nicole wallace. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the presidential aspirations of the two-year veteran of the senate, from california, kamala harris, have been turbo charged by a powerful debate performance last night in miami. and for all of the talk in the hours since that debate concluded about her standoff with democratic front-runner joe biden, there were several moments that showcased harris' strength and clarity around three issues central to the democratic primary and the debates roiling the nation. first, here's senator harris bringing the entire debate back to kitchen table issues. >> senator harris, i'm so sorry. we will let all of you speak.

senator harris. we will let you all speak. senator harris. >> you can't afford -- >> hey, guys, you know what? america does not want to witness a food fight, they want to know how we're going to put food on their table. [ cheers and applause ] this president walks around talking about and flouting his great economy, right? my great economy, my great economy. you ask him, well, how you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? and he talks about the stock market. well, that's fine if you own stocks! so many families in america do not. you ask him, how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours, and they point to the jobless numbers and the unemployment numbers. well, yeah, people in america are working. they're working two and three jobs. so when we talk about jobs, let's be really clear. in our america, no one should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on their table! >> and here's harris on the tragedy unfurling on the u.s. border with mexico.

>> a mother who pays a coyote to transport her child through their country of origin, through the entire country of mexico, facing unknown peril to come here. why would that mother do that? i will tell you. because she has decided for that child to remain where they are is worse. but what does donald trump do? he says, go back to where you came from! that is not reflective of our america and our values and it's got to end. >> another moment getting attention today, harris on race. >> we're going to get to you. hang on. >> i would like to speech on the issue of race. there is not a black man i know, be he a relative, a friend, or a coworker who has not been the subject of some form of profiling or discrimination. growing up, my sister and i had to deal with the neighbor who told us her parents couldn't play with us because we were

black. >> and that led directly to the moment that's been playing in a near-constant loop. harris taking on joe biden's suggestion that he'd been able to find a way to work with two known segregationists during his time in the u.s. senate. >> it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two united states senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. and it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. and you know, there was a little girl in california who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. and she was bused to school every day. and that little girl was me. >> now, vice president biden disputes harris' attack there and made it a point to address that moment at an event in chicago this afternoon. >> i heard and and i listened to and i respect senator harris.

but, you know, we all know that 30 seconds to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can't do justice to a lifetime committed to civil rights. i want to be absolutely clear about my record and position on racial justice, including busing. i never, never, never ever opposed voluntary busing. and as a program that senator harris participated in and made a difference in her life. i did support federal action to address root causes of segregation in our schools and our communities, including taking on the banks and red lining and trying to change the way in which neighborhoods were segregated. i've always been in favor of using federal authority to overcome state-initiated segregation. >> that is where we start today. with some of our most-favorite reporters and friends. the rev al sharpton, host of "politics nation" here on msnbc. senior adviser to moveon.org, karine jean-pierre, plus, nbc

and msnbc national affairs analyst, john heilemann, and the editor in chief for "huff post," lydia pole green. i have been listening to all of you all week. i have been dying to talk to you today. >> i thought you were going to say, i'm so sick of all of you. shut up. my god. >> no, no, you are the show today. i have nothing but time. and i want to hear you on both of this. on her night, not just the standoff with biden, that is not the sum total of what happened last night. and that we, me, i have participated in reducing it to that i think is a disservice, which is why we wanted to start with all of those moments. because strung together, they mr. explain any bounce she has in the polls, which i would predict. but joe biden today taking another stab at putting this into context and i wonder, i want you to speak to sort of the substance and the effort. >> i think that when you look at, first of all, the debate last night. i'm sitting up front watching

it. joe biden said that he was supporting the local school boards doing the decisions, not the federal government. which is tantamount to saying, i support state's rights. he said that. that's not kamala harris confusing what he said. and if you need a day to explain that you were not with state's rights, you only made the situation worse. i'm talking about what he said out of his mouth, which was stunning to me. last saturday i -- >> but give me the version for dummies for that. that is not just -- i mean, that has all sorts of problematic connotations -- >> well, problematic connotations she raised last night. when he said that, she said that federal government had to intervene, that's how we got the voting rights act and the civil rights act. the only way the civil rights movement operated toward any kind of achievement is the federal government had to

