chrysler to make different cars using one chassis. lee iacocca was also considered a presidential candidate. he was 96. that wraps it up for me. i will see you back here for "the 11th hour" and tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hello, everybody. it is 4:00 here in washington. i'm peter alexander in for my friend nicolle wallace. today with the humanitarian crisis unfolding at the southern border, images of overcrowded and squalid conditions at the migration authorities. and the fourth of july celebration, tanks on the street in advance of a military-style event tomorrow and speech during the evening's festivities at the lincoln memorial that's beginning to look a lot more like a maga rally, especially giving the news today the republican party is handing out

vip tickets to big donors and political appointee that's will put them front and center when the president takes the stage and considering the president's pattern that are apolitical. when he bragged about the size of his inauguration crowd in front of that merm moral wamori stars. recently criticized nancy pelosi 234 front of the cemetery in normandy and turned the boy scout jamboree into a political event. so there's no surprise there's growing concern president trump might criticize this fourth of july event as well and today open questions about who is footing the bill for what could turn out to be little more than a campaign-like stop. "the washington post" is reporting for starters the park service is diverting $2.5 million intended to improve national parks to cover some of the costs but "the post" adds,

these represent just a fraction skraft costs the government faces as a result of the event. and trump administration officials, they write, consistently refused to say how much taxpayers will have to pay. that reporting appears to have the president on the defensive today. he tweeted, quote, the cost of our great salute to america tomorrow will be very little compared to what it is worth. we own the planes, we have the pilots, the airport is right next door, all we need is fuel. we own the tanks and all fires are donated by two of the greats. nice! here to help me break it down we have national reporter robert costa and msnbc correspondent heidi przybyla, and a former dnc adviser and chief national correspondent for "the new york times" mark lebowitz. heidi, i want to start with you. talk about what particularly makes this so abnormal for a

president to put himself in the middle of a fourth of july celebration with air force one, f-35s, marine one flying overhead? >> it's because a celebration of our nation's history, not a celebration of any particular individual, including him. we just have not had this in modern times. you have to go back to previous centuries to find a parallel example of something like this happening. if he wanted to just give a very special el probation to the american people, he could still do the pyrotechnics, he can do the jet fly-overs and maybe even tanks but he's putting himself at the center of this. he is by all accounts the most polarizing president in modern history and simply by his presence standing in front of one of our more cherished monuments makes this a very controversial decision. >> mark, your gut when you hear about this? >> it is unprecedented. it's very trump. it's very on brand.

the idea this could be a nonpolitical event and we could celebrate the fourth of july i think is far fetched. anyone who goes is essentially seen now as making a political decision and political choice. it's pretty obvious it is a pretty political event and the polarization of donald trump collided very much with, as you mentioned, a lot of previously nonpolitical events. >> you talk to white house officials and they say this will be about the greatness of america and kellyanne conway told us all of the successes we had as an administration on helping veterans. and this is what "the washington post" writes -- post" writes -

1 ken, does it matter what he says tomorrow when he's up on the podium? what if he surprises us and said i'm here democrats and republicans, we stand together and celebrate this day. >> that would be truly shocking. i think we've seen a number of events where the spotlight has been on trump and there's been a lot of attention on the specific words he's using whether he's going to live up to the moment or lapse into his sort of ad lib campaign-style rhetoric. and they could put him on the teleprompter and he could come out and give a soaring speech about american ideals and independence and the like, but i think democrats, republicans, everyone is going to be waiting for him to launch into his kellyanne conway put it, resuscitation of their greatest hits, which ultimately tends to lead, no matter how scripted they try to happen, into campaign-style rally speak. >> to be clear already this is having an impact now.

