at the 2020 democratic raise showing biden and warren leading the pack. president trump backs away from his plan to include a controversial citizenship question. he says the government will still get the information another way. a hurricane warning has been issued for parts of louisiana as tropical storm barry continues to gain strength in the gulf of mexico. >> good morning, i'm jeff

bennett alongside alex witness. yasmin has the week off. we made it to friday. >> the first nbc news wall street journal poll is finally here. the front runners were the two at center stage of each debate. joe biden leads by 26% and warren trails at just 19%. harris and sanders tied for 13% as pete buttigieg each with 7%. no other candidate in the race cracks below 1% below the qualifier. if given the choiz between ideology and the ability to win, 51% of democrats said their candidate who shared their views

and 45% says they want the person who has the best chance to beat donald trump. 47% chose harris. 32% picked senator warren. buttigieg and biden each impressed 15% of those polled. cory booker with just 6%. >> a fox news poll of south carolina shows the former vice president with with a big lead there. 35% say they would vote for biden, a 21% lead over sanders. harris in third with 12% with warren back at 5%. senator booker with 3% and buttigieg at 2%. biden's advantage shows a strong show of support from african-american voters among whom he receives 41% of the vote

compared to 25% for white democrats. and 22% for those over the age of 45. sanders leads among younger voters. an about face, president trump announced his administration is ending efforts to include citizenship question on the census. two weeks after the supreme court rebuked the administration's effort to include that question. last week, he said he was thinking of issuing an executive order. in the wake of the decision, the president ordered the federal government to instead compile citizenship data from existing federal records. as the "new york times" points out, that order seems to rei had rate the plan they announced last year. making it a way from trump to

cover his retreat. the president defended what proved to be a fruitless fight. >> i'm proud to be a citizen, you're proud to have be a citizen. the only people who are not proud to be citizens are the ones fighting us all the way about the word citizen. the far left democrats in our country are determined to conceal the number of illegal aili aliens in our midst. they probably know the number is far greater and higher than believed before. this is part of a broader left-wing effort to erode the rights of the american citizen. >> we are not backing down on our efforts to determine the citizenship of the status.

>> congratulations on the executive order which will finally ensure 245 we have an 5:0 ras understanding of how many citizens and noncitizens live in our country. trump is giving up the fight over the citizenship question, the move could still have an impact on voting rights. as mentioned, the president has ordered the census bureau to gather information and ordered other federal agencies to turnover their citizenship data to the commerce department. as pointed out, the administration could use this information to draw districts based on citizenship rather than total population over the next redistricting cycle in 2021. as a result, political power could be shifted to whiter and more republican areas with fewer immigrants. alabama has sued to exclude

undocumented immigrants from counting in political appointments. we'll go to our guest, emily larsson. get to your reaction. i'm curious about the president really going back and forth. it's a full-on change of course to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census. the question is, are they going to be able to work around it? >> i think trump is definitely visibly frustrated in the rose garden. this is something he wanted. the supreme court knocking this down is a major goal to his goals. i think there will be some ways for different agencies to compile information and share it. there are agencies planning to do something along the same lines before this was announced yesterday. another question is whether there will be other legal

questions raised from how they will decide to compile this information or target people, whether there are issues about redistricting along citizenship lines rather than people. >> let's turn back to the latest poll numbers. we are getting a better sense from poll after poll who this top tier is. what do you make of the fact that you have warren, biden and harris too. the margin of error is roughly 3.5 points. >> this poll shows we have a clear top four or five there including buttigieg. that is conformed by how much money these candidates are raising. the other thing that is interesting is that elizabeth warren is kind of overtaking the place bernie sanders had last time around as the progressive.

he's not the soul anti-establishment alternative. she is cementing her place as the preferred liberal progressive. a hurricane warning was in effect yesterday as tropical storm barry threatened as much as 20 inches of rain and dangerous storm surges. barry is headed for the louisiana coast later tonight. its slow pace means rain would remain over the cost for an unusually long time resulting in a threat of severe flooding. president trump declared an emergency in louisiana authorizing the federal emergency management agency to coordinate efforts. they've already begun preparations and many towns are already evacuating until that storm is over.