protect them against states that would never outlaw segregation, similarly to how in the civil war, if you didn't have a strong national union, the confederate states were involved. for him to say that he supported the local school boards making the decision is for him to say we're going back to state's rights and the federal government not intervene. and that was a point. the federal government has designated busing. one of the things that i think people miss is that a lot of the civil rights leadership came out of the south. she and i are like nine years apart. we both were bused in the north. and a lot of the people did not want to deal with the racism in the north. bugs in brooklyn or boston or berkeley where she was from was a traumatic experience, because we were going in the neighborhoods where we were called names and all of that. that's what she was raising that we lived. he is used to the generation of southern-born civil rights leaders, where you could play liberal when you visited down south, but don't send your kid

to my school when i get home. and that's what that was so reminiscent of last night, when he said that. and so painful. like, when i sat with him last saturday on my show in south carolina, and he said, don't you understand, when you talk about "boy" and "son," they would never call me "son," because they don't see me as a part of their family, "boy" is what they call not only me, my daddy, my grand daddy. we were never able to be a man. "i understand that," but he wouldn't apologize. and all he had to do was deal with the pain he had caused. all of us have said things we shouldn't have said. but when you don't feel that you're going to apologize, when you act like that's a bridge too far, we're going to play politics with people's real pain, that's when you end up in a situation that he ended up in last night. and i think kamala harris -- i'm not endorsing anybody, but i think she really talked about the pain, because a lot of us had to get on nothose northern buses and face hostility every

day. >> karine? >> i want to give her some more credit. because when i was watching last night, i thought to myself, that line from "the wire," that famous line that people use a lot, which is, when you come from the king, you best not miss. and she didn't miss. she went for biden and she went in. and the way that she did it was so masterful, was so surgical, and she -- what she did was she used something that's incredibly important to him, which is his 40-year record. and then she leaned in on an issue that's really important to all of us, which is the history of racial inequality, especially in this 2020 lerelection, when have donald trump. and what she did is, she weaved in her personal story. and that is something that is purely masterful. and she executed that. and it had so much impact for so many people. i have been watching these kind of focus -- not focus groups, but these -- these debate watches, especially in south carolina, where people have come out and said, look, that didn't happen to me, but i can feel

what she is saying. and i know people who went through that. and after she did that, the campaign, what did they do? they tweeted out a picture of a kamala harris in second grade, basically during that time of being bused. and it was just really -- >> we just put that picture up on the screen. >> and i've been in debate preps, especially in the last cycle, i've worked on a couple of presidential cycles, and it is hard to have done what she managed to do. and you know, you come out of a post-debate and you look at -- you think, okay, you wonder, are you worse off or better off? and she has managed to be better off. and so, you know, she used something personal and was able to tell a story, which is not easy to do. and she prosecuted her case to be president of the united states, to take on trump come the general election, if she is the nominee. and you've got to give her and her campaign credit for that. >> john heilemann, are we making too much of one night? >> no. i don't think so -- well, maybe

some people are. i mean, i think, look, there's -- i have been all over television saying that i think she, you know, was clearly the winner of the two days. she was the best performance of anybody in the measurable sense, which karine alludes to. i always look at, you walk in, trying to accomplish certain things, you walk out, there's only one goal, to become the democratic nominee. is she in a better position to be the democratic nominee today than she was yesterday? she is, manifestly. we'll see what kind of a bounce she gets and what kind of a hit he takes. in either case, she's done this thing, her -- the mantra for her campaign, the frame for it, which is, i'm the prosecutor who can best prosecute the case against donald trump. so he demonstrates the prosecutorial skill. she's on stage with another septuagenarian white man, not like donald trump in almost any other way except for that, the image. she wants to make people in the democratic party to be able to image, what would it be like to see her on stage against donald trump. in that sense, narrow sense, joe biden becomes the proxy for donald trump.

