too lazy and ungrateful to go and do what somebody paid a price for you to do. [ applause ] so now here comes trump who call you everything to your face. maybe it was time to wake you up. maybe you needed to understand you hadn't arrived yet, but trump, don't you be deceived. we are stronger than you think we are. don't be deceived. we are more resilient than you think we are. if we stand up, the whole nation will stand up. we will not go back. we will not be denied in this town for 25 years we gathered. one year we left because of katrina. we had to go to houston. but be aware, they broke the

levies, but they didn't break our spirit. we never will be broken. we never will be broken. we will never be broken. we will. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york, and around the country growing concern over what's beginning to look like a repeat of the disinformation campaigns that helped elect donald trump in 2016. concern that the same kinds of dishonest, divisive, and race-baiting attacks raged on social media against hillary clinton in the last election are now targeting 2020 democrats. and like last time, they're being amplified by donald trump's allies. the issue brought to the forefront most recently when the president's son re-tweeted one such attack that had shades of the birtherism we heard his father gin up against president obama. here's a reminder what donald trump re-tweeted, then deleted, amidst with backlash. quote, kamala harris is not an

american black. she's half indian and half jamaican. i am so sick of robbing american people of blacks of their history. but the story behind the original tweet and its author takes on an even more sinister tone. new york times reporting, quote, for people like mr. alexander, the entire point of commenting was to go viral and counteract any progress made by a democrat by ms. harris because his tweet was elevated by valuable surrogates like the president's son. and there's more. "the times" also points out that a suspicious group of twitter bots like the ones weaponized by russia last time were also spreading that same message about harris' background, almost word for word within minutes of each other. caroline orr who is a social media researcher cited by "the times" was among the first to

warn that a coordinated attack was breaking out online. she tweeted on debate night, quote, a lot of suspect accounts are pushing the kamala harris is not black narrative tonight. it'd everywhere and it has all the signs and has all the signs of being artificial coordinated operation. that was supported at least briefly by the president's son. now for joe biden, it's not just that the trump campaign is aiding and abetting the online disinformation about him. in at least one case the trump campaign is its mastermind. the times "reports that a consultant for team trump has created a fake campaign web wage for biden. and that has become the most popular biden website on the internet. this is not normal, and that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and

friends. michael steele and joe reid and author of the brand-new book "the man who sold america, trump and the unraveling of the american story" which we will get to later in the hour. i have always been concerned and i have said it on this show before that going back to the republican primary in 2015 no one, not one of the 16 republicans who ran against trump, not hillary clinton, ever figured out how to address and combat the asymmetry of running against someone like donald trump. >> yeah, absolutely. i think the clinton campaign just presumed that the american voter would sort it out. but you have to remember that if you read the mueller report, the first half of it describes what essentially amounts to a voter suppression campaign aimed largely at black voters in which they injected anti-hillary memes, the super predator repeating that over and over and over again to make it sound like she almost wrote the crime bill or voted for the crime bill.

the goal was not to get black people to vote for donald trump. it was get them -- the voters suppress themselves. so you seen these same things aimed at kamala harris. and it didn't just start with the debates. this happened in january. the minute she launched just a slough of online activity accusing her of not being really genuinely african-american, attacking her on the basis of her parents' immigrant status, even of her marriage that. started in january. and when i interviewed kamala harris, i asked her if the campaign was ready for an online sort of cyber attack against her. and what worried me a bit was that the campaign seemed to say, or she seemed to say i think we're ready for it. and she expressed a lot of confidence, which is good. i think you are supposed to express confidence. but what i worry about is i'm not sure the democratic party understands the scope and the scale of how this is going to work and that it's going to be on steroids versus the way it was in 2016. i hope they're ready, but it's

intense and it's going to get worse. >> and in another era you ran a major political party. we are so old. [ laughter ] we were worried about our mailers going to the right home. microtargeting was our innovation. we now have these concerns and there's something really backward about the campaign having to worry about it. it should be your government, your president should be protecting the country from an attack because these are attacks not just on kamala harris. this is an attack on the american democracy. >> i think that would require the acknowledgment by that government and the head of that government that this is a problem. and so when you have that level of denial still in play going into the next political cycle, presidential political cycle, campaigns do need to step up their game and become almost independent actors in the space. we are in a new platform, a new frontier here, where it is at least under this administration signals given to foreign adversaries. back door's open, come on in any

