with stand the sheer force of the current. there is a levee system that costs millions of dollars that was put in place especially in new orleans. but when you come to the other parishes like this one, you see that they're completely unprotected. good morning and welcome to a.m. joy. we are watching a ton of news, as you just saw. we're keeping an eye on tropical storm barry which is threatening to hit the gulf coast later today. we will keep you posted on any developments there. however, there is another deeply disturbing story that we're watching pretty much in horror. the fallout has just begun to unfold from registered sex offender jeffrey epstein who infamous skated with a sweetheart deal on previous charges of abusing teenaged girls in 2008. but who now faces federal charges for allegedly running a sex trafficking operation that lured dozens of underage girls, some as young as sh to his homes

in manhattan and palm beach. epstein has pled not guilty. one of the key players in this controversy is donald trump's now outgoing labor secretary, alexander acosta who is the u.s. attorney based in miami who handed epstein that 2008 plea deal, but who resigned this week after initially trying to explain it away. acosta's secret deal with epstein blew up as a story after some great reporting from the miami herald which detailed the deem deal of a lifetime that allowed epstein to serve 13 months in jail and to leave that jail six days a week to work in a comfy executive office. the grotesque ways the rich and powerful escape accountability insulated from the rules and laws that would take ordinary people down. while it's unclear how much epstein was worth and, frankly, what exactly made him rich, one thing is clear.

he was very well connected. now you've heard the names a lot by now. former president bill clinton took lots of flight on his plane, britain's prince andrew and, of course, donald trump. he called epstein a great guy and a friend, but now trump claims he wasn't really a fan. and, of course, that's just the short list of rich, famous and powerful people that epstein's name is associated with. attorney general william barr said he once worked for one of the law firms that representeded epstein. one of epstein's first jobs was teaching at the elite dalton school in manhattan where barr's father, donald barr, resigned as head master in 1974, the same year that epstein began teaching there despite having no teaching degree and no experience. after that job, epstein headed off to the financial world to work for the father of one of his students, the chairman of bear stearns and branched out on his own with one known client, the founder of victoria secret,

and somehow epstein got really, really rich and somehow he amassed connections from harvard university to new york to palm beach, florida, including being legally represented by ken starr and former harvard profest every allen dirshowitz. timothy o'brien, joining me now, and thomas volshow. thank you all for being here. welcome to the show. i want to start where it ended that opening, which is the money. everyone knows jeffrey epstein is rich, he has lots of homes all over the world, in the virgin islands, in paris. how did he get all of that money? >> that's always been the mystery. you have to republic, epstein starts out as a -- from brooklyn, working class

brooklyn. and he makes his way through dalton under suspicious circumstances without a degree. from there, he goes to bear stearns and he makes limited partner in about four years, which is a little bit odd. and there he has some white collar crime issues with an insider trading deal that he was part of. from there, he blew through a bunch of money in the early 80s and he was borrowing jackets for the concord from people to appear very wealthy to his clients and he starts his own company. one is called intercontinental asset group. the next one was j. epstein & company. he takes about half a million dollars from a pinball ceo and the guy asked for it back years later and epstein gives him a $10,000 check and says that was for a horse i sold him and he sued over it. from there, epstein gets involved in a ponzi scheme called towers financial

corporation. epstein is very intelligent. he -- they took over an insurance company in illinois. they turned them into brokerage accounts to manipulate the price of pan am, the airline stock. and then the lockerbie, scotland, thing happened, the bombing. so that deal went through and epstein was bouncing around trying to get money from people. he was recovering money for wealthy people who had, like, lawyers steal money from them. and then he meets wexner -- >> the founder of victoria's secret. >> the founder of victoria's secret. and he mays a management role a little bit in victoria's secret. some people have surmised that maybe he's responsible for influencing the company to make provocative clothing for young children. >> let me go back to this for a second. the thing about it is, and

