i want to thank you, kim. you hear the power of the voice. nobody hears the voice before. he doesn't do news conferences in case you haven't heard. this was a special moment. >> president trump the first sitting united states president to step foot into north korea based on an invitation sent over twitter. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, july the 1st. i'm willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. with us we have the president of the council on foreign relations, author of "the world in disarray" richard haass. elise jordan. former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, now an msnbc news national security analyst jeremy bash. columnist and social editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. he is back from that meeting in korea. first things first, richard. >> i bet jonathan lemire is not a happy camper.

>> i was going to let you take a cheap shot. the yankees sweep the red sox while you were in london. k.d. and kyrie coming to brooklyn and not to the knicks. we'll tackle those coming up. if chairman kim of north korea sees this, i would meet him at the border dmz just to shake his hand and say hello. followed by a question mark and an exclamation point. kim jong-un apparently saw the tweet yesterday, leading president trump over the border at the heavily fortified demilitarized zone. together they held a brief photo-op for north korean photographers. after about a minute, president trump led kim in to south korea where they addressed reporters before entering the freedom house for about an hour long private conversation with south korean president moon jae-in. >> i'd invite him to the white house. i just want to say that this is

my honor. i didn't really expect it. we were in japan for the g20 we came over and i said, hey, i'm over here. i want to call chairman kim. and we got to meet and stepping across that line was a great honor. a lot of progress has been made. a lot of friendships have been made and this has been in particular a great friendship. tremendous positivity. really great things are happening and in a lot of places but we met and we liked each other from day one. that was very important. it's my honor, and it's the chairman's honor we work well together. >> i want to thank chairman kim for something else. when i put out the social media notification if he didn't show up the press was going to make me look very bad. so you have made us both look good and i appreciate it. and it's just an honor to be with you and it was an honor that you asked me to step over that line and i was proud to step over the line. i want to thank you. it's been great. it's been great. very historic. >> as i said, jonathan lemire was there. i want to get the fullback story

from jon in a second. but i want to go around the table. quickly, richard, your trained mind as a foreign policy analyst you watch that hand shake at the dmz first and then listen to the comments afterwards what are your thoughts? >> it's still a total emphasis on personal diplomacy. meetings are meant to be a means to an end and "the new york times" story that the administration is reportedly -- reportedly considering something less than demanding denuclearization what you might call something for something. the north koreans would accept certain things and that would be the possibility of real diplomacy. it might tap it or manage it, but that would be meaningful. but what we saw the other day, no. that in and of itself isn't anything. and quite honestly, willie, it's not just the personalization of foreign policy but to keep calling him a friend and be so flattering this is a guy who is a dictator.

the word dictator is overused but he deserves the description. he's a tyrant. what's happened inside that country has been a slow motion genocide. >> elise, what did you think? >> it makes me want to puke. just me visceral reaction as an american who cares about democracy and human rights the fact that donald trump is going out of his way to kiss up just to this monster, instead of actually projecting strength. what have we gotten from the north koreans for all this pomp and circumstance and the propaganda coup of having the president crossing into the north korea other than diminishing our own standing in the the world. >> north korea had agreed to denuclearize, but that hasn't happened in the year or so since then so i guess the question is what comes from that hand shake? is it a means to an end or just

a photo-op? >> well, it's symbolism over substance right now. is it harmless or harmful and i would argue in the year since the singapore summit the north korean regime has advanced its nuclear missile capability. they have test fired short range missiles. they have probably continued a lot of work on the nuclear program. they haven't disclosed and provided an accounting for all of the undisclosed sides so for kim he's playing the long game. he is increasing the capabilities all the way while taking a victory lap, wow we got to step over the line and have a photo-op. >> so david ignatius, that "new york times" suggests that the trump administration is considering accepting not full denuclearization but a freeze at this moment of where north korea is, which means it would have capability in terms for sanctions relief. what do you think? >> it's coming back to where north korea was at the time of the hanoi summit in february. >> right. >> where the north koreans

offered a limited closure of their nuclear facility. president trump i think wisely rejected that. at the summit broke up. it was a humiliation for both, but especially for the north koreans. kim jong-un has been thinking and worrying about that and that's a sense that both sides have been exploring what sometimes is called a plus, some additional facilities outside the fence line in the junggun area that are crucial to the development. if that's now the realm of discussion, exploration, that's good. that's an appropriate step. the other thing i take as positive in this -- and i have a slightly different view than i think elise and richard and jeremy, this is -- you know, photo-op diplomacy but it seems to be the opening of the kind of working level discussions that will be part of a real denuclearization process. to me the most important thing that trump said with all of the kind of, you know, blandishment

of kim is my friend, speed is not an object in the talks. he is finally recognizing that denuclearization is a long, complicated process that is step by step. if this next idea, jungian plus i want to call it again, that sounds appropriate. in the area of where we should be now. i don't think we can assess that this is in any sense an achievement of something concrete. it hasn't made the world safer but a rehabilitation of a process of talks that are good for the u.s. security, good for northwest asia. >> jonathan lemire, i woke up yesterday morning, getting ready for "the sunday today" show and i show your video that you had sent out, photographs. you were right there when the history was being made but was it as impromptu as the president

has let on? was it really just a tweet that kim jong-un and he people heard about and they agreed to step into the dmz zone? >> let's flash back when the president tried to make the first visit to the dmz. mind you this is the height of the rhetoric like fire and fury when the two nations seemed to be on a collision course perhaps even for conflict. at that time, the president, you know, i was on that trip as well. we were five minutes away from the border when they had to turn the helicopters around because the fog was too dense to land. but that trip was shrouded in such secrecy that when sarah sanders wouldn't say it about it, she wouldn't say the words dmz out loud, but wrote it down. the trip to the dmz has been in

the works for the weeks. the white house wouldn't officially confirm it, but we knew that was coming. the kim invitation does appear to be relatively spontaneous. taking both governments, u.s. and south korea, by surprise. when the president offered it over twitter while we were still in japan on saturday. with, you know -- by the end of that day there was a sense that chairman kim would show up. the white house of course did not confirm that. until just a few hours before we went to the dmz. it was an extraordinary scene. questions need to be raised about what this really means. as we time and time again, this is a president whose foreign policy seems to be about personal rapport with foreign leaders. we saw it in other examples as well with chairman xi of china and crown prince bin salman and vladimir putin and the president seemed more interested in touting the relationship than extracting any kind of policy success. it was a moment for history. that images, you know, resonated

around the globe at least for the time being what we saw yesterday when, you know, the media had a bit of a scuffle with north korea's security in order to watch it. but the president went up to the line. he shook kim's hand and upon kim's invitation stepped over into north korea and then came back. that presented certainly a tremendous photo-op but it's going to take time to see what really comes of that day. >> let's look at the other side of this, richard. what must be like in north korea this morning. we have seen the propaganda in their media, this is splashed all over the media and the television programs. what did kim jong-un get out of this moment right here? >> well, he gets this degree of international recognition. and he gets the promise -- promise of sanctions relief. which is what he wanted. this is a country that's hurting economically. they have paid an enormous price for their closedness, their resistance to market control and innovations that have been

introduced. he can hold out as internationally accepted. we are a permanent reality as a government, as a country. which is a big deal. we're no longer facing the prospect of war. it looked like that a couple of years ago, not because they have changed but because we have pulled back. the one thing i disagree with the president is the whole patience. the idea that time -- we're not in any rush. well, as jeremy and others have pointed out we ought to be in a little bit of a rush. time is not neutral. north korea is using time. they do not need overtesting of nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missiles to increase their number of nuclear weapons to continue to innovate and improve their long range ballistic missiles. that's where the president i think has it wrong. the good news, north korea was saying now 25 nuclear weapons or

40 nuclear weapons that's better than a north korea with 100 nuclear weapons. it depends on what we're able to negotiate and what north korea would do as history suggests there's a gap between what they do and what they do, and if we lock in a freeze, a creeling that's better than the uncontrolled, unregulated future. >> i guess i would ask you, what how does this foreshadow what is happening with iran? you look at north korea and the administration has this hard core position where they aren't giving an inch and now suddenly looks like they're going to give an inch over time. then with iran, we probably are going to see something similar happen at the end of the day possibly. >> possibly. but i think -- you can argue this one around the flap. the good news is that the administration might be willing to have -- you know, in 2015 nuclear agreement, the jcpoa 2.0 plus. and by the way, you can't have ballistic missiles either, that would be good. this shows an administration

that may be willing to take all of their pressure and turn it into a policy. again, not a solution or not. the other way though, the iranians may be saying, oh, cool, we just hang tough and basically we could have our nuclear weapons as well. so this one i think i bet in tehran there's some interesting conversations. >> it's always been a pipe dream to think that north korea was going to fully give up its nuclear program and it's all it's got in the world. the only leverage. the only reason the president of the united states stepped into the dmz and then walked into north korea yesterday. is denuclearization -- get rid of the nuclear program a pipe dream? >> i don't know if it's ultimately achievable, but i think we have to work hard towards it and we shouldn't abandon it at this stage. we first and foremost need a full accounting of the undisclosed sites and my concern about the way that the president has set this up, with all the flattery and all the pomp and circumstance is that if you put

yourself in the room of the north korean advisers to kim jong-un they're saying hey, mr. chairman, this guy relishes and rewards just the photo-op. it incentivizes them delivering a photo-op and they don't have to deliver substance as long as he's praising them for the symbolism. >> so we mentioned bin salman and president trump declined to place any blame on mbs for the murder of "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. they were seen chatting before the class photo in japan where president trump praised the crown prince. >> the crown prince of saudi arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up saudi arabia. >> mr. president, address the murder of jamal khashoggi with the crown prince? >> thank you very much. >> mr. president, on the case of

jamal khashoggi, you have a lot of journalists in this room who object to what appears to be the saudi government's complicity and perhaps orchestration of the assassination and dismembering of a journalist. >> yeah. >> and when you were given the opportunity to call muhammad bin salman out on that, you did not do it. did you do it privately? and do you agree that it is despicable for a government to kill a journalist in that fashion? >> yes, i do. i think it's horrible. or anybody else, by the way. but i think it's horrible. if you look -- look in to saudi arabia and you see what's happening, 13 people or so have been prosecuted. others are being prosecuted. they have taken it very, very seriously. and they will continue to. i will also say -- nobody sa said -- nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of saudi arabia. >> you mentioned that no one had pointed the finger at him. but actually, the cia did. the intelligence communities.