lets turn to bill ckarins. >> happy to report nothing happened overnight. it went from winds of 40 to 50. i would be surprised if we see any significant wind damage. this is all about how much water it will produce in the amount of rainfall or in the storm surge to push on the shore. doesn't even look like the tropical system. will most likely be sunny in these places too. the heavy rain on the south side will transform there will be life-threatening flash flooding. takes you here into central louisiana as we go through out the overnight period. we wake up saturday morning, there is no eye. more or less the center of the

circulation will move on shore. here is the rainfall forecast over the next five days. when you get to the colors here, purple is five, red is seven. pink is 10 inches of rain or more. we are focusing in here. the flood area is from memphis through the heart of mississippi, eastern portions of louisiana, baton rouge and mobil. the heaviest rainfall totals will be watching the center moving on shore and the east of it. flash floods for jackson, hattiesberg and new orleans. expecting 3 to 6 feet of storm surge. here is the good news. yesterday at this time, they were predicting that the mississippi would be about 20 feet. right now, they are saying 19 feet. so they've lowered it.

that should keep it below the flood walls. sos that good. >> this is the first big test for louisiana since after katrina when they rebuilt the pumps and the levees. >> they did have isaac to deal with. this is the highest since all of the the heavy rainfall in the spring. it is much higher than are this time of year. acting second of homeland securi security hosted a town hall with dhs personnel. he toured that station where congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez said she learned migrants were being told to drink out of toilets.

his visit came the same day nbc confirmed i.c.e. agents are expected to target nearly 2,000 families in a major cities across the u.s. many are blasting trump's decision to allow this to happen. >> this means kids being left, moms, dads, families being attorntorn apart. it is disgusting. >> i'm going to appeal to the people of faith to appeal to the president. >> this is fundamentally unfair. it has nothing do with the security and safety of the united states. >> still ahead, to avoid jail before trial, lawyers for jeffery epstein are offering a pack ooj up to $77 million. >> the white house abandons the

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welcome back. seeking bail for their client, jeffe jeffery epstein's lawyer said he long feared sexual charges but said he was never in fear of leaving the country. he pled not guilty to sex trafficking charges. his lawyers suggested house arrest offering his $77 million manhattan mansion as collateral. his trial from 2007 cover the

same ground. lots of questions for this guy. i'm curious what you make of a $77 million bail package. the house, the jet but perspective here. this is for a billionaire. it is a drop in the bucket for him, right? >> that would be a problem if you had others calculating this is how much you make so there for, your bail should be this much. that might be problematic. in this case, bail is just about, will you show up for striel and are you a danger to the community. in this case, he's charged with a crime. no amount of conditions will ensure he will show up for trial. his attorneys will make an

argument. you take these facts sand turn them into a benefit for bail argument which is sure he's wealthy which means he could flee, sure he would be recognizable. he can check in. he's 66 years old. where is he going to go? these same arguments have a double edged sword. these facts are used by defense attorneys like me, to make a completely different argument. remember, overarching all of this is the presumption. this creates a presumption he should be held. >> one of the reasons is because they say the crimes he's charged with are akin to quote, consumer or purchaser behavior. >> this is not so much sex

trafficking, more a kin to prosecution or purchasing sex which is a local issue, it should not be a federal issue. watch that area because that is going to be the trust of the argument. they are going to say this is a contract epstein entered into and it is binding on the southern district of new york. when he entered this agreement, it was reasonably believed it would cover everything globally resolving all of his issues state, federal and local. >> yet, he still feared he would be arrested. >> that is something his attorneys concede. he always had this notion he might be arrested. >> appreciate it. disgraced movie moelg harvey

weinstein has hired a new legal team after his former attorney asked to get off the case. he explained his running adding his client insisted upon actions which i have fundamental disagreements. a new set of lawyers were approved by the new york judge overseeing the trial. this is what one had to say about her new role on the defense team. >> it is more effective to have a woman asking a woman questions. i can came across as not being bullying or offensive in any way. >> this is the trial of the charges of rain and other crimes. singer r. kelly has been arrested in chicago. the r&b singer whose real name is robert kelly was taken into

custody and the 13-count indictment includes child pornography and obstruction of justice. separate federal indictments were filed against kelly in chicago and brooklyn. he already faces separate state charges in illinois involving four women, three of whom were minors. he pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. still ahead, the house judiciary releases 12 new subpoena. we'll tell you who else the committee wants to hear from coming up next. [farmers bell]