you've error theed you've reported on donald trump. so the myth of how he made his money, he build these myth but it isn't true. with epstein, the thing that i've been reading a ton about is no one who is in the financial services game knew who he was. normally, you would be familiar with the people who are trading and making a lot of money doing it. nobody was familiar with him. he seems to be this unknown entity who somehow, with one client that people know about, got really rich. does that seem suspicious to you? >> of course it's suspicious. and i suspect at the end of the day the way jeffrey epstein stayed in business year after year was providing a variety of financial services to clients. some of that could have been to mask or park trades. some of it possibly could have been classic money laundering. some of it could have been involved with perhaps brides related to the other things he was doing. and i think, you know, some of this is so speculative still, but there is a possibility that he blackmailed other men who

visited his homes and had sexual relationships with either girls or women by consent, but he had cameras in all of his houses. there's a real possibility as the story unwinds that one of the reasons he was protected over the years was because he had blackmail and were there payments associated with that? the federal filing that came in yesterday said he was making about 10 million a year and he had assets worth about $5 million. >> and i guess you're writing a book about this. i guess that would be the question, right? i read one piece that speculated. and no one knows the answer to this yet, but if, in fact, you are somebody who knew other people were into the same lurid stuff you were into, you could encourage them to leave your money with me and take the money and stick it in a bond fund and you didn't invest it, they make money, you make money, but they've got to do business with

you because you know stuff about them. is that something that people are thinking or that your researching could be the possibility? >> yes. i found that epstein never possessed a trader's license. it's called a series 7 license. and i checked with finra and they have no record of him ever being a trader. and he often has said i don't make the trades. i order people to make the trades. so it's a very good possibility. and then when you get in -- >> there's money documents you have to produce as a money manager. >> the only thing one of his associates told me is when the world training centers come down, the documents were housed in there. so in 9/11, a lot of white collar criminals might have been, ooh, there's something in there about me. so with epstein, he sort of has his hands in many pots. i think we were talking about virgin islands tax shelters.

they're kind of alluding to it. and if you go back to his history at bear stearns, he worked in the special products tax division, right? so he was probably advising wealthy clients early on. that is how he learned what he was doing early on how to hide their money. >> so however he made his money, he winds up very enskorconced a harvard. you can be ensconced because you're rich, right? that doesn't necessarily mean anything. but he's able to skate on something that would normally be so horrendous to most people that he would never get away with it. the idea that he was ritually abusing teenage girls -- >> in ways that were observe. >> right. >> and that was part of the why the plea deal that acosta entered into with him was so shocking. >> yeah. can you explain, then, okay, he's connected, okay? all right.

but his excuse was that the local grand jury, they were going to let him walk. they were essentially going to let him off on misdemeanors or something? does that make sense? >> no. it makes absolutely no sense and it's an outrageous statement. and the reason it's an outrageous statement and barbara mcquade wrote a great piece on this, prosecutors were prosecuting at the federal level under different laws from the state. that means it does not matter what the state does. you investigate and you prosecute your case based on the facts and evidence that you find four federal crimes. it is absolutely irrelevant. are there sometimes when you cooperate with local authorities in investigations and decide to treat the cases as a whole? absolutely. but that has -- that does not tie the hands of federal prosecutors. back to this conversation about the money and the relationships, why in acosta's plea deal does

it say immunity for any potential coconspirators, any. >> any potential coconspirators? >> no prosecutor ties their hands with -- to potential future crimes and conspiracy. >> for other unnamed people. >> so your honor how much you're digging into this. "the miami herald" has done this incredible reporting. now victims are starting to go on record. they're saying, well, other people were also abusing them, too, powerful people, famous people, rich people. is it possible in your reporting that part of the reason that he got away free is that he knew about other people who were also powerful? >> oh, yes. he assembled a dream team defense of attorneys and they put a lot of pressure on the

attorney's office including acosta and barry kirstner's office. there was a federal prosecutor named reinhart who was working with acosta and he gets a job on epstein's legal team. >> one of the things that jeffrey epstein was supposedly doing was making these young girls, as young as 14, children, give massages to himself and maybe other folks. here is allen dirshowitz. he did an interview with channel 10 in miami and here is the interview. oh, it's just a full screen. we don't have the video. okay. well, he says in this video -- there's a tv interview where he says, sure, i got massages at jeffrey epstein's mansion, but i