>> i cannot comment on intelligence community. i'm not -- probably i guess i'm allowed to do what i want to do in terms of that. right? we can declassify unlike hillary clinton, she decided to just give it out. we can declassify and the truth is i don't want to talk about intelligence. >> david ignatius, the president suddenly not willing to comment on intelligence which has made a tent pole of his argument the deep state and everything else. but the questioner there was correct, the cia concluded that the crown prince of saudi arabia whom the president praised effusively at the g20 ordered the execution and everything that followed from there of your former colleague, jamal khashoggi. >> for people who knew and admired jamal and i'm one of them, it was really deeply disappointing to see the president essentially give bin salman a pass. the president's role should be

about accountability. the saudi judicial process such as it is is continuing. at the very least, the president could have said we await and expect a clear verdict that holds those responsible for the murder of jamal khashoggi accountable and he didn't say that. i think it's troubling. it's the president's comfort level with dictators, authoritarians, it often seems these are his people, his guys, these are the people he makes deals with. in this particular case, this is a murder case. and the president stands for all of us as americans who are concerned about an american, my colleague, who got murdered. it is really disturbing to see him drop that as to how ironic he's suddenly the best friend of the intelligence community. i can't talk about intelligence here. that's a new one for president trump. but it was of all the things that happened on this weekend, i

think that was the one that had me thinking -- just shaking my head. >> the president managed to turn it to hillary clinton somehow. he said he's doing a spectacular job and when asked about the murder of jamal khashoggi he said quote, mbs is quite angry about it. coming up, reports about migrant children being held in terrible conditions were insubstantiated report says they have warned about one detention center. over the weekend, don jr. stepped in over kamala harris. but first the forecast. happy july. the typically hottest month and pretty stormy. right now, happy to report that the tropics, quiet. not worried about that this week. but we are worried about heavy rain in minnesota. we have had flash flooding,

highway 19 is closed at this time and the flash flood warnings one in wisconsin right now. for the rochester area, south of minneapolis, a warning until noon today. a lot of people are on vacation and people are traveling this week. today, we are clear on the east coast. it will be hot this afternoon. but at least we'll have no problems with rain or thunderstorms. maybe a stray storm in florida. but that's it. let's fast forward to wednesday. this is called the busiest travel day of the week. numerous rounds of storms. i-70 driving anywhere from chicago to just south of detroit. indianapolis included into this. much of the west is dry all week long. then let's fast forward into friday. hit and miss storms in ohio valley. as far as the 4th of july, it will be very warm, just about everywhere. this is the forecast for the fireworks. macy's in new york, 78 degrees. slight chance of a shower or a storm. but again, it's not going to be a rain and washout anywhere. just hit and miss showers and storms as we go through the

afternoon and evening. it looks pretty decent for a lot of the travel plans as we go throughout this week. new york city included in that. and we usually see temperatures back up to the 90s as the 4th of july arrives. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. let's get down to business. the business of family time... ...and downtime. ...and you time. ...and forgetting what time it is...altogether. modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business is making time, our business is you. get the lowest price guaranteed on all choice hotels when you book direct at choicehotels.com. wenit gave me a leafput in the names almost right away. first. within a few days, i went from knowing almost nothing to holy crow, i'm related to george washington. i didn't know that using ancestry would be so easy.

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there with the russian president. are we taking that to be wrong? and what is it with your coziness with some of these dictators and autocrats at these summits? with mohammed bin salman when you were asked about the case of jamal khashoggi you did not respond to that question in front of the -- >> i don't know anybody -- >> are you afraid of offending him on that subject? >> no, not at all. i don't really care about offending people. i sort of thought you'd know that. >> that is more of president trump at the g20. note that the first sound were they discuss fake news is the russian media and the american press was not in the room at that time. they were brought in moments later after that exchange, but let's talk about the substance of the exchange when they're joking about fake news, given president putin's reputation

with the media. >> we have gone with collusion, to collusion isn't a crime to collusion i welcome it. i think the sum and substance of that exchange and the other comments recently is a greenlight -- it's a green light to russia and other countries to interfere in the 2020 election. >> what was it like being in the room, jonathan lemire, as you trailed along with the president of the united states and listened time and again to him sort of cozy up and to joke to president putin about not meddling in the election to joke with crown prince bin salman about he's doing a great job and to see that hand shake with another dictator in kim jong-un. >> this is routine for this president that video you played a moment ago that was my question to the president in front of the crown prince, asked if he would address the murder with the crown prince and he ignored me. no matter who what is standing

with, he will not to their face chide or lecture them. we saw it in helsinki of course when he would not side with the u.s. intelligence agencies over vladimir putin about the 2016 election interference. we saw it on display repeatedly this weekend. when he was joking there with president putin, with the finger wag and the smile. but it was clear that he -- you know, this was not something that was of any substance. in fact, in the readout of the meeting put out later, election security, nowhere to be found. there was no suggestion that it was addressed with putin when they were behind closed doors. and then certainly with the crown prince, the president's embrace of him sort of helped the crown prince sort of establish himself on the world stage again this weekend. he had been sort of treated a as pariah since the murder of khashoggi, but this weekend he was receiving hand shakes and back plans from all sorts of world leaders in part because the president stood next to him time and time again. then of course certainly on display yesterday at the dmz

with chairman kim. we haven't talked about otto warmbier yet, the young american killed, i'm sure it wasn't easy for his family to see the photos. but he views this as a transactional matter. he feels like he'll deal with anyone. he'll negotiate with anyone, no matter what their human rights records may be. if he can get a deal in america's interest and is not going to use the power of the presidency or the power of the moment like so many of his predecessors to try to suggest to other leaders that they need to run their countries differently and better with more regard for their own citizens. >> jonathan is right. two statements. one is next year, not the japanese, but the saudis are the host of the g20 so this is a warm-up for the kind of normalization, let bygones be bygones approach. this is the most narrow foreign policy, you know, think about it with the chinese we don't talking about hong kong or the repression of the uighurs in camp. with russia you ignore the convention -- the election

meddling. with the turks we basically -- he blames everything on the obama administration meanwhile he's reopened the possibility of arm sales despite everything they're doing. north koreans we ignore what's going on domestically, the saudis we ignore and exaggerate the domestic. but it's amoral to the point almost to the point of immorality in american foreign policy. we used to stand for something. yes, we had goals, but we used to stand for democracy. we used to stand for human rights. we did have preference for our allies who were democratic. and what we see here is essentially a total discarding of the idea that the united states in the world stands for more than narrow commercial or foreign policy interests. so we have essentially we have given that up for nothing. >> and the president has been given opportunities often by jonathan lemire,by the way, whether it was in helsinki or at the g20 to say and do the right thing on a big world stage and he always declines. >> he doesn't have the capacity

to do the right thing because he doesn't genuinely believe it. and as richard was saying it's not a doctrine. it's transaction by transaction on a piecemeal basis as he feels he can net an immediate win in the media. there's no long term strategy here. it's just donald trump trying to get that photo-op that he thinks maybe will let his election prospects in 2020. >> let's turn to the internal report prepared by the department of homeland security, inspector general. and obtained by nbc news which counters the statement by dhs acting secretary kevin mcaleenan on friday that the news stories of poor conditions for children at border stations were unsubstantiated. inspectors highlighted intense overcrowding in el paso's border station, noting only four showers available for 800 migrants. inside, the report said that a cell meant for a maximum of 35

held 155 adult males with only one toilet and sink with temperatures in the cells reaching more than 80 degrees. joinings now the reporter behind the story, national security reporter for nbc news, julia ainsley. so break this down for us. where's the conflict in this report from dhs? >> good question. so what this -- what happened on friday was that acting secretary kevin mcaleenan said that the reports were unsubstantiated that we're taking about last week. he said those were all through the eyes of lawyers who went into the facilities and basically overblew what they saw, but now this report shows as early as may 7th, dhs inspector general, their own watchdog sent off red flags internally that warned about some of the very same conditions that those lawyers found. same conditions that kevin mcaleenan said were unsubstantiated and the same sector said el paso sector of texas, they saw children wearing the same clothes. they saw that overcrowding you mentioned. they even said it got to the

point that guards, cbp personnel, started to arm themselves in areas where they would not normally carry guns because they feared riots that's the point that this was at months ago. so it also begs the question why the dhs made the sole response to this, more money. remember they kept asking for more money, it finally passed last week that $4.5 billion for more detention space. but they acted as if that was an emergency that came up very suddenly when in fact they have known for months that there were problems that could have been avoided. one thing we found is that some of the agents were actually going out can their corporate -- government credit cards to buy more food because there wasn't enough food. so there are things that could have been put in place to avoid this and of course it does counter some of what we have heard from this administration that no, in fact, these were sanitary conditions and that children were treated well. >> you and jacob have been reporting so well on so many of the stories at the boarding that

people conflate some of the stories who exactly are we talk about? which migrants are in the particular facilities? >> thanks for doing that, this turns into something we get numb about. they're mainly central americans who have crossed the border and many have handed themselves in asking for asylum but under u.s. law they have to be held and processed by customs and border protection an then sent off to the custody of i.c.e. if they're a family or a single adult or health and human services if they're an unaccompanied child. they aren't supposed to be spending more than 72 hours in the border stations but instead they're staying in some cases for weeks because of that increase. some have argued that instead they should be released after they're processed because it's inhumane to keep them in the conditions for so long. >> julie ainsley, another day, another big report from you and your team. we'll be reading it at nbcnews.com. new polling on how the

democratic debate is reshaping now the race for the 2020 nomination. we'll dig into those new numbers next on "morning joe." make fitness routine with pure protein.