way you can, just make sure you pick the right side. but, yeah. i think the campaigns need to up their expectation game here of themselves. and not even rely on their respective parties, democrats or republicans to actually get this right. >> and i guess the corollary to that is when the obama administration figured out that the russians were in our elections. they went to brief congress and mitch mcconnell said, no, no, no, shhhh. >> it should've been the first clue and warning in that moment by the administration. we need to go beyond that. we don't need to get mcconnell's permission to warn the american people that we have a problem here. >> can you ever imagine that you would have had to say that sentence "you shouldn't need mcconnell's permission to warn the american public that russia is coming for us?" why is kamala harris a target and why is birtherism a target?

>> when he entered the political arena in 2011, he used birtherism. one of the things that came out of that which i remember very well is obama released his long-form birth certificate, which was a win, which was a win of donald trump. and i remember when it happened. i think there was a feeling like this had to happen. we were going into re-election. that was a major, major win. and so he took that and he went into 2015, and we know that happened after that. so in his mind i think it's like, okay, birtherism 2.0. next kamala harris is clearly what we saw the performance from last week, she is rising and they are thinking it will work again. and, you know, there are a couple of things too. we were talking about how campaigns need to really step up and they should not rely on the party. i think that's really true. the other part of this that's really concerning is donald trump has raised more than $100 million in a quarter.

so he is more of a functioning campaign. he has an operation. and he could -- we know that he's funding, you know, in the facebook arena. and so that's a concern to me as well. like, we are going to be outfunded by the other side, and they're going to use it to do harm. >> i want to come back to both these with you. but first on what the government's doing. i think one of the most startling things to have watched over the last two years is that the national security officials are often at odds with the public statements of the president on this question of russia. no one more so than current fbi director chris wray. watch this. >> we usually used to describe the fairly aggressive campaign that we saw in 2016 and it's described in special counsel's report. >> now russia did not help me get elected. you know who got me elected? you know who got me elected? i got me elected. >> the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false

personas, et cetera, et cetera, to spin us up, pit us against each other sew divisiveness and discord. >> as a joke that there was obviously never help from any of the elections. >> it's pretty much a 365 days a year threat. that is absolutely continued. >> you look at what russia did, buy some facebook ads, and it's a terrible thing, but i think the investigations and all of the speculation has had a much harsher impact than a couple facebook ads. >> the investigation has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple facebook -- what? >> on its face, that's absurd. let's just concede to that claim. and what i think is at the heart of it is that donald trump and his minions don't want to believe that russia interfered in the election because they think that to concede that claim

is to in some ways question the legitimacy of their election. he's always worried about whether or not he has been legitimately elected the president of the united states. >> because he knows he wasn't, right? [ laughter ] >> because he's a narcissist who doesn't really give a darn about the country. and i will say that and take the hit. he is willing to leave the country vulnerable. but i think it's really important for us to make some distinctions here. clint watts who's come on msnbc on a regular basis has regularly reported that it's not only the russians. what we saw in the election in 2016 was in some ways a kind of weaponization of processes that were evident or is evident throughout the american election system. and what he was saying is not only just simply foreign forces deploying these techniques but domestic forces deploying these techniques. so not only $100 million, what

can trump do. not what can candidates do. if there aren't any -- what can operatives do, right? so it's not just simply op research anymore. something else can happen in the context of our election system. in the context of the birtherism and what happened to senator harris, there are folks out there, the american descendants of slaves who are making hay in all sorts of places across the country and have a presence on the web. they are not bots. they are not russian folk. they are actually trying to have an impact on the way in which we talk about race in this country. and unless we understand and be able to differentiate these various forces, we're going to lump them all into the same thing and not understand the nature of the dangers that we face in our electoral system. >> i guess the toxic brew that seems to be getting mixed up in the kitchen here already is trump's racism, the complete ambivalence among anyone. we looked high and low.