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most people with commercial insurance pay nothing out of pocket. talk to your doctor and visit botoxchronicmigraine.com to enroll. . president trump has abruptly pulled one of his key proposals to lower the cost of precipitation drugs putting millions of americans in limbo. j yesterday, they abandoned the plan. back in february, the department of health and human services touted the now in this cased idea as being revolutionary. look at this. >> we are making the biggest transformation on how drugs are priced in america in history. >> yesterday, saying, quote, it is encouraged by continuing bipartisan conversations and falsely claimed that

precipitation drug costs have declined for the first time in almost 50 years. but actually since mr. trump took office, over 10,000 drug prices have increased with only 1,000 have gone down. the house judiciary committee released a blitz of new charges. tied to trump's possible attempts at obstruction. including jarr including jared kushner, michael flynn and others. and includes a group of the practice of separating children from their families at the border. in addition, the house agreed to a tuesday vote to hold william barr and ross in contempt over their refusal to hand over documents to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census.

still ahead, new remarks from alexandria ocasio-cortez. and joe biden lays out his vision. highlights from that speech coming up next. u're sensitive. delicious. now, i've heard people say lactaid isn't real milk. ok, well, if it isn't real then, i guess those things over there can't actually be cows. must be some kind of really big dogs, then. sit! bad dog. o♪ ozempic®! ♪ oh! oh! (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7 and maintained it. oh! under 7? (announcer) and you may lose weight.

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welcome back. i'm jeff bennett alongside alex witness in for jasmine who is off this week. to the top stories.

president trump is now saying the government will collect the information in a different way. my colleague hallie jackson has the story. >> reporter: president trump still determined to count how many people are legally living in this country. >> today, i'm here to say we are not backing down on our determination. >> reporter: it won't be a question on the 2020 census. the president is retreating from that fight and directing federal agencies to give records they already have. >> we will defends the right of the american people to know the full facts about the population, size of citizens and noncitizens in america. >> reporter: it comes after they refused to allow the commerce department to include the controversy at sill zenship question on the census.

>> these delays would have completed us from completing at the time. it is regrettable but will not stop us from getting the needed information. >> arguing including that question on citizenship could make immigrants too afraid to respond, under counting the number of people in those communities. >> while president trump tried to claim victory, they describe this as a total lnd complete defeat for him. president trump lashed out at former house speaker paul ryan in a series of tweets after details revealed in a new book ryan's negative views. trump tweeted, paul ryan, failed vp candidate whose record was a

trophy shus. adding, quote, he had at majority and blue ew it away. the upcoming new book "american carnage" details more. ryan said in an ex erpt, said, i told myself, vi to get my relationship with this guy right because he knew nothing about government. he saw his retirement from the house in 2018 as an escape after working with trump for two years. we've gotten so numbed by where we live our lives. we have a responsibility to rebuild our lives. don't call a woman a horse face,

don't cheat on your wife. set a good example. >> i want to read that book too. a house democrat is blasting house democrat of using the race card as she accused pelosi of being racially insensitive. se said the house speaker was singling out newly elected women of color like herself. she said, quote, what a weak argument because you can't get your way, you resort to using the race card. unbelievable. i could careless. i could really careless. i agree with the speaker, four people, four votes. who cares?

joining us now from washington. it occurs to me, look, as you well-known on capitol hill votes are currency. nancy pelosi controls the votes and the hard power. aoc and what they refer to as the squad has a huge following on social media. what about the messaging here? you have aoc accusing nancy pelosi of attacking young women of color. democrats would rather aim their fire at president trump. >> right. for the past three years or so since president trump came on the scene, democrats have been pointing at president trump as the racist. now that they are back in power in the house majority and

fighting over the scraps of power, it seems like they are pointing fingers at each other and calling each other racist. the rhetoric has descended to a low place. tensions are extremely high. everyone is taking a side in this battle. most democrats are in nancy pelosi's corner. the inside power versus the outside power. pelosi knows where the votes are. she has the majority of the democratic caucus on her side. she necessitiknows basically on votes, she needs to wrangle all voters to move her policies across the line. aoc and the so-called squad are operating outside the capitol. their power is on twitter

outside the capital. >> i understand you've been learning new details about members of the congressional democratic black caucus. put all of this together, how does this impact the election next year? >> it is tearing the democrats apart at the moment, which is not a great message when the presidential candidates are arguing about race. going back to the justice democrats, this is all tied together. justice democrats is aligned closely with aoc, ocasio-cortez. a lot of these black lawmakers feel the justice democrats, the aoc group is coming after them. they are saying, perhaps this is