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on the issue of busing, obviously that is personal to me. i remember getting on that yellow bus. you know? and so many of us do and interestingly enough since i talked about it people who i don't know have reached out. they also -- especially in the '70s all across our country people were bussed. people just like me. >> i heard 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 never, never, never ever opposed voluntary busing. and as a program that senator harris participated in and it made a difference in her life. i did address the root causes of segregation in our communities and our schools and i have been

in a favor of overcoming the state initiated segregation. >> that's former vice president joe biden speaking at the rainbow push coalition in chicago and he continues to respond to the opposition to busing which was a flash point between him and senator kamala harris in the debate. in a new poll, biden is at 33%, dropping five points from the begin of last week. senator bernie sanders remains level at 19%. senator harris has doubled her support, up six points to 12 points. elizabeth warren at third. and beto o'rourke and andrew yang at 2%. the data compiled by the polling firm democracy corps show biden's favorability with african-american voters actually going up a net 18% after the

debate. pollster stan greenberg chalked that up to defensiveness over the perception that the attacks on biden were attacks on the biden/obama legacy and those who would consider voting for biden went down 11 points from 81% to 72%. joining us now, white house correspondent for pbs news hour, and "new york times" reporter. as we put the morning consult poll up, it shows kamala harris as people expected getting a nice bump from her performance at the debate and joe biden ticking down a bit. how big of a problem do you expect this busing question is for joe biden in the edge theic -- democratic primary? >> well, it went to the core issues and that's issues of identity, issues of diversity and issues of representation.

she said as the only black woman on this stage, i want to have a moment to talk about race. what she was doing, i want to talk about i'm a woman and i'm black and make that central to my campaign. and also bringing up her merits so to the stage -- to the stage. i have been talking to the civil rights activists across the country who tell me they're not trying to let up, they want to keep talking about joe biden's history and they see it problematic. three can see a rise in the polls and her campaign over the weekend sent out new fund-raising numbers, they raised about $2 million right after the debate. she's not just rising in the poll but getting more money. so i think senator harris, she might at some point become the front-runner, but this is a long, long race. so in other words, i think joe biden also has this idea that he has all the support from jesse jackson and other people. who have questioned his busing policies but are also open to having him in forums and hosting

him. >> and he's gotten support from people like john lewis and jim clyburn as well in the last couple of weeks. jeremy, the president of the united states obviously not been shy about going after some of the members of the field in the democratic primary here. but hasn't had much to say about senator harris since this campaign launched and you have new reporting that they're concern about her as an opponent. >> well, willie, what joe biden's performance and kamala harris's confrontation of him on thursday night did was reset a couple of important assumptions about the race. one, it gave us a glimpse of what she might look like as a debate sparring partner against president trump. and it was a pretty fierce performance. number two it kind of shattered this aura of invincibility, of dominance, that joe biden had enjoyed for really long time. and the trump campaign -- president trump himself especially hasn't really figured out how to deal with kamala harris.

he knows how to attack somebody like elizabeth warren. he can ridicule her about the pocahontas thing or call her goofy, he knows how to go after joe biden. he's told aides that he sees joe biden as a male version of hillary clinton. this is familiar territory to him. but when it comes to the female adversary, president trump has shown time and time again he does not take criticism from women well at all. couple that with the fact that she is a minority and i just don't think he can handle that. having that on top of criticism from the african-american woman, a prosecutor who knows how to go for his weaknesses, knows how to go the weaknesses of all of her opponents as she demonstrated with joe biden is something he's not been processed and has been unable to settle on a line of attack about her and we'll kind of see how that plays out. >> during thursday's democratic debate, donald trump jr. shared

a tweet that questioned senator kamala harris's race. the retweet of alt-right commentator ali alexander said quote, kamala harris is implying she's descended from american black slaves, she is not. she comes from jamaican slave owners, she's not an american black period. and trump jr. said is this true, wow. by the end of the night he had deleted that retweet. a spokesperson for don jr. said it was him asking if it was true that kamala harris was half indian because it's not something he had ever heard before and once he saw that folks were misconstruing the intent of his tweet, he quickly deleted it. a lot of people saw this early attack on kamala harris and said, here we go again with reflections back to the birther movement of which donald trump was the lead cheerleader. >> well, what we learned from donald trump jr. deleting that

tweet is that birtherism 2.0 likely will not work. because people have seen it. and let's put it out plainly. when you're questioning someone's background of african-american descent it's racism there. somehow her being of indian and jamaican descent doesn't make her have the african-american experience,when she was born and bussed in america, it gets to the core of the issues we're dealing with still which is that people want to look for ways to really divide the african-american community and say, well, your boat stopped in jamaica or haiti and you shouldn't get along and that's simply racist. people are smarter this time around. i think people are ready to call this out very quickly and i think that's why you saw donald trump jr. delete that tweet. they don't know how to deal with senator harris now. but they have learned that birtherism is not the way to deal with her. >> it's racist garbage that used

to exist on the fringes but has been elevated by people like don jr. retweeting it. first fund raising numbers of the second quarter are in and the pete buttigieg campaign said it's raised $25 million from 294,000 donors with an average contribution of less than $48. the want pain says it has more than $22 million in cash on hand. that's an eye popping number for a guy who's quietly having a good night in the debate. >> that's right, willie. it is enormous. and that comes from 400,000 donors over the course of the first and second period, so that suggests a real grass roots movement there for pete buttigieg. also it shows though that he's had a lot of success as we have reported raising money from more traditional sources of democratic campaign finance. you have silicon valley, hollywood, that's an awful lot of lgbt money in there too. so he's kind of spreading himself out in a pretty

strategic way here. i would say though, however, that these numbers are lagging indicators. they're not leading indicators. they have told us what he raised in the second quarter. now, he's had a couple notable political stumbles. this issue in south bend with the anger in the african-american community over the police shooting has been a real problem for him. is he going to get past that? has that kind of dented his popularity? we haven't seen that many poll numbers to tell us anything along those lines, but money isn't everything. he's got to be a consistent performer on the campaign trail going forward. >> $22 million will keep you around for a while. >> a good substitute for consistency. it's now july, the next democratic debates come at the end of this month. is there any talking about changing the format or the criteria for participation? because there's an argument that this is not helping the

candidates or the strength of whoever's going to be at the top of the ticket. and do you see the party accomplishment is rethinking the thresholds for participation in order to shrink the number of people standing on the stage? >> i'm not quite sure if we going to see a different format. it was obviously hard for some candidates to get in. you think of yang and marianne williamson. they only talked for a couple of minutes each so i think what we're seeing is that people realize that if you want a vigorous debate about policies, you might want to whittle that down a bit. but at the same time, you have democrats that are still raising a lot of money, that are still in some ways polling pretty well and it's still so early that i think when you saw two debate nights they were obviously very different. but a lot of people that i talked to especially democrats said they liked the idea that it was about policy, vigorous policy debates. it wasn't about who can go after donald trump the most so i think we have to see whether or not -- i think cnn has the next debate in detroit, whether or not they look at what happened with nbc

and says okay maybe we should change this. >> jeremy peters thank you very much. and yamiche, stay with us. the supreme court has officially wrapped up the 2019 term after ruling on two major cases dealing with the 2020 census and with gerrymandering. we'll talk about how it will play out in the next term when "morning joe" comes back. ♪ i want it that way... i can't believe it.

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welcome back to "morning joe" on a monday morning. in july, it's july 1st. the supreme court wrapped up the term last week, leaving two big decision for the very end. one on the census, one on gerrymandering. unpredictability seemed to be the theme of the session with nbc's pete williams noting justice brett kavanaugh and neil gorsuch both nominated by president trump were on opposite sides on half of the opinions not unanimous. the court divided along the

typical ideological lines only seven times with justices appointed by republican presidents on one side, and those appointed by democrats on the other. people points out that the court seemed determined to keep a low profile and to avoid being perceived as a partisan body. joining us now legal affairs correspondent for npr nina totenberg. i'm not sure they achieved seeming like a nonpartisan body. >> it doesn't matter from all practical purposes if you could say, oh, they only divided along ideological lines "x" number of times. because on the big cases, they mainly divided along ideological lines. >> right. >> the only thing that made the difference in the census case was the chief justice. >> and so, richard, we were discussing this. you were reading through some of the rulings over the weekend, some light reading. what jumped out at you?

>> nina, i was curious about your reaction. if you read the decision, first the majority decision and then the elena kagan's dissent on the gerrymander case, i thought it was extraordinary. i'm not an expert like you are, but the chief justice said we're not getting involved in this, it's too political we don't have the competence to judge and then you had eleanor kagan sent out an angry, basically sad, saying american democracy is in peril. what was your take on that? >> she really meant that too. i mean, when she read her dissent from the bench and as you know, it's rare to read a dissent from the bench. it's a mark that you really care about it. she was i think close to tears by the end. you could hear her voice shaking and she said, it is with sadness and respect that i and the other

justices dissent. and i think she sees -- she made a very good case for the fact that technology is like the super driver of gerrymandering. it's not your grandpa's gerrymandering anymore. and the chairman said we're going to propose ten republican seats and three democratic seats because i can't figure out a way to propose 11 republican seats and two democratic seats and the chief justice read that in his opinion on the bench. he understands that it is a really ugly, awful process, but he said it's for congress to deal with it. et cetera. and that in the modern world is -- i would say at best hopeful. >> nina, david ignatius has a question for you. >> i wanted to ask you to just say a bit more about the chief

justice roberts and how your viewing his point at this tenure and there has been talk about him seeking to be a swing vote on this court, from trying to keep the court from being swallowed up in the political divisions. what's your judge -- maybe you can speak about his comments on the census case in which he's had some strong words for the trump administration's approach. >> well, i think that's all true. he does want the court to stay out of politics. as much as possible. but he's a very conservative justice, so he -- he's what passes for a swing justice. but those votes are rare, but they're important. and in this case, he gave his opinion, reads like it's going down one path all the way. it says that look the government has the power to we're supposed to defer to them under this

statute as much as we possibly can. this is their business to create the rules for the census and then in the last section he basically says but we can't blink reality. and they lied. he all but says they lied. he uses all kinds of nice words for it. it does -- reality doesn't match up with the facts, that kind of thing. and we can't blind ourselves to the fact that when they said they were adding the citizenship question to the census and they said the reason was voting rights enforcement, it wasn't true. >> yamiche alcindor? >> the supreme court has said that it's going to be looking at daca, the policy that allows children brought here as young people by adults to remain and possibly at some point get on the path to citizenship if democrats get their way. can you talk to me about what impact if at all that could