chris wrachl is the only one with a consistent. you have the toxicitiy of trump's message which not only does he not care about what you said about the intricacy about the conversation of race, he wouldn't understand it. >> but you've got the tox isty of the smear on race. you've got sort of the recklessness with which they re-tweet and then, ooh, let's delete it. >> nobody that saw donald trump's original tweet questioning kamala harris is going to see this conversation that says this is absolute b.s., nobody. and it's very similar. i'm going to put this up because i was startled to see this. the way birtherism started was with donald trump saying, i don't know, i don't know, it's just a question. let's watch. >> many, many people have questions and very serious questions. >> so perhaps he was born in this country. that has a very big chance. or, you know, who knows. >> you really believe this guy

is an illegitimate resident? >> i don't want to answer the question. >> his mother was a u.s. citizen born in kansas. >> who knows, troy. >> and the thing is this actually dovetails with what you said about his legitimacy crisis. donald trump knows he wasn't rich when he says he wasn't rich. he understood that he couldn't really date princess diana for god's sake, but he said it. and he's constantly trying to prove to the real elites that he's one of them. and the person who is the sort of focus, the trigger to his sense of illegitimacy is barack obama. he cannot stand that this black man legitimately got into harvard university when his daddy had to pay him in, became president of the united states that he was beloved as president, popular as president, that people around the world love and respect him. it bugs donald trump in the same way it bugs a lot of his voters

that that black guy got the job that they think they should've gotten or their kid didn't get into harvard but a black kid did. he feels the same anger and resentment and misplaced rage at obama. so birtherism was him doing what his voters do. it's because of mexicans and mexicans are the problem. it isn't the fact that coal is a dying industry or the fact that rich puticrats. and donald trump is the king of that. the man knows he is a fraud. he knows that his legitimacy is in question. a former president, jimmy carter, has now questioned his legitimacy only. so donald trump trying to sort of fix his psyche by attacking barack obama, well, he needs a new person to fix his psyche. on comes kamala harris. so he knows that these attacks are going to happen. his son has now been duped twice. so we know that trump is an easy

mark. >> that's what you say it is. i love it. >> he's an easy mark, right? he's open to whatever he thinks he can help his dad so he thinks his father will love him more, i guess. >> i was going to say real quick to what you just said, joy. listening to that clip on birtherism and everything else that the president says. america hears your tell. whenever the president says, call it a lie and move on because the next sentence, word, phrase out of his mouth will be a lie. it is not -- i want to know who all these people talking to him telling this information that he's now spewing out. oh, i hear there were 500,000 people, not 50,000. at that moment where he's correcting moment where putin said 25 million people that presumably the president of the country should know who died in world war ii. and trump comes back, i hear it was 50 million, stop it. press, don't write that story.

-- don't right that story. whenever he comes out with i heard or people say -- >> or my friend jimmy. jimmy's never real. he doesn't know anyone named jimmy. [ laughter ] >> jimmy is running for this eyeball to that eyeball. let me tell you where jimmy plays, he's right here, this eyeball, that eyeball. >> i want to push you on something because i have heard this from someone who saw him around the holidays after mattis' resignation, we live in dog years, it feels like seven years ago, but it felt like perilous times. after mattis left and as he was sort of laying the foundation for the government shutdown which was a political and human calamity this person was with the president and he said the difference between the president now and the president before he was elect school district he doesn't know anymore when he's

lying. >> wow. i just let that marinate for a moment because that is the essence of where we are. when you engage in this space and those of us in politics, particularly those of us who deal with candidates and operatives, you're almost kind of trained to get a sense of that where the lying edge is. and when someone crosses have err that line where their reality becomes their lie and their lie becomes reality, that is particularly a problem when they are in leadership. when your staff and the people who are there to protect you, remember the conversations three years ago all these folks who were going to come to the white house? >> the very best people. >> when you get to the point where the very best people can't deal with jimmy who is playing in between the two eyeballs, it's over. >> and i'm guessing that when ivanka is holding daddy's hand into north korea, we are there. when we come back, tackling the issue of electability in a crowded democratic field. how the first debates changed

that equation for voters. also ahead, the man who sold america. one of our friends here calls it the greatest con job in this nation's history. and gearing up for one of the biggest political showdowns of the year. robert mueller's public testimony on capitol hill. all those stories coming up. that's why we graduated to tide pods sport. finally something more powerful than the funk. tide sport removes even week-old sweat odor. it's got to be tide. i have one kid in each branch of the military. when i have a child deployed, having a reliable network means everything. (vo) the network more people rely on, gives you more. like a special price for military families and big savings when you switch. that's verizon.

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i'm liz belizabeth warren. >> julian castro. >> my big idea, my big idea is to fix our democracy and return power to people. >> my big idea is a freedom dividend of 1,000 a month for every american starting at age 18. >> i'm senator bernie sanders, and we're fighting for medicare for all. >> my big idea is. >> i want to cancel student loan debt and provide for universal free college. >> my big idea is to fight addiction and treat mental health. >> strengthen american democracy.