people, tourists want to see the lincoln memorial. they can no longer do it. it's shut down for a period of time. air space will be shut down. reagan, not because the president is speaking per se but because the president is speaking there, they moved the fireworks, which means for more than an hour people aren't going to be able to fly in and out of town. the rnc, we heard from the rnc, the campaign spoke out about this. here's what the campaign said, as a courtesy, the trump campaign also got tickets, was provided tickets for staff and families and friends, much like for the easter egg roll or white house garden tours, probably similar how congress provides tickets to their events on the west front of the capital. i reached out to the dnc, they have not received any tickets. >> i get why you would give tickets to a white house events to friends and supporters. i grew up in d.c. i remember fourth of july

celebrations. there's no need for this. we celebrated america on the fourth of july pretty well. i think in part this is about a president who's deeply insecure and this is a bit of sort of phony toughness that we've seen out of him, parading the tanks, the fighter jets. i think all of this is about him trying to sort of push out this ma cheese know about his presidency that really is a big problem for him in terms of his insecurity about his toughness. we see when he's actually face to face with people like kim jong-un and putin, he backs down. this is really i think about him propping himself up and propping up his toughness. >> robert, let me bring you in here if i can. it's your paper that's reporting something that's relates to the cost of all of this. a lot of people wondering what it will cost. "the washington post" reporting nearly $2.5 million of money that would basically be spent to help improve the nation's parks instead is being diverted for

this extravaganza. in the big sea, $2 million is not a ton of money. it's only a fraction of how much this is going to cost right now. what is the thinking behind the scenes at the white house the way this is all going to go over? >> the president has explained this away on twitter as just a minor cost, and it's only part of the cost that "the post" reports, $2.5 million in passion park service fees being diverted for this july 4th celebration and presidential event on the mall. it is not clear yet about how much the pentagon, the department of defense is spending on all of its military aircraft and the troops that are coming and transportation of these two tanks onto the national mall. those costs have not yet been revealed. congress, of course, will be pressing for those -- on those questions in the coming weeks. >> ken, we saw the president's tweet, the president defensive on twitter basically saying, hey, this is actually costing far less than what it is worth to america. we've got the gas, the pilots, the planes. and ignores a ton of other costs like security.

we heard from mayor mural bowser earlier today say this is going to cost washington, d.c. a ton of money to help secure this entire event. you're moving the president over the mall. >> that's where you will see the attention after the fact, if this is blasts into a campaign-style event, you're going to see call for the president's campaign to reimburse some of these costs. we see that with rallies. the president's campaign has notably not reimbursed local police departments for overtime costs they accrued and d.c. still claims he owes costs for other event that's have been there. so i think that's going to be another lingering effect of this. not to mention the potential damage to the street that's we hear folks in d.c. complaining about. >> there's something to doug's point about trump having this long desire to choreograph something around the event of him being a dear leader. and what's so unusual about this and difference than previous

instances of this, this is why the word hijacked is being used. the american people are being coopted into this. this is their day, the day for america and every american and yet the american people are being somewhat against their will, some of them just coming there for the fireworks, coopted to be a part of this. the second thing is the tanks. this is not just something we see in most western countries. this is more evoke images of iran and soviets. >> soviet union. >> he apparently became enamored with this idea after going to france. >> the inception. >> i have a feeling he's going to be pretty disappointed with the two lone tanks compared to the spectacle we saw in france on bastille day when he was treated by emanuel mack croneroe viewing stand. >> this is the former ambassador to russia saying this reminds me, referring to the picture of the tanks, this reminds me of parades i used to attend in the

soviet union. not the right look for the fourth. again, this is coming after the president met with kim jong-un, mbs, mohammad bin salman, of course, who he hasn't called out, the leader of saudi arabia even after the death of "the washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. and vladimir putin, where they laughed about fake news, even though vladimir putin has overseen the death of at least 25 journalists. >> yes, and there are juxtaposition photos what it's like in north korea, what it's like in russia, what it could look like here. i think the key word you mentioned earlier opinion greg sergeant mentioned trolling. the president loves to be in people's heads, no more so than his the media's heads, his critics' heads. we're talking about this. he probably would love that. it is i think at this point no matter what you think about it, it is a spectacle and i think everyone will have some curiosity about how the thing will go. will it be a fiasco? >> the crowd size tweets will be