have -- president trump has moved to end the program. >> well, it could end the program. i mean, the president has very broad power on matters of immigration. so far, i think he has lost in the courts primarily because, you know, if he were to turn around tomorrow and say i hate daca, i'm getting rid of it, good-bye, i'm not sure that there's much the courts would do about it. but that's not what he says. he says, i love daca. but the program was illegal. and nobody so far has found the daca program to be illegal when president obama put it in force. lots and lots of presidents have granted temporary legal status to large groups of immigrants. republicans and democrats alike. so this is one of those cases where i would imagine the court would defer to him. if he were to say, i don't want the policy anymore. >> all right. nina totenberg, watching and

interpreting the court for us this morning and for npr every day. thank you, yamiche. the next hour of "morning joe" begins right now. i get along with everybody. except you people, actually. i get along with a lot of people. i have a tremendous relationship with president xi. nobody else would have the deal that we have. i get along with president putin. i get along with mohammed from saudi arabia. but i also get along with people that would be perceived as being very nice. i was with prime minister may today. i was with so many. take a look. new head of australia, look at japan, prime minister abe -- they're all fine as far as i'm concerned. some are stronger than others, some are tougher than others. >> there's no defending the north korean regime which is a monstrous regime. it's the last stalinist regime in the world. it's a disgusting place and obviously, so there's no

defending it. on the other hand, you know, you have to be honest about what it means to lead a country. it means killing people. not on the scale that north koreans do, but a lot of countries commit atrocities including a number we're closely aallied with. there's a samantha power dorm room -- they're so mean and it's silly and stupid and not helpful. >> good morning. welcome back to "morning joe." monday, july 1st. richard haass, former aide to the white house, elise jordan. david ignatius and white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. joining the conversation, historian, author of the "soul of america" and rogers professor of the presidency at the vanderbilt university, jon meach meacham. he's an msnbc and nbc news

contributor. how is the tour with tim degraw going? >> i got off the bus -- >> rock star. >> so let's speed it up. >> a rock star in loose fit khakis. jon meacham. >> these go to 11. >> let's take about the trip overseas, he's just returning on friday. he tweeted this, if chairman kim of north korea sees this, i would meet him at the border, dmz, just to shake his hand and say hello. followed an question mark or exclamation point. he led president trump over the border at the heavily mortified demilitarized zone and they walked several steps, holding a brief photo-op for north korean photographers. after a minute or so, they spoke to reporters and had an hour long private conversation with south korean president moon

jae-in. >> i just want to say that this is my honor. i didn't really expect it. we were in japan for the g20. we came over and i said, hey, i'm over here. i want to call up chairman kim. and we got to meet and stepping across that line was a great honor. a lot of progress has been made. a lot of friendships have been made and this has been in particular a great friendship. tremendous positivity. really great things are happening. and in a lot of places, but we met and we like each other from day one. that was very important. it's my honor -- it's the chairman's honor, we work well together. i want to thank chairman kim for something else. when i put out the social media notification, if he didn't show up the press was going to make me look very bad so you have made us both look good and i appreciate it. it's an honor to be with you. it was an honor that you asked me to step over that line and i was proud to step over the line. i want to thank you. it's been great. it's been great. very historic.

>> so jon meacham, we'll talk about the substance of what happened or didn't happen at that meeting yesterday. but just from your historian's eye, that visual of a sitting president of the united states stepping across the dmz and into north korea. >> well, by your fruits, you shall know them, right? so one of the things that an american president has an enormous amount of power obviously. the symbolic power is large -- symbolic power is a large part of that and what is the united states getting in return for an american president walking in to one of the most -- the territory of one of the most murderous regimes on the face of the earth? usually that's a carrot for good behavior for better behavior anyway. instead, all the diplomatic benefit from kim is coming on the front end. so what we need to know is is

there any actual progress on making a nation that could be an irrational actor, a destabilizing force and that could in fact project the deadliest kind of force known to man around the regime and perhaps even around the globe, what are we getting -- how are we controlling that when the president of the united states is, you know, if my teenager used social media this irresponsibly i would take her phone away. so what -- and richard has more insight into this than i do i'm sure, but what is it that we are getting in return for really elevating this man again and again and again? >> well, the answer to jon's question which i don't know if it was aimed at me, so far we haven't gotten anything. north korea has used the talks to advance the nuclear weapons arsenal as well as it's ballistic missile arsenal, despite their cessation of

testing. i wanted to add to it, willie, what's also interesting you had the absence of the national security adviser from the demilitarized zone. >> where was he? >> mongolia. you know, really strategic priority for the united states and the trump administration. >> yeah. >> the -- then he issued a tweet back drop, "new york times" ran a story a few hours ago that the administration is thinking of accepting less than full denuclearization. but they're willing to entertain the area of an interim or a partial agreement that north korea would freeze or dismantle some things in exchange for a degree of sanctions relief and you have bolton saying this is not true, someone is trying to influence the president or box him in and you have a real debate going on in the administration about whether you insist on something you can't have, but your only definition of what's acceptable is full denuclearization. >> what a fascinating -- you have bolton in mongolia, you

weren't exaggerating that and bolton said i read this "new york times" story with curiosity, neither the nsc staff or i have discussed or heard of a deal to settle for a nuclear freeze by north korea. this was a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the president. there should be consequences. who was he talking about and who is he talking to? >> to me the one person in the administration who's most likely to want a deal that boxes in the president is the president. because he wants a success here. i bet he's the most -- the person in the administration who's most open to an -- in term a partial agreement. ironically enough, not as good as the previous one that the previous administration got with iran but let's put that aside. i think we are seeing the split in the administration being played out in public so this is a real stay tuned moment. >> to richard's point this is something i have been eager to watch how it unfolds.

john bolton is a legendary bureaucratic infielder and he can manipulate it to the certain extent because president trump might issue an edict or command but it's not followed up but at the end of the day, president trump is the president. bolton is not getting the heavy hand that he wanted to shake power and the strategy when you have a leader who is fully unencumbered by any confines and will get on twitter and cross into north korea. >> jonathan lemire, not only were you watching this play out, but you cover the white house every day. talk a little if you can about the internal dynamic between a bolton wing and maybe president trump himself in his own wing that we saw play out, by the way, in the approach to iran. >> yeah, reporters were sort of in disbelief when we were told the day before that john bolton would not part of the trip to the dmz and would instead be in

mongolia. he is a north korea hawk, he did accompany the president to the dmz and jared kushner and ivanka trump were meeting with chairman kim and later made their own trip across the border. they stepped in to north korea for a few moments but not in front of the cameras. there is a divide here as to what's supposed to happen next. join, whether bolton on one side and the president who's starting to tune out the national security adviser according to our reporting. he seems more eager to make a deal and even down playing the aftermath of what happened in hanoi. those talks broke down and i think the president, you know, had received praise from -- in some quarters for not taking a bad deal there. but since then, north korea has tested some missiles. they have been short ranges, the first ones in a while and i asked the president about that yesterday. he glossed over it. every country does that, no big deal at all. but the missiles they would have reached seoul which has a metro

population of over 30 million people and that's still a concern, something that the north koreans have in their arsenal. and i think what goes -- what happens next here is unclear. it does -- the one outcome from yesterday which was more of a photo-op than anything else is the talks are restarting. we're back to where we were when hanoi negotiations broke down. there would be some meeting ins the next couple of weeks and we believe laying the ground work for the third summit. although if you count yesterday as one, perhaps the fourth summit. that's the point now that the president is going to need to be able to develop some sort of establishment or start moving toward down the road towards a concrete deliverable from the north koreans even as much as he wants this to be the dramatic back drop as he moves into the re-election campaign. >> david ignatius, we know that the president believes in a foreign policy driven by personal relationships, by flattery, because he knows that works on him. he refers to kim as chairman kim. he talks about him as being his friend. they fell in love writing letters to each other, all the

rest of it. is there any smart strategy in there? in other words, is that a way to loosen up north korea to maybe come to the table at least, although in the last year since singapore we haven't seen much change to the nuclear program inside north korea. >> personal relationships, trust that comes out of those relationships does make a difference in foreign policy. that's something we have seen over many, many decades so i don't want to say that it's a non factor. in this case, president trump took a big risk i think in this very showy photo opportunity roll of the dice with his tweet inviting kim jong-un at the last minute. he was reading kim as being as needy as he is for this kind of spectacular photo-op. and it seems to have worked in the sense that it now moves us back towards as jonathan lemire said a moment ago back to the process of working level

dialogue about the details of what denuclearization might mean. trump is addicted to these moments. he loves them, he lives for them. this is reality tv. this is writ on the largest stage and i think one we thing to keep in mind watching north korea, iran, every other issue is that the president is now in the political season of re-election. he knows that war with iran would be unpopular. the surest path to a defeat for him in 2020 is an unnecessary war with iran. same thing with north korea. if this balloon of his diplomacy with jong-un should collapse, it would be an embarrassment for trump. what we should focus on i think covering foreign policy is the details of what is being negotiated through the working group process. we have a sense of the agenda we need to look more closely. one thing i'll tell you that

this idea of a trump/kim jong-un meeting at the dmz has been floated for many, many months and it was seen eternally as just a hail mary pass. too high risk for the president. in the end, the president overcame that skepticism, i'm going to do it. and it's clear that bolton wasn't really on board with that. and didn't go to the dmz. but the issue going forward, what happens in these real negotiations? is it real, does it make denuclearization real? >> so john bolton was not there yesterday at the dmz. he was in mongolia. but ivanka trump was there. the white house adviser of course the president's daughter. she was at her father's side actually for several meetings at the g20 and in a video posted by the french government, ivanka is seen trying to make conversation with canadian prime minister justin trudeau.