>> my big idea is for america to defeat the climate crisis. >> my big idea is skills training. >> my big idea is universal pre-k. >> paid family leave. >> my big. >> raise teacher pay. my big idea is to bring peace and prosperity to our nation by ending wasteful wars and investing in our people. >> there are two dozen candidates with big ideas representing every corner of their big tent. policy obviously a crucial discussion ahead of any election. but for democrats this time around, there is something that might be of equal importance. i would argue more. the ability to beat trump. that sentiment is reflected in recent polling. one survey found. with that in mind another poll this week asked democrats to rate candidates by who has the

best policy ideas. elizabeth warren had the clear favorite. but when asked to rate the candidates on who has the best chance to beat trump, it's biden, more than the next three candidates combined. everybody is still here. do you think that the quinnipiac poll out this week and kamala harris' performance in debate shakes up electability? they seem to track, right? >> i totally think it shakes up electability. what did we see the last two days of debate? we saw women taking charge and winning the first woman. and who were the two that are surging up into the polls? it's warren and elizabeth -- elizabeth warren and harris. they not only introduced themselves but they showed that they can be on the stage with donald trump, in particular harris as we saw in the second debate. so you are seeing that in the polls right now.

>> i think they should kick his ass. [ laughter ] >> i'm saying it nicely. >> nicer than me. you're nicer than me too, go. >> and here's where the fight happens. >> with all due respect to all my brothers and sisters at the table, the electability question relative to the quinnipiac poll, there is no correlation in my estimation at this point between the two and the voters' mind. i think the voters saw that performance by both of those women, very fine performances those two nights and said i like them, and that moves them up. >> do you think kamala harris' toughness -- >> i don't think -- see, this is the thing about -- i just don't think the voters are in that space yet where -- no, maybe

against some democrats in the primary sphere, maybe. i am thinking more broadly because these polls are not distinguishing between a poll and a general election. they are kind of lumping it all together. so you have to look at how the voters are seeing this in totality. i don't think they are making the judgment, this woman's a fighter, she can beat trump. >> but that's what gets the primary. >> no, you go first. >> i was just saying the whole point of joe biden leading is because people think he could be beaten -- he could beat donald trump. that's the whole point of and name i.d. >> that's the 42%. >> when you have kamala harris showing she can take on joe biden, what message does that send? it goes into his electability. >> you know what is helping electability is the very thing that elizabeth warren and others are putting on the table. you are not going to divorce the policy positions that these individuals are taking today

into a general election and think that's going to get any of them elected. the country is not going to buy down on what they are selling. >> can i just say one thing? >> but you are switching the two things. >> just the video that you showed nicole going in. when i interviewed kamala harris, it was the same thing. when i asked her what was her big idea? she said a middle-class tax cut. and i was taken aback. then the video you just saw was raise teacher pay. she signed on some of the big, big democratic progressive ideas like medicare for all. but when she talks to voters she does talk past the primary electability and she presents herself as a kitchen table candidate. she is careful to say, number one, i can prosecute trump. if i can take this guy, biden, i can definitely take trump. that gets you the basis. so maybe biden isn't the only one who can take trump apart. and i know her and i like her. then when she's asked what would

you do, cut your taxes and raise teacher pay, who is doesn't like that. so i think she has a very interesting way of speaking to both the primary and the general electorate. >> it seems to me that the name recognition of biden is at the heart of that number, 42%. and the idea that because he comes out of the obama administration almost guarantees us a victory against donald trump. but underneath that at least from my vantage point is. the problem isn't it goes to the republican party. it goes to the senate, mcconnell, goes to the way in which we've been governed. it goes to the republican party, it goes to those corporate, centrist democrats who have been complicit with these folks. so i think at the base there are folks who are looking for substantive change because i still think we are in a change election cycle. so people aren't trying to settle and go back for something that once was.

the reason trump and obama got elected is because they do not like what is happening in d.c. and what is happening in their homes. that hasn't changed. so if you get someone who, biden, who wants to double down on what we once had, when that was the source of the change election, folks aren't going to be excited about it, so what i'm seeing is that over the course of the primary, you are going to see folks introducing themselves, introducing bold changes, kitchen table, kitchen table policies. then you're going to see shifts in those numbers, i think. so we're actually in batting practice right now. we haven't thrown the first pitch for the first inning. >> well, that sounds exciting. up next we will talk to joy about her new book, how donald trump is waging a new civil war on america and what will be left of the country when he's done. wow! that's ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar. it's a sit-up, banana! bend at the waist! i'm tryin'!