kept my underwear on. >> he also says it was an older russian woman who gave him the massage. >> he has called the women in the case liars, prostitutes. it's interesting that the original charge was for prostitution as if these girls, who were children, were prostitutes. >> well, they were certainly sex trafficking children. it's a form of prostitution, it's just forced prostitution. in this case, it's force bd by definition because of their age. you cannot consent to sexual relationships. this is not a financial transaction. this is a manipulation and a trafficking. >> let's go all the way back. we went past it quickly in the open, but the fact that he starts off as a school teacher. >> yes. >> if you are now known -- he is a convicted sexual offender, starts off teaching school, not cheer who hired him. there is a little bit of murkiness. you had some question about whether or not barr's dad hired him, the original 1974 story about him quitting says he

announced in february of 1974, barr did, that he was quitting the school, but he said the quitting was going to take place in june. that he was going to leave in june. then in september, this guy gets hired. so it's not clear when he was hired or who hired him. however, apparently there was some question about his actions at the school? >> yes. >> if you look at the school, the "new york times" found some actual former students who said that he acted in ways that were a little bit troubling. he was flirtatious with the students. >> wearing shirts where he's showing his chest and -- >> his hair exposed. i know it was is 70s and everything, but -- >> not at the dalton school it wasn't. >> william dalton was an authoritarian. >> so epstein at a deposition in to 309, epstein depositions are very tough to read because he will plead the fifth. and he does it for hours and the attorneys start asking him his name just to make sure he can still answer questions.

but there is one slip up he had. they asked him about the dalton school. and at the dalton school, they asked him how old were the children he was teaching there? and he said mostly old, mostly 17 to 18. if you're an attorney, you automatically hone in on he considers 17 and 18-year-old children to be old. >> to be old. >> and his victims from the sex trafficking cases say he loses interest around the age of 17. >> let's talk quickly before we go to break about donald trump. donald trump claims he wasn't a fan of his. did he know him? how wi how well? >> when i worked on my book about trump, trump regularly talked to my about je epstein. he felt they had lifestyles that were in synch. but what is happening now with this investigation in the southern district, they're going to get access to jeffrey epstein's videos. the other thing is, there is an outstanding claim, a jane doe claim filed right before the

election by a woman in her 30s who said in the 90s when she was 13, donald trump raped her in jeffrey epstein's town house in the upper east side. the voracity of that claim can be tested now by the southern district. they're investigating what occurred in jeffrey epstein's town house. they should interview every woman who came in and out of that town house, including the woman that made this claim against the president right before the election. she withdrew her claim because she got death threats. so the white house says her claims were baseless, but they left it at that. not the white house, but the trump campaign. >> that can be tested very quickly. >> there's something very interesting. she says '94, right? where was jeffrey epstein in 1994. he was leasing a building from the state department which means he would have commit today crime on federal property. >> okay. this is just so weerdz. tim o'brien, thank you very much. thomas, thank you very much. mya is going to stick with us.

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i think worst case, they have all these nasty photos of her in his house. >> and the question is who is on them? >> yeah. worst case. well, kids. this story to me is about one injustice, the justice system not working the way it's supposed to work. i don't even care about how it happened. let's stop doing it. >> on thursday, i had the opportunity to interview james parterson. the book is called "filthy rich." it resulted in the plea deal. patterson has been doing the media rounds this week since the wealthy, politically connected epstein was arrested for the alleged sex trafficking of dozens of minors in new york and florida between 2002 and 2005. epstein has plead not guilty. patter sewn told me he thinks there could be dozens if not hundreds of victims of epstein's predati in.

we'll play more from the interview in just a moment, but first let's bring back mya and joining us at the table is evert jones. david, we ended on the question of whether or not donald trump, you know, what was his relationship of him. i asked mr. patterson whether or not he thinks donald trump was just aware of whether or not jeffrey epstein was into very, very young teenage girls. listen to this. >> donald trump seems to have known that -- >> no, no, no. no, no. >> he said it. >> i don't even know what that means. epstein was a member or at least he was allowed to go to mar-a-lago. and he apparently was inappropriate with the daughter of one of the members, and trump threw him out. i also talked to the head of the spa there. i think these things were concurrent. i said did you know jeffrey epstein? she said yes, i did. she said he used to come here and i found him inappropriate with the young girls who were here.