going. >> go ahead, doug. >> i was going to say ken brought up a good point. i think that if this goes off the rails and does become a maga event, a political speech where he spends most of the time going after democrats for being socialists, i think that really does backfire. i think the event in general will backfire. if that's where he goes, i think it's actually a missed opportunity for the president. he could surprise us. i don't think he will. but i think he will go after dems complicitly or explicitly on his campaign attack against socialism. >> robert, let me bring you back in if i can quickly. one of the concerns we saw reporting on are the president may not have the giant crowds. you remember the other time when the president spoke out on the mall, his inauguration day, the president said he had the biggest crowds, far bigger than barack obama. that was obviously fact-checked as evidenced by the pictures on your screen. that's his crowd on the bottom, president obama on the top. are there concerns within the white house? by the way, 50% chance of

thunderstorms tomorrow at about this time. >> trump allies tell me today they are concerned inside of the white house and around the president's inner circle that because of traffic concerns and crowd concerns, many locals who may support the president in the washington area, virginia, maryland, are going to stay away from downtown washington on july 4th. and the crowd itself will be mostly there for the fireworks. so they're going to have a built-in crowd for that event, that is regular on july 4th and for the capital 4th celebration down by the capital with musical events. but the president if you look at the stage setting, it could be a pretty contained event the way they're setting it up around the lincoln memorial. my sources tell me that could be a response to the twhar not really sure how the crowd will congregate due to weather and other concerns. >> couldn't there have been an easier way to have done this, we will fly planes, everyone will get a good show, even air force

one will go by. i will stay at the white house. you enjoy the party. you all get a good show and i get credit. >> and he would have gotten the normal suburban d.c. crowd down there. but that's not the way he's doing it. i talked to senator ermz the other day and i said who are you expecting? she said i think most of the people will pop u late on the capitol side of the mall. for the band, and he will have his crowd there with the vip tickets. she thought he had to do that even because of the unpredictable who will be there. this is a very d.c., proper is a very democratic area. >> is that what's going to happen? >> look, i don't know what's going to happen. i think it makes it interesting on some levels. the notion this was just another day we couldn't maybe think we could put politics aside, whether it's a sports team going to the white house after they

won a championship or holiday party. >> this was sort of the last one on that list. >> i don't know if it's the last one. >> what else is there? we will find them. >> i guess the easter egg thing, i wasn't there this year. anyway, it's a spectacle. donald trump expeloves spectacl. we will see. >> colossal waste of money. we will see what happens and what the president says there, robert costa. thank you for your reporting and spending time with us. still ahead -- the breaking news on the humanitarian crisis at the border. the president weighing in within the last hour and what he is saying today is certain to inflame new outrage from his critics. and new polling shows a shift in the democratic field and the president's new plan is distract from the anxiously awaited mueller testimony just two weeks away. what is he planning? we'll be right back. i switched to liberty mutual,

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we're back. you're watching "deadline: white house." the president tweeting in just the last hour, quote, our border patrol people are not hospital workers, doctors or nurses. the democrats' bad immigration laws, which could be easily fixed, are the problem. great job by border patrol, above and beyond. he writes many of these illegal aliens, his words, are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions. no matter how good things actually look, the president writes even if perfect, the democratic visitors will act shot and aghast and how terrible things are. just pols. if they really want to fix them,

change the immigration laws and loopholes. so easy to do. this after a scathing inspector general's report after the department of homeland security confirming what democrats have been saying about the horrific conditions at migrant detention centers. the report even quoted a facility manager who described the situation there as a, quote, ticking time bomb. joining us now is "the new york times" correspondent annie kwormy. we have a quorum from "the new york times" today. annie, let me ask you, these pictures came from homeland security to say nothing of the ones that came from democrats that traveled there, it shows the conditions these migrants are living in but the president says they are far better and far safer than the conditions they were living in before. what do you make of this tweet within the last half hour? >> i mean, trump has been, his entire response to this humanitarian crisis has been to