so she shows what it's like, she shows and not tells. you had people all over social media and all in my email inbox and my text messages from democrats all over the place saying, you saw that -- i want that woman to go against donald trump. she would kick his butt, which is exactly the that i thiing th trying to engender. and in a funny way, not only does she open up a big, wide seam on some difficult questions for joe biden about his history on issues of crime, on issues of race, but also, she takes away from him that thing that he has clung to, which is, i'm the best one to take on donald trump. she's saying, no, no, look, i'm going to take you down to size, i'm going to make you politically vulnerable, and i'm going to show that i'm better at your game than you are. i mean, in what world is that not just an unequivocal win? and to your point, finally, even if the biden thing hadn't happened, she scored, and every time she spoke, there was not a moment she missed. every time she opened her mouth, she scored a direct hit on

whatever she was trying to hit. and she was at various times human, she was funny, she was emotional. it was a sterling debate performance, top to bottom. >> i would add to that that every time she's opened her mouth and a camera has been on her since she first mused about running, that has been the case. i mean, not just her prosecution of william barr, who's a million times smarter than donald trump, who she completely, completely took apart, one pleasant, polite question at a time, in the hallway ten minutes later, she was just as effective and actually managed to squeeze another line of attack and another news cycle out of it. so the performance was not an outlier, it was an extension of every moment we've seen from her. >> well, i would say this. she has had weaker moments. and she has has mistakes. >> weaker answers, probably. >> she made mistakes on health care. she has given speeches in places where i've heard from democrats who have said that they were unimpressed with her. that they thought that she was not as good as she was on her

announcement speech. she had a moment where she, for some number of months, with some exceptions, where she kind of hit a trough. and i actually think it speaks also to her quality as a candidate, all candidates who go on to be the nominee of their party, their capacity for growth, do they get better as they go along. >> yes. yes. >> what she did was she came out very strong, she kind of like fell into a bit of a trough, with the exception of a couple of big television moments on the hill, but the fact that she's raised her game, both in south carolina, where rev and i saw her last week, where she gave a great speech to the south carolina democratic convention, the best speech i've ever seen her give from a stump perspective, and to do this on the debate stage tells you that she's learning as a candidate, and that's really the most important quality that you can have if you're going to go the long haul in this game. >> i think the thing that she really accomplished to my mind was really combatting this idea of a electability. and putting herself in position as presidential. i mean, the thing that she did that was kind of amazing was she had a pen in her hand, and it was like, you know, bring those

bills and i'll sign them on the resolute desk. you know, there was this image of her just being fully in command. and i think that's going to really stick with a lot of people. it was unmistakable, this idea that this is a leader who's ready to take on really big challenges. and it was just a masterful performance. >> i was going to ask you about electability, because i think that these were not problems that she had. they may have been just questions that the broader electorate, people who don't watch her on the hill and didn't sit glued to the barr hearings, these were questions that she answered. electability. i think she answered some hunger in the democratic party for generational change. she answered some questions and some hunger for a woman in that office. she answers the question and speaks to the hunger for diversity. i mean, she is the answer to almost every question that i hear democrats asking. >> well, and i think she also found a very deft way to deal with what has been one of her vulnerabilities, which is her record as a prosecutor. i mean, right? we at huff post have written

quite a lot of tough stories investigating her background on things like truancy, where you had ended up with kids going into the criminal justice system for really no reason because of overly harsh rule she is prosecuted when she was attorney general of california. and this has been a point of vulnerability for her, but by couching her own experience with race -- and i think another place where people have overstated that vulnerability is that they forget that african-americans care a lot about crime, because they are disproportionately victims of crime, right? and a tough prosecutor who is seen as fair and competent, who comes from that community, i think actually does have a certain power and a role to play. >> and it's a complete inoculation from what we already know, what's been telegraphed on the right, which is to paint the entire democratic party as too far to the left. it's just, in the mind of rationale people, it -- >> but i think that -- and i totally agree with her, i think

that's where they rob -- she robs them. you're talking about a lady that was a district attorney and then went on to be state attorney general. so you can't say she's soft on crime. and she was attacked a lot by the left. i mean, we question her in some cases on the national action network. so you can't say that, but when she talks about, i was bused and that i went in and built a career, that answers a lot of the attacks on the left, because some of them didn't even go that trajectory. but i think something else that was very interesting to me, going into the hall last night, everyone was waiting for bernie sanders to do the attacking. and for her to be the one to take on biden, no one predicted that, no one saw that coming. and even as the night ended, bernie never stepped in the ring against biden. the only one that took him on and took him on in a very deft way, as you say, and a very