i went to mr. trump at the time and mr. trump threw him out. >> so here is my challenge with this. mr. patterson has been telling this story. he seems to be the only source of the idea that donald trump had no idea of what was happening, but he just said that donald trump was told that trump was -- that epstein was inappropriate with young girls there. one of the young girls who has now accused jeffrey epstein was recruited a at mar-a-lago. how did donald trump not know? why did he throw him out? >> trump did know and the story is he did respond when he heard about this inappropriate recruitment of woman there. but he has been quoted as saying publicly that jeffrey epstein likes young girls. so the question that we have for him and with a lot of other people in this circle is what did you really know or think? did you think he was creepy because he hit on women half his age or do you think he was creepy because he was doing

something with 13 and 14 and 15-year-old easy? there's a big difference there. i spoke to someone who went to the dalton school when jeffrey epstein was teaching. and he's been racking his brain to think of anything that may be important. and he said we knew there were a lot of teachers there who were creepy and would hit on us, boys and girls, the young men and the young women. epstein was not one of those, in that category. we know things about people, but also we also sometimes not to ask the next question. so you go to his house, the mansion, and all these young women are around, do us something? do you go along because he's a pal, he's rich and he's powerful? >> former trump business associate is asked by donald trump in 1992 with jeffrey epstein to host a calendar girl party at mar-a-lago. and after he does and gets 28 girls together for this vip party, the vip party is with

donald trump and epstein. >> yeah. >> and that's it. so there are so many different pieces to this. if we go back to what tim o'brien was saying about the jane doe allegation of trump rape at jeff epstein's, if you track the althslegations in tha complaint, how she says she was recruited and manipulated into sexual trafficking and how she ends up there and she is directed to have sex with donald trump, it absolutely tracks the pattern of allegations both in miami and in the -- >> i just have to say one thing about this because i spent months on that. i was one of the first reporters who was given that story. i was given a story by a guy who is a hoax artist. .i checked on out addresses which did not exist and phone numbers that did not exist. that case ended up being

dropped. i think that case is not real. >> okay. >> and i'll tell tim this. the guardian did a great story. people can google it. and i hate says saying we need to be fair to donald trump, but in this case, i and other reporters spent months trying to nail this down. so i think that was exploited. >> i want to keep going with a little bit more. this interview was odd in a lot of ways. let's talk about acosta. for just a moment. this is what mr. patterson had to say about what might have influenced alexander acostas to make this sweetheart deal with epstein. take a listen. >> is there any evidence that alexander acostas was influence by the influence that jeffrey epstein had? >> i don't think that's possible. would that have some effect on it? it might have. >> what about the idea that he met secretly with the attorneys for jeffrey epstein after -- >> i think this is very harry for people down there.

they knew -- i think they knew that this guy had probably done what he was accused of, but they didn't think they could prove it. >> does that track for you? >> no, no, no, no. they had a 53 of had page indictment that was proving all of it, right? acosta let epstein off because acosta's buddy from a law firm is jay lefkowitz. that is the guy representing epstein. and they're buds. when we talk about the different justice systems for people at the top versus people at the bottom, we have to understand that we're talking about the entire system here. and what happens for people at the top, they can buy their way into it through the lawyers. we see this time and again. we saw this during the kavanaugh hearings. you saw how all those elite lawyers rallied around kavanaugh because they went to the same schools, they were taught by the same proat the time fessers. i used to be in that club. they didn't like me, but i know what that club looks like. >> including the harvard club.

>> don't forget ken starr. >> ken starr, as well. >> dershowitz -- >> so let's listen to one more piece. this is a bit astounding. here is mr. patterson about the idea that people might not have been able to tell that this guy was into children. take a listen. >> we can make 25-year-olds look 15. we can make 15-year-olds look 25. so you might go to a party and at the end of it, you go boy, those girls seemed to be kind of young. and certainly trump. i think he's a careful guy. i think he's always tried not to break the law. he pushes it to the edge -- >> well, he missed. >> well, i know him reasonably well. i just don't think he would be stupid about stuff like this. >> mya. >> he's always tried not to break the law. >> breathe, breathe, breathe. >> i'm trying, david. i'm trying. >> so i think we have a long