politicize it and simply blame the democrats for their immigration policies and for holding up money. and he hasn't really expressed any empathy for the images that we are seeing, which makes me revisit the narrative around 2017 when we thought -- he claimed pictures of syrian children being killed changed his stance about assad and changed his policy in that region. now we're seeing pictures and images and reports about the way children here are living and he seems unmoved by it. he's denying -- this tweet he's denying facts that were provided business his own government, pictures, reports from members of congress and simply saying it's not true. and blaming democrats. it's a political season for him and he's only seeing this through a political lens. >> that's an interesting point you make. on serious he cast himself as a

hero coming in and saving the syrian children. in this case he's viewed as the one who's guilty, responsible for this taking place, enforcing the imprisonment, detention of these individuals. he was complaining about the democrats. here's what we heard from the democrats in the last 24 hours. here's some who were at the detention sites. >> what we saw today was unconscionable. no child should ever be separated from their parent. >> the mothers, the women i sat with who wept openly in our arms! >> i will never forget the image being in a cell and seeing 15 women, tears coming down their faces as they talked about being separated from their children, about having no running water. >> in fact one of the women said that she was told by an agent to drink water out of a toilet.

>> doug, the inspector general's report effectively corroborated this reporting. instead what they saw, yeah, we saw the same thing inside. there's pictures to show for it right now. >> yeah, it was disturbing and it was alarming. the buck stops at the president. this is his administration. and i think one of the biggest failures of this administration that often kind of gets glossed over is his immigration policy. he's failed -- he had the senate, he had the house, he had the white house and he couldn't get anything done on immigration. now it's tearing this country apart. so i think as we look at this election in 2020, immigration is going to be an issue that they should prosecute against this president. he's totally failed us. >> i have been told he recently tweeted on the topic. we will put it up in the second. but the house oversight committee this week will head from the head of dhs, head of custom border protection as well. what is striking is this is in

partisan terms now when it should be something everybody is concerned about, no matter your position on the border, the wall, whatever. there are these migrants living in detention centers within our borders. >> you can reduce this to distraction, part asisan argume to democrat, blaming the president, whatever want to do. but what is powerful is the photos. the president realizes he can tweet all day about this and there's nothing more powerful than suffering children and their parents and far more so than anything any politician would say. for better or worse, those are now publicly attainable. >> you say the president can tweet about it all day. i noted he just tweeted moments aing. here's what he writes -- if illegal immigrants are unhappy with the conditions of the quickly built or refitted detention secenters, just tell them not to come. all problems will be solved. that resonates with his base right now.

as we heard from campaign aides, this is what it will be about for the next election. build up the base for a repeat of the last go-around. immigration is not just his signature but signature frankly of those who supported him as well. >> it worked for him. there's no reason to believe the crisis of this escalation at the board i is n border is it's not going to work for him again. it's ginning up his base and also the democratic base. that may be helpful in the democratic primary. we southeasternly see democratic presidential candidates seizing on this and frankly shifting the party's rhetoric on this crisis to the left in terms of offering an insurance, health insurance to undocumented immigrants. but what trump is responding to i think is partly the photos and partly the criticism but also partly democrats are doing a good job driving attention to this issue, seizing on the photos. going down to the border. holding a press conference like that. getting out ahead of the