surgical way, was kamala harris. who was all of this about, everybody was going after biden? nobody went but this very sharp and very savvy woman that took him on and took him down. and i think that was part of why she got a little rattled and didn't know how he was going to answering, because he went state's rights without even thinking. because i think he was ready for bernie, he was not ready for kama kamala, which has happened to too many people, especially black women, they're not ready for y'all. >> i think there's a hat or a bumper sticker in there for everyone to wear. let me put the polls up. another reason she had nothing to lose and everything to gain by going after the front-runner. i mean, kamala harris sits at 7% in the polls. joe biden is up at 32%. i don't think anyone is predicting that she closes that gap with a single debate performance, but she may very well have re-shuffled the deck of this democratic primary. if you're in your car, we've got

joe biden at 32%, still a commanding lead. bernie sanders at 16, elizabeth warren at 12, and kamala harris at 7. mayor pete buttigieg at 6.6%. i wonder, though if there is an open question or if you've seen enough to know the answer to whether biden can change? >> well, i think, look, i mean, old dogs, new tricks, you know? he's been in politics a long time. and i do think, there's a reason why joe biden has done fewer campaign events than anybody else in the field. there's a nervousness on his team about that, because when he has been let out, become -- let out, become free-range biden, he's made mistakes. we saw it happen on the hyde amendment. the only thing this thing became an issue was the fact that he made a mistake last week at the fund-raiser when he raised the segregation centers. if he hadn't made that mistake, there would have been no way to get at him. kamala may found some other way to attack him or someone else may have. but this whole debate thing was

a self-inflicted wound in the sense that if he hadn't made the mistake last week, he wouldn't have been having to answer it. he did days of debate prep with some of the best debate preppers in the business. ron klain and anita dunn. people who have done debate prep cycle after cycle. and there were nervous e elminations coming out of those prep sessions. but in the moment, she prosecuted the case really well, but he could have deaded that thing with the right answer to her first question. he could have shut the thing down, maybe with an apology, maybe with some other thing, but he could have tamped it down. instead, he stumbled into it and gave her more opportunities to keep coming back. so the press conference mistaer a huge problem for biden. can he change? i don't want to foreclose the possibility, but there has not been a sign of it yet that he's been able to make those changes. >> and the record is pretty clear, right? this is a guy who's run for

president a number of times. my colleagues at carter wrote a piece that was headlined, joe biden is bad at politics. and it's just true. i would say, in a somewhat more limited sense that he seems to be really bad at winning primaries. when it came to the general election, i think he did a really good job in his debates, both in '08 and in 2012. but joe biden has an amazing, spectacular record at really flopping at running for president. it's extraordinary. >> oh, goodness. all right. after the break, there were eight other democrats on the stage last night that we didn't talk about yet. mayor pete giving his campaign a boost with some good old-fashioned humility and other standout moments. also ahead, in a moment, you could not fabricate, in a, what would you act like if you thought russian meddling was a joke laboratory, donald trump gets the giggles while asking russia to stay out of america's

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the police source in south bend is now 6% black in a city that is 26% black. why has that not improved over your two terms as mayor? >> because i couldn't get it done. i could walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community, all of the steps that we took from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn't save the life of eric lowe. until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us that we will be left with the bigger problem with the fact that there is a wall of mistrust. >> that was mayor pete buttigieg standing out in a crowd again, this time for admitting he's come up short in addressing the tragedy back at home that resulted in the death of eric logan, a young african-american

resident of south bend by one of its white police officers. whether his comments last night and his work back at home are enough is up to the democratic primary voters, but his performance was among the more noteworthy. also glrabbing headlines today, who our friend ashley parker writes in "the washington post," made a big comeback last night after being ghostlike during the first night of the debates. ashley writes this, quote, during the second night, trump was the bogeyman that everyone named, a fraud, a child abuser, a hater of immigrants, a separator of families, a supporter of white supremacists, and in the words of john hickenlooper, quote, the worst president in american history. joining the conversation from "the washington post," the aforementioned ashley parker. ashley, it's a great piece. it's a question we were all asking wednesday night. if the sort of one of the burning passions in the democratic base is the person who can best prosecute the case, as we've been talking about against donald trump, why didn't anyone mention him wednesday?