pattern of allegation around donald trump potentially breaking the law, including tax evasion with his father's real estate money, right? from early on. in the beginning -- >> hundreds of millions. >> hundreds of mlgs. it's one of the reasons why we're seeing him fight on his tax returns. there are all kinds of allegations around donald trump that relate to potential crimes. including financial. >> and about 20 women who have accused him of sexual -- >> and he's confessed. >> and he has said publicly, he's made statements publicly and repeatedly that he can do it and get away with it. so i think the question here, and it does go back to -- because i want to go back to what david said earlier. it is the case that you can have people who come and make and tell lies against rich and powerful people. of course. the problem here is three dozen and counting in miami back when acosta entered that plea deal,

and two witnesses who were employees of epstein who were corroborating independently some of the allegations that those young women were making. it simply is not credible. >> you would have to believe -- >> it could be as much as a hundred based on -- >> had, right? >> they found 80 on their own. >> the only thing that makes a 15-year-old girl look 25 is budweiser. and i think this goes back t to michelle goldberg's point which is trump and epstein and acosta and these people have risen up from a cesspool. a cesspool of people who are involved in this world and now they're here running the country and we're not doing enough to stop them. >> he might call it a swamp. thank you very much. when we come back, we stay where we were because mike pence made a trip to the border. and he just pretends he didn't hear anything, he didn't see

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welcome back. we are currently monitoring tropical storm barry which is expected to turn into a hurricane and make landfall today. forecasters are expecting 10 to 20 inches or more. joining me now from louisiana is msnbc's mariana otensio. >> joy, barry is getting stronger as it nears the coast. we know it's expected to make landfall in the next couple of hours. and those heavy rains that you talked about are expected to come after landfall which explains why i am partially dry. but you can see the wind is starting to pick up, joy. and i wanted to give your audience a glimpse as to what is happening already with these communities in the southeast part of louisiana. many of them already under water and the storm isn't even here yet. the body of water is about three quarters of a mile behind me. and you can just see, joy, the speed at which the water is

moving. that water has nowhere to go except in and out of this community. most likely, these people are going to get cut off. and i think, joy, that we cannot underestimate the sense of trauma that these communities endured during hurricane katrina in 2005. it is very much present in the back of everyone's mind. that's why people are not taking this storm lightly, especially because it's nowhere near katrina levels, but it's still a slow-moving storm. joy. >> absolutely. stay safe out there and thank you very much. coming up, what tropical storm barry adds to the conversation about climate change and that is next. convertisaon about climate change and that is next.

we are looking at 10 to 20 inches of rain with some areas possibly receiving 25 inches, depending upon the storm track. we really have to be extremely prepared for a very major rain event across much of louisiana. >> tropical storm barry couldn't have come at a worse time. new orleans already experienced flash flooding this week when up to 10 inches of rain fell within an hour on wednesday. now barry, an early season tropical storm is hitting as the mississippi river is in flood stage. the first time in history the two have coincided. according to louisiana's governor, the gulf coast may well need the federal government's help after this

storm, a government which under donald trump is doing everything it can to deny even the existence of climate change. joining me now is mustafa santiago ali with the national wildlife federation and paul douglas founder and meteorologist of aris weather. paul, a couple of years ago, you were on this show and you talked about hurricane harvey and the lull before it really kicked in. and you are one of the few people who realized that it was going to get really, really bad. when you look at what's happening now with this storm and knowing that there has been so much rain, 12 months, the most rainfall on record ever between july 2018 and june 2019, the old record was just a month ago. so we're seeing all this rain combined with the storm. what do you think might happen? >> i hope i'm wrong, but some of the worst flooding on the

mississippi since 1927. and the fact that the mississippi is already high and then you have the storm surge from barry pushing water ashore. the water has nowhere to go. and the fact that new orleans is basically a bathtub, right, it's 20 feet below sea level. so you have this convergence. and one of the things that we're seeing, as meteorologists and climate scientists, i'm a meteorologist, by the way, is that these storms tend to be moving slower and they're wetter. the water is warmer, in fact, the gulf of mexico, a few degrees warmer than average and the air temperatures are consistently warmer. so there's about 7%, 8% more water vapor, more fuel to fuel these storms. in recent years, joy, 80% of all fatalities have come from inland flooding. it used to be the storm surge, that battering ram of water and debris that comes ashore near the eye. in recent years, that has