as well as theresa may. >> yeah. >> as soon as you talked -- a lot of people started to listen that wouldn't otherwise listen. >> the same in terms of the whole sort of business, it's been male dominant. >> that video and lagarde stared straight ahead, it exemplifies why the daughter should not act as a diplomat in international politics. ivanka participated in several bilateral meetings and was on stage for a women's empowerment forum and standing in the middle next to the president of the united states in the class photo of world leaders. the white house posted also a video of ivanka giving a readout of a trilateral meeting between president trump, indian president modi and japanese prime minister abe. let's bring in now nbc news capitol hill correspondent the host of kasie dc, kasie hunt and

moderator of "washington week" on pbs and a political analyst, robert costa. ivanka trump has been at the president's side throughout this presidency, but perhaps over the last week front and center more than we have ever seen her on the world stage and again standing in the middle of the class photo of world leaders. >> pretty stunning visual quite frankly, willie. i mean, i think it says a lot about where the president puts ivanka's council in his own esteem. i mean, she has -- she walks into oval office meetings at will. she clearly has been elevated by him in this particular case. but that video that you showed, i mean, it's almost uncomfortable to watch. it's -- >> yeah. >> it's like every teenager's worst nightmare you're trying to get a word in with the coolest girls and they're ignoring you and this is how the administration relates to the allies and how they view what

this president is doing. i mean, we have talked a lot about north korea and that's obviously an incredibly historic and important part of this. but think about what happened in the days leading up to that step into the dmz. the president was joking around with vladimir putin about russian meddling. he was shaking hands with mbs who the world community has basically declared killed a "washington post" journalist and chopped him up into little pieces. he was meeting with president xi of china. this is another example where this president has been out on the world stage embracing traditional american adversaries as much as he talking with democracies. he seemed to misunderstand a question about western liberalism from peter baker, he was talking about liberals from san francisco in an answer that we found confusing. i think the treatment that ivanka got in that video, yes, we can joke about it.

but i think it underscores something much more serious. >> robert costa, this seemed like something different over the last couple of weeks at the g20 when they put the president's daughter out, giving readouts of trilateral meetings. that's something new. >> it is new to have a senior white house official and family member playing that role. for years, the president has talked about ivanka trump as being the future of his business brand, his business interests. now he sees her in part as part of the future of his political brand. what's notable is that ms. trump has not shown an immense interest in embracing the president's nationalism on the world stage. she is much more about engagement with the european leaders, building a rapport and the president has the hard line abrasive style with his diplomacy she hasn't shone an

affinity for and trump thinks he could be part of the political brand. he has alluded to it publicly that at a post like the u.n. ambassador position in turtle bay she could be in the running for that. he thought about maybe appointing her to be the u.s. ambassador to the united nations. >> elise, what do you think when you see these images of ivanka front and center? >> i absolutely can't believe it. having served around so many incredibly talented diplomats and government officials that she just gets to waltz up on the stage as if she's secretary of state without any senate confirmation process and has so much unadulterated power at her fingertips. it's really scary because she's not a professional and she's in completely over her head and you can see that from how other world leaders respond to her. it's really sad and pitiful that the trumps believe that nepotism on this great scale is acceptable for a country as

great as this nation. >> her husband, jared kushner, was in the room for the meeting with the dictator yesterday. i want to play for you the sound bite when the president of the united states was asked about the decline of western liberalism and give you a crack at it. let's listen. >> do you agree with him that western style liberalism as it's been defined is now obsolete and no longer relevant to today's world? >> he may feel that way, i mean he sees what's going on. i guess if you look at what's happening in los angeles where it's so sad to look and what's happening in san francisco and a couple of other cities, which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people. i don't know what they're thinking but he does sees that are happening in the united states that would probably preclude him from saying how wonderful it is. >> jon meacham, your thoughts? >> wow. okay.

well, two things. one of the great stories of this era, one of the great historical mysteries is the trumpian fondness for totalitarianism and dictators at. we have to explain why did a certain number of americans want this reaction to the established order in 2016, and the second -- the second story is given the -- what we just saw over the past 72, 96 hours with putin, with saudi arabia, with north korea, what is it about those regimes that is so attractive to trump? there are certain self-evident answers that we don't need to go into. on the western style liberalism, you know, perhaps he deliberately misunderstood that. dwight eisenhower once was going out to a press conference and

jim haggerty his press secretary stopped him and there was an issue in the news. he said, mr. president, are you sure you know what you want to say, he said, don't worry, jim, i'll go out and confuse them. i don't think this was that. i don't think this was tactical. so western style liberalism is really an enlightenment era or phenomena. it goes back to the 17th century, the 18th century, the rule of law, centrality of the individual. the role that free will and individual sovereignty plays as opposed to orders that are run by hereditary authority and really superstition as well. popes, prelates, princes were being toppled so that we would all the capacity to determine our own destiny. most clearly manifested in the declaration of independence, that we're all created equal and the story of america is how

general -- the story of the west, not just california, is how generously we apply that definition of a quality. all governed by rule of law, free press, generally market economies so that you have individual initiative to shape individual lives, lives of families and then the sum of the parts create the whole. that's the story of western style liberalism. liberalism in this sense goes back to the 18th century meaning of the word which is freed. that freed men in the language of that time were the determinative force. so that's what the question was about. it was not about san francisco or los angeles. and the fact that the president didn't understand the question may be all we have to say about him. >> if you want to hear that excellent speech to music, see jon meacham and tim mcgraw

coming soon to a city near you. you watched that exchange between peter baker who asked the question of the president, thought it was the most important of the last week. why do you they? >> because there was a tie-in between the president not understanding what western liberalism is and reflects his approach to both american society, his attacks on the media and the courts and the total disinterest in an america that stands for the international institutions, the liberal world order. this has been the principal purpose of the united states and the world, to strengthen institutions, to limit what countries can do against human rights, to promote democracy and freedom in the world. and then you see the way he cozied up to all of the authoritarians or dictators around the world. to me it made a piece all against the back drop of the supreme court decisions. this was not a good week for american democracy or american values. either here at home or in the world. that exchange to me that you have a president in some ways almost representing a society,

willie, that's not really familiar with civics, with our own dna, who we are, and what we're now seeing are the politics at home and abroad from a president who does not really -- who hasn't internalized the political dna of this country. i think we'll live with the consequences domestically and internationally for some time to come. still to do come, writer e. jean carroll was the 22nd woman to accuse president trump of sexual misconduct. so why are evangelicals still standing behind him? david french joins us with his new column on that subject next. ♪ when you get right down to it... freedom is the ability to go where you wanna go... ♪ and do what you wanna do. ♪ so... what do you wanna do?

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for less than at&t. that's 120 dollars less a year. better, faster. i mean sign me up. comcast business. beyond fast. i need your attention for a minute. what are you looking for? is it inspiration? because she's changing the world. every post out there is like "dream big" but when it comes time to take action- girl scouts are making a change. we're the risk takers. athletes. leaders. i'm not saying you can't be part trendsetter, but i am saying you need to be all girl scout. jerry falwell is a friend of mine and he was with me right from the beginning. and he's so happy about it. i could tell you stories, he said that he was so honored to be there. he understood from the beginning what was going on all along.

and he does say and so did pastor robert jeffers a great friend of mine. he said, our president may not be the best at the bible. he may not have read it 2,000 times. but he's the best for us. and that's good. thank you. >> that was president trump last week at the faith and freedom coalition's road to majority conference. joining us now columnist for "time" magazine david french. his latest piece entitled "the evangelical republic of fear poses the question why have evangelicals abandoned their previous commitment to political character to embrace donald trump?" and david joins us now from nashville. between you and jon, this is like wsmv nashville, music city. so let's talk about this

question of evangelicals and donald trump. i have heard time and again, evangelicals, say we didn't elect a saint but he's standing up for us. >> when you're representing the people of god, you can't act like you're another interest group, like the oil and gas producers of america and you're looking at which candidate is going to give you the best policy wins. that's not the sole calculation. it never until now has been. i mean, until now, until recently, evangelicals were the group of people in the united states who according to polls most emphasized the character of a political candidate. now according to some polls they're the group of americans who least emphasize the character of the president. one of the reasons i said this -- or one of the reasons for this as i said in the piece in "time" there's some fear.

there's an awful lot of raw fear. >> jon meacham? >> david, if you were looking at this as a time line where was the inflection point for the movement of what we think of as the religious right, the evangelical community, how ever you want to put it? where do you think the people of god became the interest group? >> that's -- you know, i would say if you look at it objectively i think it's before 2016. it was just exposed in 2016. so it's hard to know when exactly that occurred. but i would say there are triggering events in the obama administration that were legitimate threats to religious liberty that gave people cause for concern, and then there was a lack of perspective to elevate that concern beyond all reason. i can't tell you the number of

people who i spoke to, i was against both trump and clinton, if clinton wins the constitution is over. america is over. there was just this atmosphere of fear and sometimes even almost hysteria that underlay -- that was in part of the undercurrent of the church. i feel like it's going to rear its head again in 2020. >> bob costa, you've covered this white house so closely. how important does the president -- how important does this white house view its relationship with evangelical leaders and evangelical voters? >> he knows they need to be convinced to stay. he thinks back to the top advisers, jimmy carter, won as a born again christian. president reagan comes in 1980 and '84 and says if you want to be a group that protects your values, that you want to fight against abortion, stick with the republican party. and president trump has made a case to them that the state is the enemy and if you don't like president trump's personal

values, if you want to fight the state, and you want to make sure judges who are conservative are nominated to the federal bench, then you have to stick with me. it's a transactional argument at its core. it's about power. it's saying you may have your own personal views but if you want power you need to be with president trump. that's the core argument he and his people are making day in and day out. >> david, elise jordan here. i read your work with interest because i grew up in the evangelical southern baptist church and i almost wonder if it's less about donald trump than it is just fundamental change that has to happen within the church and you look at this year at the southern baptist convention and how finally there's starting to be some action on sexual abuse within the church. so how much of is this even separate of donald trump, but just institutions that have to start becoming more open? >> well, you know, there are internal church dynamics that are not just in the evangelical church, with the catholic church, dealing with an abuse

crisis that i think that christians have to work through and they have to work through transparently, they have to work through openly and with courage and integrity. and i think that the last two points courage and integrity are really key. there's -- we can't have a situation in which we say, in all areas of life, except for -- except for politics for example, we have to -- we're doing to show courage and integrity. this is -- this has to be the theme of the church with engaging the world. we'll do it openly, lovingly, with courage and with integrity. and you can't just square off and say, except for politics. because in politics we have a guy who gives us what we want. that's not the way you approach the world. >> that's exactly what's happening. david french, thank you so much. we'll be reading your new piece in the new issue of "time" magazine. robert costa thank you for your reporting. coming up next on "morning joe," president trump is hitting back after former president jimmy carter weighed in on

russian interference in the 2016 election. prompted by a question from jon meacham. we'll show you that next on "morning joe." ham. we'll show you that next on "morning joe." let's get down to business. the business of family time... ...and downtime. ...and you time. ...and forgetting what time it is...altogether. modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business is making time, our business is you. get the lowest price guaranteed on all choice hotels when you book direct at choicehotels.com.