that situation, that dynamic very different last night. take us through sort of the differences and what you think the president thought of each night? >> well, the president claims he found each night boring. i'm a little skeptical of that, in talking to people in his orbit, it has sort of shaken up a little bit those who are they're more worried about, those who they're paying attention to, which i could get to in a second, but basically, the two nights kind of illustrated perfectly in a literal split screen the debate that's currently roiling the democratic party, which is, how do you handle a problem like donald trump? because all the polling shows and everything they hear from their voters is that they want to choose the democrat who is most electable against the president, who can beat the president, who can defeat him, but there's sort of an open question of what that electability means or looks like. is it someone who sort of goes after him and takes him on and is very aggressive towards him and prosecutes the case against

him. maybe. but there's also an argument that you never win when you get in a fight with president trump and the way you are more electable is you say if you're elizabeth warren, you outline all of your plans. and you lay out a strong, you know, progressive vision of economic populism and so you saw those different approaches on display. >> and take me through, you gave a great tease whenever you right them next week about what they thought about each of these performances. >> basically, what the trump campaign thought was, look, president trump's nickname of sleepy joe is looking increasingly prescient. biden is the one that the trump orbit was most worried about early on. they said they were getting ahead of their skis to totally dismiss him. but if you're a democratic voter and looking for electability, it wasn't just biden's sort of lack of response or bumbled response

to harris' attack, but there was a sense in that performance that he might not have the stamina to go toe-to-toe with trump for an entire election. the people who really popped for them were warren and kamala. so warren, they think that she has the appeal in a very different way of trump, which is that she is authentic, she can give a good speech on this trump, she knows what she thinks, and that economic populism is one of the messages that they think can really hurt them. and kamala harris, they think she's aggressive, a good prosecutor, and she's just sort of as a black woman, as the daughter of, i believe, indian and jamaican immigrants, the physical antithesis and has the life story that is the antithesis of president trump and offers a pretty strong contrast there. >> so, karine, i think that both of those women speak to his psychological issues. >> yes. >> elizabeth warren is that human being who is smarter asleep on ambien than he is awake jacked up on coffee. and kamala harris is just that woman that he couldn't even get to look at her.

she's beautiful, she's brilliant, she's a badass, she's stronger than him, she's tougher than him, she's smarter than him. and she's just the kind of woman that would never turn her head and even know who he was, as sort of a c-level reality tv figure. >> wow, you just laid it out really well. >> well, i accept -- i accept everything ashley parker reports. and i think that's probably right. and i totally get why these two women get under his skin. >> and those two women won the debate this week, right? warren won the first one, kamala won the second one. and it was really amazing to watch. and you know, you bring up really good points. look, warren, we've heard that donald trump's campaign is really worried about warren, because she brings that inclusive populism that when she talks about it, she talks about inequality, she impose to west virginia and she sells it, she goes to ohio and sells it, and she's in all the early states and she's passionate about it and she could talk about it in her sleep! and that's what's amazing and that's the fear that they have of her.

and the pocahontas thing, she survived it. she's probably one of the first folks that he's attacked that has survived an attack from donald trump. and so that is one of the things she is withstanding donald trump and that's amazing to watch. and for voters, that could be electable for them when they see elizabeth warren. when kamala harris first came out, she had 20,000 people coming out and she was obsessed -- >> i image him up with the clicker, like, where's that rally? >> and that's what he said, some tv term -- >> he was totally bugged by the size of her crowd. >> so last night on stage, that's what was so amazing about kamala harris, which is what you were talking about. it wasn't just that busing moment, it was every moment. you saw her on stage and you can visualize her with donald trump. and how she could take him down and do it very easily. in a smart way, in a surgical way, as i mentioned, and just execute it masterfully.

>> one of the things that is just so disappointing to me as a human is that no one can prosecute the crimes against innocent human beings based on this, i call it, toxic brew of trump's cruelty and just unbelievable incompetence. so you've talked about immigration policies advanced by this president, where the cruelty is the feature, not the bug. and i think that's exactly right. i think if you look at what's happening, if you look at babies and the youngest children dying on american soil in the custody of the u.s. federal government, it is a crisis, it's an emergency. i don't personal understand why people aren't marching to these facilities and offering to foster dish mean, she put into words the outrage and the story, a mother that puts her baby on a bus in central america to take that bus all the way through another country, mexico, i'm not even sure that trump's familiar with the map, to america. that's how bad it is. so when he says, send them back.