inspector general and releasing some damaging information that the inspector general then corroborates. that stuff all resonates with trump. that's what he's responding to. >> heidi, he thinks he got a win out of the last democratic debates when he had the vast majority of the democrats saying they would support health care for undocumented immigrants. >> right. but i want to talk about that tweet because i think it's actually really significant. here's why. we've been all debate willing this treatment, whether what's going on, whether what we see with our own eyes, the treatment of these children and individuals is something -- is the product of a president who's dealing with an unexpected influx. he's doing the best he can to try to provide humane conditions here. or -- >> that's the current campaign in the form of a tweet. >> or whether this is all part of a broader campaign of deterrence, which is what we're told is the root of the child separation -- >> what jeff sessions said back in the day and the president says in a tweet now. >> now the conditions. the president in this tweet just

confirmed to us he does view what is happening right now and these conditions being reported on as deterrents. and secondly, he doesn't plan to do anything about it. he's denying the ig report and denying this is worst treatment than anything we've seen in previous years and previous administrations, he's not signaling he's going to do anything. that has to happen through him, not just the house judiciary committee. >> and the bureaucrats are in fact trying to deal with the situation we hear time and again from the officials. even the appointees at the department of homeland security. but their efforts are dramatically undercut by rhetoric like what we are seeing in that tweet. >> and it's notable because the president has these sort of revelatory moments. i remember asking him about the wall and state of emergency declaration and he said i didn't need to do this, i just wanted it to get done quicker. that's why i made this emergency declaration. heidi, the president basically

said oh, it's better than the conditions they had and then i embrace that. we want these conditions to be bad so they realize they should never come here. >> yeah. i mean i think heidi's point is a really good one. we have to remember he often reacts to coverage, not to events themselves. all of the tweets we have been seeing on this subject today are in reaction to these reports and there's nothing -- we haven't seen. the reaction isn't going to visit himself or having ivanka trump visit. the only member of the west wing i think that's visited was melania trump in 2017. and that story line was subsumed by her wearing of the jacket that said, i don't really care. do you? which seemed to embody the administration's stance on the plight of these migrants in these detention centers. but instead of saying we're going to look closer, it's if you don't like it, move on. >> good point. melania trump, who has the sort

of campaign that's designed to help support young children, presumably not just american children, hasn't been back there to visit the conditions these children have seen since way back in the day. annie karni, we thank you for spending time with us here. up next on "deadline: white house" from "the new york times," the questions they say they don't want to ask but the women running for president keep hearing it. hearing it

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we are exactly seven months from the eiowa caucuses. kp t can't wait, right? but it will be a packed house for the holiday. seven are now there or on their way to the hawkeye state. here's what they're dealing there from a polling perspective, anyway. new results from "usa today" poll. joe biden's grip slowly fading away thanks to a surge of

support for kamala harris and elizabeth warren, fresh off last week's democratic debates. joining us now, msnbc correspondent garrett haake, who is down in iowa, where many of the candidates are campaigning today. garrett, give us the lay of the land there. we know we will see joe biden, kamala harris, amy klobuchar. this is a convergence where a lot of voters say even if they express themselves in polls, a lot of them formally have not made up their mind yet. they say they can change their minds in this race. >> yes, peter, i don't have to tell you, iowa decides late but it is so important. especially in a field this big. you have to think there are only going to get so many tickets punched out of the hawkeye state. i imagine this field will be a lot smaller as we get to the caucuses. seven months start to make my head spin when you say it like that. it's interesting because candidates by and large have not spent by as much time here. as that top tier solidified into a top four, five, joe biden,

kamala harris, mayor pete are sort of three of those who have not spent a ton of time in the hawkeye state but they're all here right now trying to essentially establish themselves on the ground here and translate national ground support in the kind of support you need to win a caucus state. i'm watching the joe biden events closely the next couple of days. he also has to face questions about whether he can still do fast paced, on the ground, heavily face-to-face campaigning that is necessary here. like wise kamala harris had a reputation of someone in iowa has flown in and out. she did one, two events. she does not have as much staff on the ground. she's trying to show muscle here. pete buttigieg is marching in the parade tomorrow. another example of a candidate with national presence but not on the ground as much as bernie sanders, beto o'rouke. some of the other candidates. steve bullock basically moved to iowa, setting up shop here.