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they're not sending their best. they are bringing drugs, they are bringing crime. they're rapists. and some, i assume, are good people. >> our inner cities, african-americans, hispanics, are living in held because it's so dangerous. you walk down the street, you get shot. but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. >> it has always, always been at the heart of candidate trump's pitch to voters and president trump's, and it's been an undercurrent of his entire presidency. as our friend joy reid writes in her book, race is the secret to unlocking the outcome to the 2016 election. she says, quote, trump seemed to normalize the public display of thuggery and open racism by white americans who felt empowered to assert themselves. they would decide who was really an american who belonged in public spaces and who had any

rights they were bound to respect. .was indeed waging a new american civil war. i remember seeing you and talking to you on election night when sort of the shock was still really raw. and my offense to trump's campaign was sort of built around two pillars where i accepted the polls because i thought americans would not elect someone who said women let you do anything when you're famous, you can grab them in the bleep who said things like she was bleeding everywhere, who attacked the former ms. america pageant. and then all of the things that we just played and then the muslim ban which we didn't play. running for american president were some of our closest allie for better or for worse. he's ended up being very close to the saudis. the racism out in public, i remember thinking on election night that was going to be one of the biggest finger in the socket things for our country,

and it has been. and you write the best book that's been written to date about that. >> thank you. that's very kind. you know who else used to agree with that, lindsey graham. i mean, the reality is, is that, i interviewed a ton of people for this book including, and read a lot of research just to make sure that i was clear on how he got elected. and there is no data to support the idea that donald trump was elected because of economic anxiety. what really elected him was racialized anxiety so that if your economic situation isn't as good as your parents, you blame it on mexicans. the fact that cold is dead, the fact that multinational corporations would rather employ cheap labor overseas. i remember one thing that i quoted in the book is that democrats and people of color may not control the economy, the economics, the money, but liberals control the commanding

heights of culture. and for a lot of white americans, the idea that they don't control the culture, that the culture doesn't resolve around them anymore, that they are not the focus of the democratic party's attention, that they are now looking at these brown immigrants who care more about them than me, i turn on the tv and everyone who i'm told is the coolest and the most important and the most impressive and the most fashionable are black or brown, that oprah is the person who i am supposed to think is the most important rich person, not someone like me. donald trump is your racist uncle jerry that's sitting around screaming about japan and china ruining america and mexicans moving into the neighborhood and making it dirty and trashy. that's who he is. so he can live in a gold palace all he wants. he's them. >> and this archy bunker parallel, although i think he had more of a heart and family that cared about him. >> but he was also the queen. >> but if you see trump in public, i think he's much more isolated than archie bunker.

but we can have this debate another time. i want to stay on the book. this point about culture, though, i was flipping around. i came across fox. and the segment was about telling hollywood we don't need your stinking movies and we don't -- i was like really? there is so much news. we took a foreign trip and a fake tariff war and stuff that i would think republicans used to care about. what is the sort of undercurrent of that culture war because we don't really talk about that all the time. but there is a raging hot culture war going on. >> 100% and donald trump channels it. donald trump resents hollywood. when he got married the third time to melania, his current wife, a lot of political celebrities were there, but a lot of stars who none of them would probably admit to being there now, but his third wedding was a star-studded affair. it was the achievement of his

ultimate dreams. donald trump both resents hollywood and craves them. he wants "the new york times" to love him. he wants to be getted in hollywood. he wants to be able to throw parties like barack obama used to do for the unveiling of a movie in the white house and have stars show up. he can't. and he's so angry. he can't do it. he thought, and i think in his mind if the black guy could get all of it, then so should i. and i think that he shares his basis resentment that the culture won't come to them, that the movies aren't about them, the culture won't cater to them. they want to be the center of attention again. and donald trump says, you know what, i will make you the center of attention. you're the center of my attention. i don't give a dam about the brown people and i will hurt them for you. i will let you watch them get hurt. i will do a roman colosseum for you and put little brown kids and abuelas in it, and i will physically demonstrate that i am your guy, not their guy and it's

not their country. >> you know what's amazing to me though about the analysis is that that've enough for hiss en. he wakes up every day completely agitated. at commentary from at something that a soccer star or a basketball player said. if he was -- and this is where i think his base is getting screwed. if he was happy with their love and he has their love, no doubt, he wouldn't be agitating for everybody else's attention. he would just be quiet and be happy knowing i'm for you and you're for me, kumbaya. >> he has their worship. he has an almost religious -- he doesn't want it. what he wants is that if robert de niro would change his mind and call him tomorrow, he would love it.