you have to think about how horrific it was to put your baby on a bus in the first place. and not since jeb bush said that immigration is an act of love has someone sort of defended the human being's coming here. all the conversation seems to be wrapped around the intractable policy debates. >> yes, so what's the question? >> i mean, why can't more people not just running for president adopt this language of really indicting the president's policies on a day-to-day basis. why in every news cycle is it, oh, impeach or not impeach, wait and see if you can -- why aren't we having sharper policy debates in this country? >> well, i don't know that i agree with the premise in the sense that if you were to look back at the 2018 midterm cycle, which was an absolute devastating disaster for the republican party, and was largely seen correctly as a referendum on the president's first two terms in office, i think that the question of kids in cages and the migrant crisis in its earlier incarnation, that is horrific, as it's horrific

now, is a large and important factor in that in turning off a lot of voters. i think the democratic party, we often in this bubble, we talk about impeachment, not impeachment. but in fact out on the campaign trail, where democrats won overwhelmingly, they were making the argument on exhibition, on social policy, on immigration. >> health care. >> on health care over and over again, every day. maybe not with the poetry that we would like to see from west wing-quality language. but they were winning the argument and it showed a to the blot box in 2018. and i think that we have enough time between now and 2020 for whoever the nominee is and whoever -- all the congressional candidates to get pretty good at putting together a very human, very powerful narrative that will indict the president in the same way that it did on a smaller scale in 2018. >> because i think those two candidates that ashley reports that he's worried about do precisely that. and i think it speaks to some vulnerability that even the trump campaign is a ware of. >> and all of them, whoever the nominee is, if they're going to win ultimately, they're going to have to learn how to do that.

and that's another way that whoever it is, all these candidates will have to grow, and not just talk about narrow washington policy debates, they'll have to talk in that human language that makes it emotional and makes the stakes clear at that level, not just -- what sometimes happens at the debate stage, it starts to sound a little too washington. >> and the thing you pointed out, when she talked about, why would a mother do this? that frames it a total different way than how we've been hearing this. >> exactly. that was my point. >> because people are sitting home saying, yeah, why would a mother do this? you're going to put your child on a bus and go through a strange land to a land and when you get there, you're going to say, go back? >> it just makes our treatment of them even more -- >> and i think that's what he fears. somebody that will not fight on the fight plan that he has or to use his premise. and i think he's definitely afraid of that with elizabeth warren, because she's so smart, and he's afraid of that with

kamala harris. and we all know that he would do anything not to face a prosecutor. >> that is true. after the break, we may as well cover it as the buddy movie that it is. this time, vladimir putin and president donald trump sitting knee to knee, sharing a chuckle and a grin about russian election meddling and fake news. that story, next. ussian election meddling and fake news. that story, next 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. some steep climbs, only." muddy paths, and rough terrain. but we see things differently. there are trails to blaze everywhere. on asphalt, stone, brick... from rubicon trail, to brooklyn bridge trail...

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the moment some of us have been waiting two years for finally happened. donald trump asked russian president vladimir putin not to interfere in our elections, but it was hardly the confrontation that many of us hoped it would be. >> mr. president, will you tell russia not to meddle. >> yes, of course, i will. don't meddle in the election. >> yeah, that was the president of this country joking about the safety of our democracy. "the washington post" underscoring how concerning this is, writing this. quote, the meeting with putin appeared likely to renew criticism in washington that trump has jeopardyized national

security by not accepting and at times seeking to undermine the ample evidence that moscow conducted a serious effort to interfere in the u.s. presidential election in 2016 and bolster trump's campaign. and the two leaders may already have another meeting to add to their calendars. "the post" adds, quote, russian state media reported that putin invited trump to moscow next year to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of world war ii and attend a lavish military parade. the kremlin said trump, quote, responded very positively. well, the white house says currently trump has not confirmed participation. he probably would know after the russian media, though, right? frank, joining our conversation, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi, frank figliuzzi. so every parent is trained in pattern recognition, i'm sure that's a thing in law enforcement, too. we once again learning more from russian state media than u.s. media about these interactions and future plans. what does that say?