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richard haass, while the world was rightly occupied with what was happening at the dmz yesterday, the yankees were taking care is of business overseas. >> how do you say sweep with a british accent? but i want to say something, willie. >> go ahead. >> i want to compliment jonathan lemire for having the courage and the fortitude to show up today because the red sox are now 11 games out. >> easy. >> unlike barnacle, unlike joe scarborough i think john kennedy in profiles of courage are people in jonathan lemire for days like tuesday. so happy july. >> i'm the representative here to take the beating. that was very strange a couple of games of baseball. i was somewhat busy over asia so i didn't see much of it so i'm glad for that. seems like the red sox bullpen is what we call an international problem. but let's also talk about some basketball. you folks there are knicks fans.

i'm a celtics fan so good luck to -- first of all, to the net with the kyrie irving. but in terms of the knicks, wasn't this supposed to be the summer you got a major superstar? >> you know what? you know what, jon, the taj gibson era has arrived at the garden. the bobby portis era has arrived at the garden. we have completely lost our audience so i'll move on. jon meacham, you spoke to president carter on friday when he spoke about president trump's russian interference. here is what he told you, followed by president trump's response over the weekend. >> there's no doubt that the russians did interfere in the election and i think they interfered -- although i'll quantify, the investigation will show that trump didn't win the election in 2016. he lost the election and he was put into office because the russians interfered on his behalf. >> so do you believe president trump is an illegitimate president? >> based on what i just said

which i can't retract. i would say yes. >> jimmy carter, look, he was a nice man. he was a terrible president. he's a democrat. and it's a typical talking point. as everybody now understands, i won not because of russia, not because of anybody but myself. so i felt badly for him, because you look over the years his party -- he's like the forgotten president. and i understand why they say that. he was not a good president. >> so jon, you were sitting face-to-face effectively with president carter when he said that. he was asked if fully investigated -- of course there was a two-year investigation by robert mueller but were you surprised by president carter's answer to your follow-up question about legitimacy? >> i was surprised by both. both answers. it was a panel for the carter

center on human rights and so one of the things i wanted to ask was both about saudi arabia and about russia because one human right is full and free elections and not being meddled, not having meddling from abroad. and i -- it was totally unrehearsed. i had president -- i had breakfast with president carter and vice president mondale. we had done no preparation for it. so that they didn't know what questions were coming. and so it was a spontaneous exchange in that sense. i think really came from the core of president carter and i admired him for with the -- when the follow-up question came for saying well, i just said what i said, i can't retract it so yes. and a lot of people would have tried to perhaps move the -- walk it back a tiny bit. but you -- remember what president carter spends a lot

of -- has spent a lot of his post presidency doing and that's monitoring elections around the world and so to some extent, this is a subspecialty of his. i think that's really interesting. beyond -- it's beyond the democratic talking point to go to the incumbent president -- >> david ignatius, there are living democratic presidents who would tell you that jimmy carter is not afraid to speak his mind about sitting presidents. were you surprised though? jon's question was do you believe that this president is illegitimate, and effectively, not in so many words carter said yes. >> i think jimmy carter has earned since being president a reputation as a truth teller. calling them the way he sees them. it's one of the reasons why his reputation is increasing over time since he left the white house, contrary to what president trump said. i found really fascinating about both carter's comment and trump's response is this goes to the very heart of the burr

that's under the saddle of donald trump. this question of whether he is a legitimate president. it's partly why from the beginning of the mueller investigation he was so angry and upset. and it's obviously still there. here's jimmy carter saying, you know, when all the evidence is examined it will be seen that a foreign power intervened in our election and tipped the balance and that's going to be deeply upsetting not only to trump, but part of the fuel that's running his re-election campaign. here is carter, old, infirm, suffering from significant illness, but still tough minded in saying what he thinks. >> all right. everybody stay with us. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> the iraq war veteran has nothing to apologize for, whatsoever. we served our country. we served and upheld the finest traditions of sometimes exceeded the finest traditions of any generation at war. i'm proud to be an iraq war

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today it's my privilege to award the highest military honor to a soldier who demonstrated exceptional courage to protect his men and defend our nation. will you please join me in welcoming staff sergeant david bellavia. david, come on up here. >> joining us now is that man, retired u.s. army staff sergeant david bellavia. last tuesday, he was awarded the congressional medal of honor for his heroic actions in fallujah, iraq. sergeant, an honor to have you with us. good morning. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate it. >> we were just talking about

you being a buffalo bills fan and that requires an optimism that's built into you. >> listen, the army is responsible for where i'm here, but the -- you know, tim russert and the buffalo bills that is what we live -- that's what we live for. >> it prepared you for all this. we were just i love for. >> we were discussing during the break. you didn't know this was coming. were you stunned to get the phone call? >> absolutely. we are so used to people empers impers impersonating the president. when the phone rings and it is the president of the united states. i was shocked. i was humbled. this represents more than one day in action. we lost five guys in that battle of fallujah. having the opportunity to bring

32 of your soldiers to the white house, five gold star families. >> your life changed that day and changed again when you received this very well-deserved reward. now you are the only living medal of honor recipient who served in iraq. how do you see going forward using this platform? >> the reality is all of our lives changed on september 11. we had no idea what the tempo was going to be. when you look at the generation in iraq or afghanistan. no disrespect of world war ii or vietnam, that is just a toll on the families repeated deployments. i need to remind americans we

need to be slow to war but let's get the job done. in the united states military, religion, ethnicity, who you love, none of it matters. we are there as one team to get things done. we are asking that we are able to be employed. veterans are great employees, great citizens, neighbors and spouses. when we come back from these fights, give us an opportunity to show that we love this country and we are willing to do whatever p it takes to become better citizens. >> by the way, some of those sons and daughters you were talking about were in diapers on september 11. >> sergent, it is an honor to talk to you. just to pick up on what you were talking about. fewer and fewer americans are sharing the burdenen you so willingly took on on behalf of

us. the military experience so mu, jobs for example, what can we be doing to support our veterans when they came home and their families. the challenges are becoming more and more unique. >> in all seriousness, join the army and share the burdenen. the country is worthy of its defense. awful the reasons we come up with why we disagree and why we are divided. none of this exists under fire. politics on a dog tag, there is no designation. we fight together. we are one team, one family. we love each other. you never expect to see that on

combat. people are sacrificing for themselv themselv themselves everyday. whether it is in uniform, just serve your country. >> with deep respect for your bravery and achievements, i want to ask you a tough question. when you are talking with the families of fallen soldiers you served with, how do you explain to them what their loved ones were fighting for in iraq? >> i tell them they were fighting for me and i was fighting for them. they gave their life so i could come home. when you lose someone in a fire fight, it's amazing how the entire battle will change, the anger, the grief, the rage. it funles into focus. those men and women stood in a

poli place for us and died so we could come home to our family. you are living your life for people who basically gave up their tomorrows so that me and the brothers and sisters in the fight could come home. one of the most beautiful things ever. >> i have had the honor to meet a couple of recipients, they almost feel uncomfortable because of the honor. do you feel that way? >> absolutely. you look at your life and see how everyone had to do everything perfectly to succeed at what you do. i was standing at a place nobody else was standing the day after more people would sacrifice for me. we lost shawn sims, steven, jc

and he had in fallujah. i could have been right there. they chose to take that spot and lost their lives. i came home and am forever changed. >> i think it was a little more of an accident when you read the citation what you did in reentering that house. >> that is very kind to you but i've got 40 guys that are extraordinary. we are just regular americans. we are not seals. but we are lucky enough to come home. >> staff sergent david. thank you for what you do for the country and everyday. continue now and good luck with that super bowl with the bills. >> don't sleep on the bills. >> great to meet you. still ahead, photo op diplomacy

at its finest. new reporting that the trump administration may settle for a nuclear freeze in place of total denuclearization. and president trump says nobody has directly pointed a finger at the saudi prince but the cia and others have come to another conclusion. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. he eyebrows, just tease it a little. slather it all over, don't hold back. well, the squirrels followed me all the way out to california! and there's a very strange badger staring at me... no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. uh-huh, where's the camel? "mr. big shot's" got his own trailer. ♪ wheeeeeee! believe it! geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

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>> we've developed a very good relationship. we understand each other, i do believe he understands me and i understand him. yesterday, i had the idea maybe i'll call chairman kanld sand se wants to say hello. i didn't give much notice. we respect each other. maybe even like each other. since our first meeting in singapore, we get along. we had a great kind of feeling. >> i want to thank you. do you hear the power of that voice. nobody has heard that voice before. he doesn't do news conferences. this was a smeshl moment. >> president trump, the first sitting united states president to step foot in north korea based on an invitation sent over twitter. good morning. it's july 1, i'm willie geist,

joe and mika have the morning off. with us, our guests. former aid to the george w. bush white house, former chief of staff at the cia, now nbc news national security advisor, columnist for the "washington post" and white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan just back from that meeting in korea. first things first, richard. i bet jonathan lemire is not a happy camper. >> kd and kyrie coming to brooklyn and not to the knicks. we'll tackle those. >> president trump tweeted this, if chairman kim sees this, i would meet him. >> leading president trump over

the border at the heavily fortified demilitarized zone. after about a minute, president trump led kim into south korea where they addressed reporters before entering the freedom house before an hour-long conversation with south korean president moon jae-in. >> i would invite him right now to the white house. i just want to say that this is my honor. i didn't really expect it. we were in japan for the g20. i said, i'm over here. i want to call chairman kim. stepping across that line was a great honor. a lot of progress has been made. a lot of friendships have been made. this is a great friendship. tremendous positivity. we met and we like each other from day one.