we're seeing the national front-runners do this backwards. when we're used to seeing candidates build and build in iowa we are seeing national front-runners come in iowa and use the support they have nationally to build a grassroots campaign. >> i'm curious if you have seen a shift in the last several days since you're back in iowa post the debate. post the watershed breakout moment for kamala harris. in the conversations you have as you attend these events there, you have seen a shift in the way some of the voters there, caucus goers there, discuss this? >> yes, in the kamala harris mini boomlet is interesting. what i can't tell you is whether it's a sugar high or the kind of thing that can really sustain her. we talked for weeks how joe biden has benefited so much being the only candidate in the massive field who democratic primary voters feel like they really know and now all of a sudden there is a surge of interest in kamala harris. people are talking about her a bit more. they saw on stage what harris

and her supporters always said is what she would do against donald trump. they saw her essentially punch the big guy in the fight. a lot of the democrats i talked to say i saw her do this with joe biden. maybe she can actually do this with donald trump. the question i don't know the answer to yet that i'm really curious about is whether she will have the same trajectory she saw with beto o'rouke, got into the race, ton of attention and fell off quickly. mayor pete, got in the race, ton of attention. still has big numbers but poll numbers are falling off. with kamala harris be the next to rise and fall or can she sustain this in a way no other of the biden alternatives have yet? >> and this raises questions about electability as well. a lot of democrats right now, the top priority is defeating donald trump. but there are concerns relating to the electability of kamala harris or elizabeth warren. "the new york times" lisa layer writes about this -- privately democratic strategists warn

about how deeply doubts about a female candidate have tape hold and voters suggest they're eager to see a woman on the ticket but fear putting her in the top spot could cost them the white house again. the question comes up frequently in early primary states, including at events organized by female voters. heidi, to you on this. what struck me a lot of people watched that second debate joe biden and kamala harris and said they can imagine kamala harris on the stage punching trump in the nose, so to speak. but hillary clinton did a pretty good job in her debates with president trump. that didn't change things. what do you make about a female candidate's electability right now? >> it's something you hear and something you hear from female democrats, which is how you know is a real thing. it's hard to separate how much of that is ptsd for what happened with hillary clinton's campaign. you saw so many women were so passionate and so upset they jumped on buses from every corner of this country and came here for the women's march. but i think there is definitely

some soft data that illustrates that the challenge here, and it's hard because the men have the name i.d. biden and sanders. so you can just say a lot of that is name i.d. but even so, 538 took a look at this and found a lot of the women candidates got more negative coverage coming out. they found it harder to break through. even when you're talking about so-called equals like mayor pete and beto o'rouke. so there is some soft data there. if you want to just get into a pure discussion about to what consistent does sexism still pervade our society, i did look at this issue because last year following hillary clinton's campaign i think a lot of us did and found interesting poll figures. now you can argue these are people who would never vote democrat anyway and the candidate would be a democratic candidate. but a polling firm looked at this and found one fourth of male trump voters said men make

better leaders and even higher, almost 40% said it doesn't make a difference to have women in positions of power. that is something out there still in our culture. >> to be fair it's likely those trump voters will not come around to the democrat whoever they are. the question is about the independents in the middle, if they would be willing to do it right now. anecdotally you hear, kamala harris is great. she would be a great number two. >> it amazing how good everyone is, they would be a running mate. we had this rampant flavor of the monthism among mayor pete, elizabeth warren, kamala harris now. people have just had a lot of moments. joe biden, the numbers about him going head to head with president trump, which i think is still probably his strongest asset. the fact is there are probably four, five, maybe six candidates that now seem to have some staying power, gicombination of their name recognition, money raised or where they sit in the

lane infrastructure of all of this. and i think eventually they do remind you that this is a long game. and it is just july. i know it does feel like the caucus can be next week but it is just july. there's 7 million debates between now and february. and there's just a lot of stuff that needs to settle. >> as we're talking about the female candidates now, we just heard from kamala harris. she's in iowa as we noted today. here's part of what she said as relates to prosecuting the case against the president. take a listen. >> i know predators, and we have a predator living in the white house. and let me tell you, there's a little secret about predators. donald trump has predatory nature and predatory instinct. the thing about predators you should know is they prey on the vulnerable. they prey on those who they do not believe are strong.