>> well, first, joking about our election security is even worse than not saying anything at all. he's sent yet another message to adversaries that this is open season on the election. the other thing, nicole is we're watching textbook bullying behavior. why do i say that? while we're all focused on his interactions with putin, let's not forget that in the last 24 hours, he's also once again attacked our allies. he views collaboration and friendliness as a weakness. therefore, he thinks he has license to lash out and attack our allies. and that makes the world a less-secure place. then the flip side is, who is he not attacking? who is he aligning himself with? our adversaries, murderers, tyrants, dictators, even deferring and joking, smoking and joking, as they say, with putin. and what does that do? it makes the world a less-secure, less-stable place. and so all bets are off. trump's behavior, aligning

himself with bad guys, having us all call into doubt our collaboration and alliances around the world, the people who are supposed to have our back, has caused us all to wonder about our security and the future and that's on trump. >> so, here's something that made me wonder about the security of journalists working all around the world. this is donald trump with our adversary, putin, talking about journalists. let's watch. >> so, if you were in your car, we put the words up and i'll read them real quick. donald trump says to putin, "fake news is a great term, isn't it? you don't have this problem in russia. we have that problem. you don't have that problem." and putin says, "oh, yes, yes, we have it, we have it too.

it's the same" and chuckles. now, the murdered journalist in russia, right, i mean, you've been there, heilemann. this idea that trump thinks that it's a joke to covet, to crave, to harbor deep passions for the way vladimir putin treats journalists is chilling. >> yes. well, the whole thing is -- the whole spectacle of this thing has been kind of chilling. just, you watch the body language and the wink and a nudge kind of like, you know, everything we've seen here -- >> it's like they're going to walk out and make out or something. it's creepy. touching his back. honestly, i've seen melania swat his hand on a foreign trip to israel. i've never let her touch his back the way he was touching putin's back. it's creepy. >> whatever we -- and i still believe, if you read the mueller report and you think about the limits that were placed on mueller, i still believe that we do not know fully -- we do not know the full story, maybe eventually, one day, what is between trump and mueller.

there are things that mueller did not investigate that some thought he was going to investigate, it looks like there are other investigations, we don't know. but even if you took all of that off the table and said, there's no financial history, there's no kompromat, there's nothing, all of it is is watching the way trump behaves around thugs, dictators, autocrats, strongmen, it's the one consistent throughline of his foreign policy. so you put him in this place with putin and basically they are, he's like, they are -- he wants to chummy up to this guy. and the notion that they would have a common bond. i mean, i have no doubt if there were no legal constraints on donald trump that his behavior towards journalists in this country might not be -- might not go quite a few as putin's, but, you know, i'm certain there's part of donald trump that would like to put some journalists in jail on a regular basis. >> i mean, let's not forget, today is the anniversary of the killings of five journalists at the capital newspaper in annapolis, the city where i went to college, and violence, obviously, this was not perpetrated by the president, by

any stretch of the imagination. but we're living in an atmosphere right now in the united states where journalists very much fear for their safety. their physical safety, certainly for their online safety, the amount of time i spent protecting my reporters from trolls, from harassment, i've been doxed, i've gotten threatening phone calls and voice messages. we're living in a terrifying atmosphere. so seeing this kind of cozying up is truly shocking. >> and not just cozying up, but actually saying out loud what we all suspect he thinks about journalists. that he wants to be more like putin, who kills journalists. >> well, trump always says the quiet part loud. that's his m.o. >> wow. >> but i think that we should not miss the moment. you have him jokingly talking about how they don't have that problem in russia, and the way russians have, on the record, handled journalism, to even make light of that, what are you

saying? and like you envy that you can't just openly do that here. just like on the day that we get this gerrymandering decision from the supreme court, he joking jokingly, with a smile, talks about, don't interfere with our elections. and what i fear, if we don't stop and look at this for a minute and explain this to people, people act like this is normal behavior. who is in a democracy jokes about playing with something as serious as hacking and interfering with our elections? particularly when you've been accused of that. and who jokingly says, i wish i was a dictator like you and we didn't have fake news. that's basically what he's saying. i mean, the fact that he makes everybody act like this is normal banter is in itself a problem. >> frank, i want to ask you just to jump in on this conversation about journalists. and i think that some of the publishers of some of the top papers in this country, i think

