clean energy economy. so i'm happy where we are. i'm producing these ideas. i feel good about it. >> to give a taste here, this was the president and the vice president this week talking about their record on environmental issues. they say, we've never had a cleaner environment than under trump and pence. >> america has the cleanest air and water in the world. >> i'm an environmentalist. but a different kind, a real environmentalist. but our water is crystal clean. our air, it's the best it ever was. >> i listen to that and a imagine the clear contrast

between you and president trump in a da da bate when it came to this issue. compared to these two dozen or so other democrats running for president, they all say clima climate's a priority. what do you get with inslee that you don't get with the other democrats? >> i'm a unique candidate for several reasons. number one, i'm unique in that i'm the only candidate making this pledge that if elected i will make defeating climate change the number one priority of the united states. it has to be the organizing principle of my entire government. because if it's not job one, it won't get done. i'm the only one making that commitment. second, i'm the only one, as a governor, who has helped create the number one economy in the united states. by fashioning a clean energy economy. i've passed a 100% clean bill. we've developed a $6 billion wind industry. and third, i've got the most aggressive plan to actually put meat on the bone to wind down the fossil fuel pollution that's infecting us. it's been called the gold

standard. i'm the only one given an "a" by greenpeace for good reason, because it's based on science and optimism. those are the reasons i'm unique and that's why we have these debates and i'm looking forward to them to get right down and l. >> we say, there are 20 candidates who will be taking part in the debates this week. there is 24 total. there may be 25. i heard the former congressman might have gotten in the race today. down in south carolina this weekend, one of the formers that was covering that state convention is in the room and noted this. she said there was an audible grown from the audience there when they were told they will have more than a dozen candidates yet to hear from today. i do think it gets to a question because this is an extraordinary situation. we have never had this many candidates running for the nomination of one party. the field has never been this vast in either party. practically speaking for you, starting out without the name

recognition of a biden, sanders, warren, are there too many candidates for someone like you to get noticed? >> people are understanding the centrality of this issue. as you know, i have encouraged the party to have a debate focussed exclusively on the climate crisis. we have 200,000 people sign a petition. nine state party chairs have asked the democratic party to do that. 50 members of the national committee. there is a full throated desire, certainly in the democratic party, to have a candidate that will make this the number one job of the united states. and there is one candidate who is willing to do that. i happen to be that candidate. so this is very early in the process. bill clinton and jimmy carter were 1%, where i am right now. the sky is the limit. this is a job that has to be done. i believe my vision is consistent with the american character, not just the science because we are a can-do people.

we are confident. we invent, create and build. i have created a vision statement to really lead the nation to a clean energy future. we can get that job done. >> all right. good luck in the debate this week. >> thank you. all right. we'll be right back after this. . we'll be right back after this er you. we're working together to do just that. bringing you more great tasting beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all. smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels and reminders to think balance. because we know mom wants what's best. more beverage choices, smaller portions, less sugar. balanceus.org for a restless night's sleep. pain settle there's a better choice. aleve pm. the only one to combine a safe sleep aid and the 12-hour pain-relieving strength of aleve that dares to last into the morning. so you feel refreshed. aleve pm. there's a better choice.

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and that does it for us tonight. kasie will be back with you next week from 7:00 to 9:00 eastern. up next with the first debate just three days away, it is the road to miami with ari melber, only on msnbc. i...decided to take the dna test.

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good evening. anchoring live from msnbc headquarters in new york. right now for our special tonight on the first democratic debate as voters will see the largest, most diverse group of candidates in modern history. 20 candidates, two nights, everything on the table. who can really confront and defeat donald trump? >> the guy just doesn't understand the job. >> a threat to america. >> people are tired of the chaos. >> the president deserves