that is very important. it is my honor and the chairman's honor. we work well together. i want to thank chairman kim. when i put out the social media invitation, if he didn't show up, the president was going to make me look very bad. you made us both look good. i appreciate it. it is an honor to meet you, i'm proud to have stepped over that line. it has been great. >> jonathan was there. i want to get the full backstory in a second. going around the table first, richard, your trained mind, you watch that handshake and listen to those comments after. what are your thoughts. >> it is still a total emphasis on a personal diplomacy. the most interesting thing against that back drop is the "new york times" story that the administration is reportedly, reportedly considering something

less than demanding denuclearization. what you call something for something. we would give them a degree of sanction relief. that would be the possibility of real diplomacy. it wouldn't solve it. it might cap or manage it. that would be meaningful. what we saw, that in and of itself isn't anything. it is not just the personalization but to keep calling him a friend and be so flattering. this is a guy who is a dictator. where the word is overused, he deserves the description. >> it makes me want to puke. my visceral reaction as an american, the fact that donald trump is going out of his way to kiss up to this monster instead of actually projecting strength. what have we gotten from the

north koreans from all of this pomp and circumstance and having the president of the united states crossing into north korea. i don't know what we've gotten except diminished our own standings in the world. >> remember after the first meeting, the president came out and saed north korea agreed to denuclearization. that hasn't happened since then. i guess the question, what comes from that handshake. is it just a photo op? >> it is symbolism over substance. i would argue in the year, north korea has advanced, test fired short-range missiles and probably continue a lot of work on their nuclear program. they haven't disclosed or provided an accounting. for kim, he's playing the long game all the while, we are taking the victory lap saying,

wow, we got to step over the line and have a photo op. >> so suggesting the trump administration is considering accepting a freeze of where north korea is which would mean it would have some capability for sanctions relief. what is your reaction to that idea? >> to my understanding the times story is coming back to where north korea was at the time of the hanoi summit. they offered a limited koez you're of their facility. president trump, i think wisely, rejected that. the senate broke up. it was a humiliation for both. kim jung-un has been thinking and worrying about that. there is a sense both sides have been exploring what is sometimes called a plus. some additional facilities outside the fence line in the area crucial to north korean

nuclear development. if that is the realm of discussion, exploration, that is good. the other thing i take as positive in this. i have a slightly different view. this is photo op diplomacy but it seems to be the opening of the kind of working level discussions. the most important thing trump said in the outlandishment of kim jung-un my friend, et cetera. speed is not an object in these talks. he's finally recognizing that denuclearization is a long complicated process that is step by step. this next idea is one of the things that they are talking about. that sounds appropriate, that sounds in the area we should be in the area now.

i don't think we could assess an achievement of something concrete. it hasn't made the world safer but it is a rehabilitation of the process of talks that are good for u.s. stability or northwest asia. >> i woke up yesterday getting ready for my sunday today show and saw your tweets, reporting, video you sent out. you were right there. was it actually as impromptu as the president led on? was it really just a tweet they saw or heard about and agreed to step into the dmz with them? >> first off, the red sox were disappointing on multiple continents this morning. flashback to november 2017 when the president tried to make his first visit to dmz. this is the fight of the tensions and the rhetoric like fire and fury when the two

nations seemed to be on a collision course for conflict. we were five minutes away when we had to turn the helicopters around because the fog was too intense to land. when white house press secretary told reporters about it, she wouldn't even say dmz out loud. she wrote it on piece of paper. this time, it was all about publicity. the trip to the dmz had been in the works for weeks. that part was coming. the kim invitation does appear to be particularly spontaneous. they did seem surprised when the president offered it over twitter while we were in japan on saturday. but by the end of the day, there was a sense chairman kim would show up. the white house did not confirm that until a few hours before.

questions really need to be raised about what this means. time and time again, this is a president whose policy seems to be about personal rapport. we've seen it before with chairman xi of china, the crowned prince in saudi arabia and the president from russia where the president is more interested in their relationship. that image has resonated around the globe at least for a time being. the media had a date of a scuffle with north korean security. he went to the line, shook kim's hand, stepped over to north korea and then came back. it will take time to see what really comes of that day. >> let's look at the other side and see what it means in north

korea. we've seen some of the propaganda. this is splashed all over the front page of their media and programs. what did kim jung-un get out of this moment here? >> he gets this degree of international recognition and the promise of sanctions relief. this is a country hurting economically. they've paid an enormous price for their closedness. he can now hold out as i'm internationally accepted, we are a permanent reality as a government, as a country. we are no longer facing a prospect of war. not because they've changed but because we've pulled back. one thing i disagree with the president is this whole patience. the idea time -- we are not in any rush. we ought to be in a little bit

of a rush. time is not neutral. they do not need overtesting of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, to increase the number of their weapons, innovate and improve. that is where the president has it all. the good news is if there is a possibility, depends on the details, north korea will say now 25 nuclear weapons or 45. that is better than unlimited or an unconstrained world and what north korea would actually do. history shows there is a gap between what they agree and what they actually do. it is better than an uncontrolled, unregulated future. >> how does this foreshadow what is happening with iran? you look at korea and the administration has this

hard-core position where they are not giving an inch and now it looks like they are giving an inch over time. we are ghoing to see something similar at the end of the day. >> the good news is the administration might be willing to on the 2015 nuclear agreement. where we say, okay, we are going to extend the agreement. and by the way, you can't have ballistic missiles either. you may be able to take the pressure and turn it into a policy. the iranians may be watching this and saying, cool, hang tough, we could have our nuclear weapons as well. >> let me ask you something a lot of smart people i know have said, it has always been a pipe dream to think north korea would

give up the nuclear program. it is all they've got. is denuclearization, get rid of the program all together, is that a pipe dream? >> i don't know if it is ultimately achievable. we have to work hard towards it. we need a full accounting of all their undisclosed sites. my concern about how the president has set this up. if you put yourself in the room of the north korean advisors, they are saying hey, mr. chairman, this guy relishes and rewards just a photo op. they don't have to deliver substance as long as trump is praising them for this symbolism. >> still ahead, president trump says he is, quote, extremely angry about the murder of

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. >> at the g 20, president trump declined to place any blame on mbs for the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. the two were seen chatting before the photo. >> the crowned prince, a friend of mine. a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up saudi arabia. >> mr. president, will you address the subject of the murder of jamal khashoggi with the crowned prince. >> on the case of jamal khashoggi, you have a lot of

journalists in the room, discussing the assassination and dismembering of a journalist. when you were given the opportunity to call him out on that, you did not do that. did you do it privately. do you agree it is despicable for a government to kill a journalist? >> yes, i do. or anybody else by the way. when you look at saudi arabia and see what's happening. 13 or so people have been prosecuted. they've taken it very, very seriously. they will continue to. i will also say, nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of saudi arabia. >> you mentioned no one had pointed a finger at him actually the cia did, the intelligence communities. >> i cannot comment on the intelligence communities.

probably, i guess i'm allowed to do what i want to do on that. we can declassify like hillary clinton did. the truth is, i just don't want to talk about intelligence. >> the president suddenly not willing to comment on intelligence which has made the tent pole of his government, the deep state and everything else. the cia concluded the crowned prince of saudi arabia that the president praised ordered the execution of our colleague jamal khashoggi. >> for people who knew and admired jamal, i'm one of them, it was deeply disappointing to see. the president's role should be about accountability. the saudi judicial process is continuing.

at the very least, the president could have said, we await and expect a clear verdict that holds those responsible accountable. he didn't say that. it is troubling. with the piece of so many things we saw this weekend, the president's comfort level. these are his people, his guys, the people he makes deals with. in this particular case. this is a murder case. the president stands for all of us as americans that are concerned about an american, my colleague that got murdered. it is disturbing to see him drop that and how ironic that he's suddenly best friends with the intelligence community. that's a new one for president trump. of all the things that have happened on this weekend, that was one that had me shake my head. >> the president managed to turn

that to hillary clinton somehow. the president said, the crowned prince is doing, quote, a spak tar spectacular job and said the mbs is, quote, very angry about it. >> could it be the former vice president's son hunter biden that puts the campaign in jeopardy? we'll take a look at that new report next on "morning joe." this is anne marie peebles.

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more accountability on charter school spending. and giving local school districts more control over the authorization of charter schools. reforms we need to pass now. so call your state senator. ask them to support ab 1505 and ab 1507. >> welcome back to "morning joe." in a candid new interview with "the new yorker" magazine, former vice president's son hunter biden is opening up and touches upon lobbying and foreign work, divorce, relationship with his brother's widow. and a discharge from the navy reserves after a failed drug

test. in may 2013, he stopped at a bar and bummed a zret from two men from south africa which he believes might have been laced with cocaine. he talks about a relap and fall 2016 episode in los angeles where he asked a homeless man where he could buy crack. hunter said the man took him to a homeless encompment where in a passage way someone put a gun to his head before realize he was a buyer. he had seen reports on twitter that president trump was calling for him to be investigated for an involvement in ukrainian company. he was to have said to his wife, i don't care you explative mr.

president. talking about this piece, a lot to tackle. there is the personal part and professional part that gets into some business dealings that may be a problem down the road. we'll talkle the personal side of it. not something we hear from joe biden often. >> over a period of time, hunter decided it was in his interest to open up about substance abuse. he realizes he's an alcoholic when he's a lobbyist around 2000. he begins a period of time when he is in and out of trooemt centers trying to get a grip and get control of this problem. it sort of comes to head after beau, his brother dies. beau is his biggest supporter. when he's gone, he doesn't have anyone to turn to to help. >> there is an opening scene

when you talk about joe biden's resent book talking about beau, the late beau biden. hunter has been the son the biden family, at least publicly doesn't talk about much. his profile will rise farther now that we are in the heat of a presidential campaign. >> that's right. senator biden, vice president biden will always hold beau up as sort of a model. when biden had to decide in 2015 whether to run in 2016, what he knew about what was going on in hunter's life weighed heavily. the episode you described in los angeles. joe biden knew what his son was going through. he and those around him knew how difficult it would be to run

with what was going on with his son. >> i would hope americans would be for giving about addition especially in the aftermath of a horrendous loss. will americans be as for giving of business deals that hunter biden was involved in during joe biden's presidency? >> i can understand why people would say there is a potential conflict of interest, an optics issue. i found no credible evidence that could back up claims about the vice president trying to help his son in those areas. in terms of drug abuse. we all have families, members of our families that have had trauma, addiction. i can think of people i've known that really are not that different. the trouble is, he's the vice

president's son or is the vice president's son. that is one of the more remarkable take aways for me. how in some ways these struggles he faced were. so many people that i know that we all know go through something similar. >> i certainly can say that president trump is well aware of these allegations against joe biden's son. certainly an allocation of how much they want to use. my question to you is more about hunter's relationship with his father. how close are they now? how often do they speak? what kind of role is joe biden playing with his son in terms of drug abuse and these relationships and a quick marriage? >> hunter really didn't tell his father anything about the

relationship with melissa. after he got married, he put his phone on speaker and called his dad. when it comes to business, hunter and his father would have this sort of don't ask, don't tell policy. frankly, joe biden wouldn't ask about it. it was a way he could avoid knowing and there by in some ways protecting himself. by having that policy, you end up with problems that end up festering which is what we are kind of seeing happen with these attacks. the relationship, when i was talking to hunter for the story. he would often say, i need to put you on hold, my father's calling. i'd say they talk probably four or five times a day. most by phone but hunter doesn't go to his father's events.

he knows if he's there, it is only going to increase the scrutiny and make it harder for his dad and those he cares about. he's chosen to keep a low profile, not be publicly there with his dad. really the first time in his life he's not with his father during a campaign. >> joe biden would never say it but did you find that the biden campaign finds hunter as a liability in the run for presidency? >> i think certainly some people within biden's community of long-time advisors have known that this was going to be a problem for joe biden. they were always too afraid to address it because especially

after beau dies. joe biden is so sensitive and understandably so. everyone was sort of dancing around this issue and no one really wanted to address it. they saw him as a potential liability. really, they didn't have the heart to have a conversation with him about it. >> they were worried about his reaction and how it would depress him. >> we reached out to him on this and he had no comment. thank you for this. coming up next, we've talked about the historic meeting with north korea. there is a lot of other policy news to get to including reports iran has broken the fundamental requirement of the 2015 nuclear deal and new hope of a trade deal. keep it on "morning joe."