ashley's paper has been incredibly aggressive in the aftermath of the khashoggi slaughter and murder, drawing attention to the dangers that journalists face all over. i know "the new york times" has gone in to see the president, to talk about the dangers that journalists all over are facing and that his attacks don't help. can you speak to any concerns you have from a law enforcement perspective about this rhetoric? >> we're slowly watching the erosion of the things that make us our own unique democracy. our principles, our standards. and certainly freedom of the press is among those. you know, john mentioned that we still don't know the real reason behind trump's motivation to align himself with people like putin. and my thought is, it's almost worse if, in fact, he's just doing it for psychological reasons. i think he envies these dictators. and one of the things he envies about dictatorships is they control the press. there's two things going on in the united states simultaneously with the press. one is, we have trump bashing them and starting to erode

freedom of the press. and then we have the rise of what i call state-sponsored media. which, you know, with outlets like fox. so when those two things are going on simultaneously, we should be very concerned about the erosion of something that really is what our founding fathers thought we stood for. and i don't hear enough outrage about it to be quiet honete honh you. >> after the break, look what donald trump brought to his official photo op with japanese leader shinzo abe. one son-in-law. that story, next. e son-in-law that story, next iand i don't add up the years.

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told the house foreign fairs committee he was less than impressed how kushner dealt with foreign policy specifically cutting tillerson out of the loop and making an end run around the diplomat. it's still weird to see jared kushner on the world stage like he would be there if he were anything other than trump daughter's husband. >> what's striking about jared at this point, first of all, known has anything but an incredibly strong opinion about jared. this comes outside any time you try to do any reporting on him. he is viscerally polarizing in the president's orbit and white house. because he is family and is ivanka's husband, he is a survivor and has favored status, not unlike an octopus, he has tentacles everywhere. he is playing the role of a carl type making decisions.

he was in bahrain on world peace and had a hand in the immigration deal the white house unveiled and now on this trip. it's not surprising jared pops up everywhere but it is a little confusing to people, especially his critics what exactly he is doing and his value is. >> i always come back to all the reporting in ashley's favorite and others, the cia flagged his background investigation. it's hard to get cia flagged. the fbi goes through and brings things to the attention of the white house counsel's office. that's standard for lots of people, present company in excluded. it is not normal for them to flag like they did jared. >> nothing is normal about this presidency. the most abnormal thing. first of all, bringing your daughter and son-in-law into the

white house with their titles and such slarlarge portfolio. we learned he was doing diplomacy this week. this is dangerous. this is our national security we're talking about. it's like, how do you stop the madness? can it please end. one day he will walk into a situation that will take all of us in and he will be there. it's all dangerous. >> and another text encrypting app with world leaders. the cia flagged hiss ground check. are there ongoing concerns from that prif? >> we could spend an hour about uncure comes the white house is rife with and using protocols especially encrypted hard to

break comes. with regard to jared kushner and others, we have unknowns doing our policy. if it were a surgeon you could ask, how many times have you done this? what's your success rate? are you board certified? we have rookies without the equivalent of foreign policy and increasing number of acting directors and cabinet secretaries come and go and we're left with jared kushner trying to figure it out. that makes the world also increasingly unstable. >> we're grateful to both of you for joining us. thank you so much. we will sneak in a break. don't go anywhere, we'll be right back. don't go anywhere, we'll be right back

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increasing nuc we're back with something we usually don't have, an extra minute. jimmy carter today basically called donald trump an illegitimate president. lounge until he tweets a response. i's something we haven't seen. has trump taken on jimmy carter? former presidents. taken on obama, taken on george w. bush. he's the only one he hasn't attacked yet. >> jimmy carter is a sunday schoolteacher. he must tell the truth no matter how -- what is it a two-edged sword, it debts to the left or right it doesn't matter. i have a lot of respect for him. i'm sure donald trump will add him to his list of twitters.

>> total loser, never heard of him. >> the best thing about this is i'm sure president carter is not on twitter. thanks for watching. we're all punchy and were up too late last night. my thanks to you all. i'm nicolle wallace and now to "hardball." >> let's play "hardball"! >> good evening. i'm chris matthews, back in washington. last night a star was born, her name was kamala harris. and joking about russian interference in the election. and a story about sexual assault backed up by two friends who say she told them about the attack

at the time it allegedly happened.