racially motivated. why is this group targeting the lawmakers of color that have a progressive and long record in congress. this is just exacerbating some of these racial tensions. we'll continue to see this play out. >> thank you for your time. we appreciate it. >> joe biden has released a three pillar plan meant to chart a new course after emboldening states and diminished america's standings. >> american foreign policy needs to be purposeful and encouraging not by twitter tant tan trumps. if we give donald trump's four more years, we'll have a great deal of difficulty if ever being

able to recover america's standing in the world to bring nations together. as president of the united states, i would remind the world that we are the united states of america and we do not coddle dictators. trump's stance of america first has too often led to america alone making it harder to come to our common well-being. >> the incredible footage showing the coast guard busting a drug smuggling sub in the middle of the ocean. we are keeping a clear watch on the waters of the gulf. bill karins will have the latest look at that and where it is

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>> welcome back. tropical storm barry is continuing to churn with the potential of makingland this weekend. let's go to bill for the latest. >> it doesn't really matter. this storm was never really a big wind threat. it was threatening to do major wind damage. how much water will be produced. what will happen with the storm surge and how will new orleans handle it? i'm happy to report the new orleans piece of this saying it should stay under the levee heights. the forecast may not be as accurate as saying it will be 80

degrees and sunny. moving on shore overnight tonight, so about 18 to 20 hours from now and a big rain maker throughout the weekend. as far as the rainfall forecast, this area of pink, they say 10 inches plus and could be up to two feet of rain. doesn't matter if they get to hurricane status or not. mississippi and eastern louisiana. the flood threat will increase late today. going through tomorrow, we have a high risk of flash flooding here in louisiana and mississippi. that means typically damage to property, businesses and roads washed out. that's the biggest fear to this storm. they are saying new orleans should be okay. >> can you remind viewers again about driving into water.

>> between the flooding pictures we had in d.c. where it seemed like hundreds of people were driving through the water. there was areas of flooding in new york city yesterday. if you see water, don't go there. >> the incredible footage a u.s. coast guard member jumped on to a moving submarine. part of a drug smuggling operation that occurred back in mid-june showing the u.s. coast guard cutter commissioned two years ago pulled up next to the submarine traveling at the surface. a member of the team can be heard yelling to stop and saying in english, that's going to be hard to get on. a leading member jumps on and proceeds to bang on the hatch while this thing is moving

through the pacific ocean. here he goes. he's going to bang on the thing and open the hatch. insane. 17,000 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $200 million found inside. small, self-propelled subs are often used by the car tell to smuggle drugs. >> i guess once the hatch was open, they are not going to go diving. the wheel thing is just nuts. >> all in the day's work. >> give that guy a raise. still ahead, president trump hammers social media companies over what he calls the terrible bias. >> social media companies

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>> we hardly do press releases anymore. people don't pick it up. it is me saying -- if i put it out on social media, it's like an explosion. i call twitter a typewriter.

it goes on to facebook, instagram and television. more so fox than cnn. if it's something bad, they'll put it on. if i have a spelling deal, they will put it on. donald trump spelled the word the wrong. he spelled it thi, you know they couldn't get any kind of a punctuation mistake, they put it on. i am very, very careful. the fingers aren't as good as the brain. >> that was president trump defending his use of social media in an official capacity during a summit on social media yesterday at the white house and he talked about his near daily typos. >> also criticizing the social media companies about their terrible bias and tech giants

were not invited to attend. >> we have a terrible bias, censorship nobody can understand or believe. no doubt in my mind i should mit i should have millions -- i have millions people, so many people i wouldn't believe it. but i know that we have been blocked. big tech must not censor the voices of the american people. to all of the social media influencers here today, a lot f of -- you have a lot of power and you have a lot of strength and, you know, you have to use it wisely. >> and the president also voiced his concerns about cryptocurrencies citing bitcoin and citing libra specifically and dependable and reliable u.s. dollar should be the only one real currency in the usa. cnbc's joumanna bercetche is joining us live from london with a welcome to you. what do you think it was that prompted the president's tweets last night? >> well, you were just talking