and the thing about predators that's most important to know, predators are cowards. predators are cowards. and so when we look at this campaign, and we look at the task before us, it will be to successfully prosecute the case against four more years of donald trump, and i am prepared to do that. >> the former attorney general of the state of california, the senator from that state, you heard her speaking in iowa. doug, the prosecutor's point, as i was making earlier, if you don't feel like the case is sufficiently prosecuted to this case, it's not clear that prosecuting any further will help you. but that message is sort of about juicing the base, right? motivating base supporters to lift the numbers to do the opposite or exactly what the trump supporters are trying to do on the other side, isn't it? >> right. i agree with everything kamala harris said. what i was disappointed about the debates is you didn't see democrats go that hard against

the president. the first night -- >> barely mentioned. >> first night barely mentioned. second night was about the internal conflict. democrats need to prosecute this case against the president in a way that i think kamala did there. we hear it on the trail more. but you didn't see it in the debate. we had 17 million, 18 million people watching thighs debates and this was a great opportunity for democrats to define what this race is going to be about and what this president is about. i think we missed that opportunity unfortunately. >> garrett haake, i appreciate you joining us from iowa. you and i spent a lot of time there a few years ago, 2012? been a while now. when we come back, president trump's new plan to drown out robert mueller with a political spectacle of his own. we're back in a moment.

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trumper. he's somebody who dislikes donald trump. >> that is how robert muellmuelt trump reacted to robert mueller the last time he unspoke out on his findings. in case he didn't mean it then, he may not be fond of the idea two weeks today americans can tune in for mueller's public testimony on the findings of the russia investigation. the president now scheduling his own maga rally that very same night where he just might open up his old campaign playbook and try to create a spectacle to change the national conversation. joining our conversation, the former u.s. attorney and madison square garden contributor joyce vance. joyce, let me start with you out of the gates right here, what type of attacks are we expecting to see from the president? and how potentially problematic could that be to sort of the way we view the rule of law in this country? >> this is a president who has never hesitated to attack the

intelligence community, the fbi, the attorney general when it suits his personal purposes. so i think we can expect to see more of the same. these attacks on the rule of law, and peter they're incredibly unfortunate. we should not think they're benign or harmless. they do a lot of damage to people across the country who become conflicted themselves and wonder if they can really trust law enforcement. that doesn't help anyone and it's inappropriate for a president. >> the president's position sort of evolved around robert mueller. before the report came out he called him an honorable man. now not so much if you listen to the president. anticipating the day two weeks from now, what is the most important thing robert mueller can do in that testimony? he said his report is his testimony. what do you think the potential flashpoints are that could be something which sort of changes the conversation? >> you know, the president benefited from the fact that his attorney general released a very misleading summary of what was

in the report, and then there was a gap of three weeks before the report itself was available. so for many americans the headline trump put out, no collusion, no obstruction headline is what they think is what the report said and that's not the case. if mueller discusses what's in the report, if he's direct about what's in it and what he concluded, that could do enormous damage to the president. >> mark, is this is the change-the-channel strategy of the president. we've seen it i don't know how many times we have seen it. he will do something on the lawn before he departs for his events. but the point is he will try to take the headline from robert mueller. >> yes, i think it's clear people will watch robert mueller. i think he will be testifying by day. the rally will be by night. donald trump will do what he can. but people will hear what robert mueller says.