he couldn't get even rupert murdoch. he's the queen's rich guy who look at the manhattan rich and said i want to be with them. they looked at him like he was garbage. like, they laughed at donald trump. i've gone out of the country and talked to really rich people. they laugh at donald trump. they know he wasn't a billionaire. they know it was all a joke. and he knows it too. there's a legitimacy crisis inside in him. and there is a bottomless pit of need inside of him. right now it's just being filled by his base because they worship him, but he wants what obama had, and he can never have it. and in his mind it's because obama was black and he was the affirmative action president just like a lot of his base goes that job i should've gotten, that person got it because they were black. trump channels them utterly, but he doesn't even want them. he wants us and he can't have us. >> this book's amazing.

congratulations. >> thank you. >> the book is called "the man who sold america." still ahead, robert mueller prepares to go public on capitol hill as democrats and republicans prepare for battle. s aren't actually in the room? hey, that baker lady's on tv again. she's not a baker. she wears that apron to sell insurance. nobody knows why. she's the progressive insurance lady. they cover pets if your owner gets into a car accident. covers us with what? you got me. [ scoffs ] she's an insurance lady. and i suppose this baker sells insurance, too? progressive protects your pets like you do. you can see "the secret life of pets 2" only in theaters. depend® fit-flex underwear" for all day fun... features maximum absorbency, ultra soft fabric and new beautiful designs for your best comfort and protection guaranteed. life's better when you're in it. be there with depend®.

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see prime minister -- >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> i think he is a total conflicted person. i think mueller is a true never-trumper. he is somebody who dislikes donald trump. >> what a difference telling the truth makes. trump taking on a very different tone about robert mueller after hearing his findings straight from the source. so it's no surprise that robert mueller's upcoming testimony now less than two weeks away has trump and his allies preparing for battle. as greg sergeant writes in the washington post, there's a reason. he would think that that strategy for trump's allies would be to simply sit back while mueller describes those

findings. oddly enough that's not what they are planning on doing. the absurdity at the core of this disconnect. joining our conversation former u.s. attorney joyce vance. i never thought i would start a news read with the battleplan to attack robert s. mueller from republicans in the house is x, y,z. robert s. mueller led the fbi in the terrifying months and years after 9/11. he is the only fbi director in our country's history who had his tenure extended. where is the sort of, you know, wake me up, i am in a hellscape of a nightmare? >> it to attack mueller himself. you know, prosecutors are used to this strategy when you don't have anything as a defendant when you can't argue the facts or the law, you go after the

prosecutors. and it never works. you watch defendants do this over and over as a prosecutor, and they never seem to learn that prosecutors have only one job, and that is to marshal the law and the facts and to see whether there is a prosecutable case. we've seen them do this in hearings probably most of the folks on the committee will end up seeding their time back to jim jo roadan and he will try to sort of bump rim shots off of mueller. but the reality here is the evidence that's contained in the mueller report is so damaging to this president, that i think will come through no matter what they do. >> well, and, joyce, let's talk about that for a little bit because i think this debate, the narrative around mueller testimony is already sort of slipped away from democrats' control. robert mueller doesn't need to say anything that's outside the four corners of the report.

robert mueller would actually do the most devastating damage to donald trump to stay very much just right within the four corners of the report, like close his eyes, flip open any page and just start reading. >> could not agree with that more. and i think it's a mistake for people who are viewing mueller through a partisan lens, oh, he'll support democrats or, oh, he'll damage republicans. >> he won't know which or which. the republicans will be the one acting like jerks. he won't -- he's not a political animal. and i'm going out on a limb here. i'm guessing he doesn't watch a lot of cable news. i don't know that he'll know who these people even are. >> you know, mueller is savvy, and he spent time on capitol hill. it's not like he's coming up for his first match with congress. but i think that said, he will have a studied disregard as a prosecutor, understanding that his job constitutionally speaking is a very limited one.