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>> joining us now, professor of universal politics, host of the power corrupts podcast. the president of the eurasia group. a ton to talk about. let's start with the latest news breaking. so far only coming from state news in iran. we haven't confirmed this. saying iran has breached the level of the stockpile effectively saying president trump has pulled out, we are moving forward with our nuclear program. >> the surprise is how long it has taken. the united states pulled out of the deal last may. it has been over a year. the iranians have stuck with every aspect of this agreement even though their economy is

going to be cratering this year because of the sanctions the united states has put and other countries have had to follow. they've been very, very cautious not wanting to escalate to the point to get other countries to not blame them or lead to military confrontation with the u.s. we'll see what the tanker hits come. you see knocking down the american drone, now you see this is significant. they are no longer participating in the deal. they are not increasing the level of enrichment or the exiting low level. it doesn't move them closer to a nuclear weapon but they are formally now breaching the deal. >> would you expect now some is kind of response to the trump administration on this. >> trump's response has been, i hit you hard but they'll want

talks. he has said in a way president obama never would have that he's prepped to meet without preconditions. after meeting with their own domestic audiences. i would be surprised by the time of an election in 2020, there hasn't been some sort of real diplomacy between the two sides. >> this comes the day after the president becomes the first sitting president to step inside north korea days after he was chumming around with the crowned prince of saudi arabia and a few days before that, chumming around with vladimir putin and kind of mock warning him not to meddle again. what do you see? >> the message is unmistakable.

trump admires dictators around the world. he treats them better than america's historic democratic allies. that is damaging for two reasons. for our allies, they think do we need to health our bets against the united states because they are not going to stand up to the role of democracy. other countries are looking at this saying, they are getting away with this behavior and maybe i can too. look at maybe they'll avoid the push back. >> the pictures coming out of the g20 were dominated by the president with dictators, vladimir putin, kim jung-un. the person that we saw

interacting with western leaders was ivanka trump in a very awkward interaction released by the french government. i'm wondering what you make of that in respect to how we make our foreign policy. it seems they were offended by the fact that president's daughter was the one talking to them and not the president himself. >> this happened before. there was one round table in a previous summit where trump himself left and ivanka actually took his formal seat. the protocol for that is extremely strange. this is not the bring your children to work g20. they don't think it does more damage than the fact that trump himself is so hard to predict and so unprepared for a lot of these by lateral meetings.

the way g20 works is most of the leaders are trying to find a way to get through it. yes, it is true trump is more chummy than with the leaders. perhaps more importantly, the group at the g20 is becoming more authoritarian and populous leaning. at this g20. you've got an italian government very aligned with trump, brazil is very aligned with trump. theresa may is out. you've got mohammad bin salman who is about to host the g20 next year. you look and recognize that the direction he's moving is also general gravitational pull.

>> brian, there are so many headlines out of last week, russia, saudi arabia. the meeting with china between president trump and xi jinping was actually the main event. they announced they were going to be resuming the discussions. i want to get your take of that. who is that a win for? what incentive does china have to give trump anything he is asking for? >> this gets back to the a authoritarianism versus democracy. the time horizons are much shorter. you have an election coming up. the damage trump is going to take on in the way consumers are effected, farmers and those in minnesota. the idea that there will be a quick win on this will not

happen. there is a crisis that he starts, he's a lot like an arsonist and fire fire who starts the fire and then tries to get a photo while he's putting it out. that's what you saw with kim. you are two and a half years in where they are more developed. better missiles. with no concrete diplomacy. what is the deal? where is the prove that this is working? >> you said on the commercial break and said calmly, there is not going to be a deal with china? why not. >> i saw them coming out of the room and the photos. they were happy. all they got was no further tariffs. there is no agreement on how huawei is not going to be a national security threat.

trump tried to make one but got push back from both sides of congress. there's been a lot of damage there. i think we've kind of hit a tipping point. the status quo doesn't hold anymore. this was the most important meeting at the g20. actually, the u.s. and chinese despite the fact that we'll have negotiations restarting are f d fundamentally confrontational. >> a lash word from you in nashville. >> quick question barring from the democratic debates and to both of you, in one or two words, what is the greatest political threat now? >> that chinese development. largest economy in the world will not be a free market economy. >> the axis of authoritarianism

taking hold around the world. >> good answers. >> we could run for president. >> thank you all as well. tony award all as with he will. >> john leguizamo joins us to tell us about his latest show inspired by his son's school project. son's school project. this is not just the flu. it's meningitis b... and you're not there to help. while meningitis b is uncommon... once symptoms appear, they can progress quickly and can be fatal... sometimes within 24 hours. before you send your teen to college... make sure you help protect them. talk to your teen's doctor... about meningitis b vaccination. walkabout wednesdays are back! get a sirloin or chicken on the barbie, fries, and a draft beer or coca-cola -

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i wish john was mine. i bish that i birthed him. he is so fine on stage. i wish i was he had you mated. anything that happens below is neck is -- i don't expect it but thank god for that. anyway i feel -- like i feel like i am university bound. i am going to do research. i am going to look up every book he readed. i hope you do the same thing. because life advice for mormon is fantastic. what is it? >> moran. >> that's the latest look at the latest one man show from john leguizamo, it is entitled latin history for morons not mormons.

john, nice to have you. you have made a career of these one man shows. crazy popular one man shows. why did you feel like you had to teach latin history to morons. >> i felt like our textbooks are defective. it is like a fairy tale, latin contributions are not in it. we are the second oldest native group after native americans. we fought in every war america has had. i am talking about american revolutionary war, 10,000 fought this the american revolution, in the civil war, 500,000 in world war ii. where are those facts. >> did this come out of a project where your son encountered missing pages out of his history book? >> my son was being bullied and

i was hoping to give him facts that he could fight with words instead of fist to cuffs. that's fists. old school. i was destupefied, unmore onnized. i started to learn all of this information and i was like i will never feel like a second class citizen in this country ever again. >> what story did you learn that surprised you the most over the course of your research? >> i think this general, bernardo galvez who was like the george washington of texas, louisiana and pensacola. he had an army of 3,000 troops, and he pushed the british out. sent $70,000 worth of weapons to jordan washington. he financed the war, too. we are like the sons and daughters of the american revolution as well. >> how did we get here, john. there are so many marginalized ethnic groups in this country who didn't get to write their

own chapters in our history books. how do we do that now? >> textbooks are made in texas. i think that's part of the problem. we have to figure out how to get our heads in there and put this information in. it should just be about facts not about agendas in textbooks, and keeping out latin contributions and black contributions is not telling the real history. >> this was on a run at studio 54 here in new york. taking it out on the road next we are. do you rememberham, miami, midland. we will get the schedule up so everybody can see where they can watch you. how did you approach a one man show. the whole thing is on you. you are the only one out there. how do you make the decision to tackle this. >> you are making me nervous. >> you are doing well with it. how do you begin to build the show? >> i start out first with something that's personal to happens to me. then i start trying to see what it is that he want to communicate to -- that i want to

communicate to people. this was to talk about bullying in america and how latin people are demonized in this country and how to write that, you know, through our contributions, by listing the contributions. so i go through the show talking about my son and my -- both of us getting woke. and trying to get the audience woke at the same time. >> people are going to love to see the one man show. i have to ask about when they see the netflix series about the central park five. i watched it last week. you were incredible as a father of one of the five. what was it like to step into that world and tackle that story? >> it was tough, man, because it is such a painful story to see these innocent kids you know, make them plead to crime they didn't commit, forced to confess to a crime they didn't commit. i spent time with the real dad, and santana jr. and then the

actors and i made us all bond together to try to understand what happened. how do we make this as real and access to what really happened. the dad felt his son was innocent, really believes and thought if he signs this confession it is not going to mean anything because god and the truth will be seen, like it is a magic pill. i doesn't work that way. >> that's what you take away watching it, the dads and the mothers want to get their sons out of the interrogation rooms and figure it out later but by doing that it haunted this em. >> you are done. you are done. once you sign that paper. the takeaway is get a lawyer and don't sign everything. that's the lesson, everybody. make sure you have a lawyer, and don't sign anything you didn't do. >> that's hard when you are a 14-year-old kid looking at a detective. >> and a dad with three jobs who is tired, doesn't understand the system. >> congratulations on all of that, i hope the emmy voters got a chance the see it.

>> from his lips to the emmy voters ears. >> latin history for morons is touring now in cities nationwide. john great to see you. that does it for us this morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage. >> what a great way to end the hour. good morning, i am chris janzing we begin knew week and a new month with a critical new face in politics. for democrats we are seeing this morning how the first debates impacted both the polls and fund-raising. the winners and losers coming into sharper focus. while president trump with an historic step onto north korean soil is setting up what he intends to be a signature claim of his own 2020 complain, that he has made the world a safer place. we want to begin with the president who few would argue pulled off a made for tv moment at the demilitarized zone. the "new york times" called it a master piece of drama. new video