about the social media summit that was held at the white house yesterday. perhaps no coincidence that he also tweeted about cryptocurrency and specifically facebook's libra project during the course of the social media summit and facebook were not invited to attend. so perhaps that's one of the reasons that they were front and center. there will be congressional hearings on facebook's cryptocurrency libra that is set to happen next week over the course of tuesday and wednesday. i do want to add though that it isn't just the president who has been talking about regulation of cryptocurrency. his is among a huge number of voices out there calling for further scrutiny of the particular asset class including the fed chair jerome powell who mentioned libra a few days ago in his own testimony to the senate and said that for the scrutiny will be required nerd for this cryptocurrency to become more mainstream. >> and another question for which there is no natural segue. it's about the price of avocados

which -- >> he loves his guacamole. >> look, the price has spiked dramatically in the last couple of weeks so what it is behind it? >> avocado prices are up about 130% from a year ago. so one avocado today costs about $2.50. three reasons. number one, demand. people are eating avocados of the every day of the year now. supply, just to give you an idea, california is coming up to the end of their avocado season. they posted the smallest crop in over a decade. third reason, the trade war. about 90% of the avocados in the united states come from mexico. there are concerns about tariffs and the impact that's going to have on potential prices but they're set to ramp up production in a few weeks time so maybe there is some relief in sight for millennials.

>> so instead of cryptocurrencies we can hoard the avocados and trade them. >> thank you, joumanna bercetche. coming up, axios' jonathan swan has a look at the "1 big thing" and then one front-runner makes a big move in the polls. we have a full breakdown of the new numbers placing senator elizabeth warren behind joe biden. and president trump abandons the bid on getting the question about the census question. "morning joe" is moments away now. nsus question. "morning joe" is moments away now.

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and joining us from washington with a look at axios a.m. is national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan. good morning. >> good morning. >> so what's the one big thing for this morning? >> conservatives in the administration, senior level and top figures in the conservative legal movement are stunned and depressed by the president's last minute retreat on his fight to put a citizenship question in the census.

sources with direct knowledge told me that the president's supreme court adviser leonard leo, hugely influential figure and other federal stalwarts were shocked and floored by how weak was the word used -- the decision was. >> but i'm curious about administration officials, jonathan. how sudden was this? we know what he's intimated all this time, we know where his head is for sure. but in terms of putting this together with anything like an executive order or some sort of legislation to put it together, it has been back and forth. so i'm curious, also that delay, 40 minutes yesterday before they got out in the garden. i mean, how much of this was coming together at the last minute? what do you know about that? >> i don't have a full tick tock that -- look, i'm -- there's a lot of gaps for me in the last 12 hours. but what we reported all along was 100% right which is that the

president wanted to do an executive order. he said so on the record after we reported it and oh, no, it's not happening and then he came out and said it. but justice department lawyers were staunchly opposed to this. they thought it was a long fight, it was logistically import, the commerce department was opposed. and this is trump being ground down by the lawyers in the administration and among the senior officials who wanted this fight, they are at the moment just heaping scorn and blame upon those lawyers because they thought that this was a fight that they needed to have. >> jonathan, we were just talking about about the president's social media event and axios is looking at the potential for the president taking action against the industry. he suggested in the past he was going to sue twitter for instance. so what are you hearing about all that? >> so my colleagues and i spoke

to three sources in the room. the most interesting exchange happened as often happens when they kicked -- after they kicked the media out of the room. ryan foreign aye, this is a paraphrase said to the president, a lot of conservatives are concerned about, you mean, regulation. do you think if we just keep putting pressure on these companies they will self-correct? and the president said and again this is a paraphrase, i don't trust them to self-correct. which many people in the room took as a signal that he was open to if not supportive of more regulation on these companies and obviously, you know, as a separate track you have the justice department looking at antitrust with some of these companies. >> you know, the president always claims that there's bias on social media against him. any hard evidence to back up that claim? >> well, so there's a ton of evidence that tech employees are overwhelmingly left wing and opposed to trump. but do we have any evidence that

they have built that into the algorithms, no. >> okay. well, that's good to know. do you think this is the last we have heard of this from the president? i mean, realistically. >> no. >> i guess that was a laugh with that one -- >> is that a joke, are we ending on a joke? no, of course. this is like -- this is like an issue now that has -- that is animating the republican base especially the online republican base. this is one of the hottest issues and you have his eldest son, don jr., probably more than any other issue is animated by this. so no, this is the start of what i think is going to be a pretty aggressive -- i think it will be a campaign issue. i think president trump will incorporate it into his campaign for sure. >> it plays right into the trump brand of grievance politics, you're right. >> 100%. yeah. >> jonathan swan, thanks. >> thanks for having me. >> stick around. k