the onus is on the quality of questions the members of congress asks. what saves somebody like president trump in cases like this is that the democrats in particular make speeches, right? it becomes a filibuster. robert mueller is not going to say that much at all. if you ask him the right questions, he will be forced to engage and forced to be actually revelatory. unfortunately and i'm speaking as a reporter so i have a different job than lawmakers, obviously, it's all in the quickness of the question and sharpness of the question. >> a lot of it you can anticipate, right? he may say i will not discuss hypotheticals. i will not say whether this is for congress to decide. that is not my job. here's what i said. where are those questions. where are those moments you see that robert mueller could have impact? >> i think republicans actually have a greater chance potentially to make inroads here. we've already seen them starting to signal what types of questions, what types of issues they have with the report and with the investigation. so we're talking about things

like fisa abuse and how some of the initial investigative steps that led to the investigation questions about those. we're talking about weaving out in the mind of what trump's defenders is defenders is exculpatory information such as paul manafort and the payments that paul manafort accepted and the ledger in ukraine showing those payments and whether paul manafort's ukrainian deputy was in fact a russian spy or a state department asset. so i expect to see a lot of questions on those. and then i expect to see trump really harp on those questions, those republicans' questions and mueller's answers to them both potentially as he's leaving the white house for the rally on the lawn and also definitely at this rally. >> joyce, you can imagine one of the questions is going to be poed posed to robert mueller is if this were not the president of the united states, would you have indicted him? would this have been obstruction of justice? he said in effect i couldn't do it because i was dealing with

the president of the united states. but that really is the question the democrats have been focusing their attention on since the very beginning, isn't it? >> it is the question. and it really puts mueller in a box. as he explains in the report, the reason he doesn't answer that question is out of fairness concerns and prudential concerns and that's lawyer talk for he was trying to avoid doing something that would prejudice a future prosecution. so this will feel very unsatisfactory to many people in the country when he yet again declines to answer that question. he's doing it for good reasons. and of course we know that more than a thousand prosecutors have weighed in and said based on this evidence, anyone other than the president would in fact be indicted f or obstruction. >> joyce vance, we appreciate your spending some time with us and lending your expertise to this conversation. till to come, crashing the party. donald trump's uninvited guest at his big fourth of july celebration. celebration.

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so join parents, teachers and educators in supporting ab 1505 and ab 1507. please call your state senator today. for all the talk about flyover jets and armored tanks at donald trump's fourth of july event on the mall tomorrow here's one thing he was probably not counting on. the where's waldo of the resistance movement, that 20-foot-tall baby balloon and the likeness that has followed him to new york, to paris, to london and now will be in washington, d.c. we should note it will likely not be flying. the national park service says they can't use helium.

so there will certainly be a gathering around the lincoln memorial. i'm sure there's a gathering around the baby balloon as well. >> we're talking about whether the president will stay on script. this is just the kind of thing that would bait him to go off script if it is somewhere in his eye shot even if it's not launched up into the air. that would be something that would tick him up. there's any number of variables here. we were talking about whether it's going to rain or he's going to have a small crowd size. any number of these things could touch him the wrong way and cause him to go off script. >> i want to know if there's more than one of those things. do they transport those from across the ocean? >> when you go through tsa do they check your bag and say, you're good. >> i don't have a great deal to say about this but i'm curious about how the logistics of the baby trump work. >> a reminder the president will be speaking in the evening and later in the evening there's the fireworks show. if you live in the washington, d.c., area, we wish you a safe day. it's going to be a little bit nuts on the mall tomorrow.

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my thanks to heidi przybyla, ken vogel and mark leibovich. thank you very much. have a good fourth. that will do it for us this hour. "mtp daily" with steve kornacki in for chuck starts right now. if it's wednesday, president trump responds to criticism of the crisis at the border, lashing out at democrats and defending the conditions in those border facilities. meanwhile, the tanks are lining up for the president's july 4th parade, but what is it really about, celebrating america or celebrating trump? and harris and biden both on the trail in iowa for the first time since that game-changing debate. why this weekend could be