i think he will try to stick to his job, and ultimately that may cause the republicans trying to do him damage a little bit of heartache while he's up there with them. >> so, let's talk about the republicans, michael still likely to do him damage. michael will face a grilling from trump's top republican allies in congress including representative jim jordan, never seen in a jacket, matt gaetz, gats? >> gates. >> he's the run who threatened cohen's wife and devin nuñez who's been investigated. no wonder you need the russians. but these are the constant things to the collusion that is well established even though the criminal conspiracy was not. this is from the new york times reporting from their obstruction they beginning of the year. the president cheered on the lawmakers on twitter, in interviews and in private,

urging mr. gates, gats, sorry the e is silent. he was hoping for fair treatment from mr. mueller, mr. trump told mr. gates. that did not preclude him from encouraging his allia' scrutinizing. are they running trump? these are the guys though in all seriousness you want to talk about how ruthless republicans can be. they tried to impeach republican deputy attorney rod rosenstein when they were mad at him. so they are not elegant but they are ruthless. >> they are. what they're playing is the game of keep away. so they want to keep away from the president's doorstep everything that could be the least bit incriminating, the least bit damaging, the least bit destructive to his presidency with respect to the campaign and subsequent.

so i look for these individuals, duly named, to go out and be the front line. this is for everything. >> this is war. >> because you've now got the guy have the guy that wrote the report sitting in front of them. and so as best and search and seizure you can do the ultimate takedown of him and discredit him, the better. >> to them, not for the country. joyce vance, what would you advise democrats who will be asking the questions of special counsel mueller to ask? >> you know, i sat in the seat mueller is going to sit in a couple of weeks ago testifying, and it strikes me both in that seat but also watching that the democrats need a concerted approach. i understand it's a political moment for the members. but this is one of those times where they should either designate one of their number or perhaps use their professional staff and lead mueller through the results in the report through the conclusions that he reached that russia attacked us,

that he could not prove a conspiracy but that there was a lot of evidence of coordination between the campaign and russia and that people tried to conceal evidence of conspiracy. and finally that there were multiple acts of obstruction committed. if democrats can walk mueller through that litany, it will be a powerful moment. >> well, joyce vance, thank you for spending some time with us today. after the break filling the void of leadership in the age of donald trump. with the u.s. women's national team headed to the world cup, a closer look at the co-captain, a woman making a name for herself as a new age-american hero.. ro.. woman: (on phone) discover. hi. do you have a travel card? yep. our miles card. earn unlimited 1.5 miles and we'll match it at the end of your first year. nice! i'm thinking about a scuba diving trip.

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not many kicks left in this game. that was it! the u.s. wins. they're onto the final. >> feels so good to cheer. and with that, the united states will play in the world cup final this sunday led by an emerging american hero, or shero. the team's co-captain, megan rapinoe, you might remember in 2016 she became the first white professional athlete to support colin kaepernick's protest of racial injustice. she knelt to the anthem prior to games before u.s. soccer made standing a rule. then earlier this year she was part of a lawsuit that alleged gender discrimination. she and her teammates pointed to their counterparts of the men's team. and the unequal pay, working conditions, and medical treatment they observed. as a result just a few weeks ago rapinoe and her teammates began

mediation with the u.s. soccer federation. then last week she went toe to toe with donald trump. rapinoe who came out as day in -- gay in 2012 has repeatedly criticized the trump administration over a number of issues. she told a magazine she was, quote, not going to the bleeping white house if they were invited. trump fired back with a three-tweet barrage where he insisted she should, quote, win before she talks. one journalist reflected on her legacy and said she is her generation's muhammad ali. quote, through her example, rapinoe has instructed the world on how to play soccer. her genius is of her political commitments, her public persona and her playing style are one in the same. in every realm she is fearlessly open, outrageously joyous. and unabashedly true to herself. my shero of the year, we will be right back.

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we're still talking and laughing but we're out of time. michael steele and joy reid, mostly, thanks to you for watching. i'm nicolle wallace. off and running. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. last week's democratic presidential debate in miami marked the first milestone in the long road toward the 2020 presidential election. the debate was packed with standup moments and offered voters a glimpse of who could one day face donald trump. take a look. >> vice president biden, it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two united states senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this