shifted and now the big concern is inland flooding. in some cases, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from where these storms come ashore. so that is a change. >> yeah. and the thing is, the question, then, is because we now have a federal government that simply dismisses the existence of climate change, whether they really don't brief it or they want to suck up to fossil fuel companies and say they don't believe it, then what they have is particularly residual in red states doing anything to protect people in the wake of it. has there been a significant change in louisiana since katrina to make sure people are safer from what could happen with this storm? >> there's been some work that's been done. folks have strengthed some of the levees. there's berten gaugement with some of on our vulnerable communities. and the trump administration is sending signals across the country. when they say climate change isn't real, the climate crisis isn't real, then there's resources that are tied to those

decisions that they're making or the lack thereof. and they are literally placing cross hairs on our most vulnerable community. >> i was just is in the superdome watching misty elliott perform. the thought that is an outlet for people who can't afford to leave, they don't have the money, they don't have a car, can't get away, are we still in a position where that's all people can do, that we don't have a systemic plan for what to do with the most vulnerable people who happen to live in the places where they're at the most risk of what climate change is? >> well, in 2016, the obama administration brought value nerble communities to the white house to talk about resiliency, to talk about the processes that need to be put in place. and when the trump administration came in, they did not follow through on that. they wiped all of those types of things out. so they're literally doing a disservice. i just got off the phone with the folks in the ninth ward. they're still there. many of them couldn't get away. many of them had to stay in

those positions. they were waiting for years and years for the trump administration to make good on helping them to be relocated and there are still some families who are still there. so the trump administration is failing. as i often say, their policy should come with a warning label just like cigarettes that say this is dangerous to your health. >> and give us a sense on of what people can do. if, in fact, you're saying the rain is the challenge, the potential drowning, that's the kind of thing we're looking at now. is there anything people can do to prepare for these storms? it's not a wind event, as you said, it's a rain event. >> it's a rain event. and the only thing, joy, that people can do is shelter in place and try to get up to the second, third, fourth floor of a well constructed building. that is what i would be doing if i can get into a hotel, an office building, you want to get up. but something that mustafa said

really resinated. we are going to have to have an organized retreat from america's coastline. we're going to have to fortify parts of the coast where that is practical, where that's possible. places like new york city, boston, major cities. but we have no idea what's coming. the sea level is rising. that's not a climate model. that's measuring water with a ruler and watching the water rise over time. so we need to have a plan. denial is not sustainable and at some point everybody is going to be on the same page. i hope i live long enough to see that. >> yeah, indeed. denial is not a plan, a very good place to end this segment. thank you, guys, both very much. stay safe, everybody. and more a.m. joy after the break. but first, let's take a look at what some of the attendees in philly are saying about 2020. >> i'm excited about us beating trump. >> in the last election, i

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. four more r more on tropica barry, continue watching msnbc. and planned target raids on immigrant families. more "am joy" coming up. "am jo. fisher calls regularly so you stay informed. and while some advisors are happy to earn commissions whether you do well or not. fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management.

when these women tell me they were put into a cell and that their sink was not working, and we tested the sink ourselves and the sink was not working and

they were told to drink out of a toilet bowl, i believe them. >> so i'm asking for jack lean whose age was seven from guatemala who died from sepsis while in our care. >> the most basic questions about the care and welfare of those held in the custody of our government were either dismissed or met with a non-answer, affirming what we know. this agency was never built, never designed, never trained for the care and keeping of families. >> good morning and welcome back to "am joy." an emotional house testimony friday morning. freshman democrats detailed their harrowing visit to facilities in texas where migrants remain in terrible, unsanitary conditions. mike pence also visited the facilities on friday, and though he admitted that they were

overcrowded -- how could he not -- he had a very different response. >> every family told me they were being well cared for, and different from what we hear from democrats on capitol hill, our border protection is doing what they can to provide adequate care to these families in a manner people would expect. >> in the meantime, the president is still planning raids targeting migrant families reportedly starting tomorrow morning. the raids will target at least 2,000 undocumented migrants across cities, and notice they're only targeting cities, not red states where people use migrant labor on their farms, nope. just cities. just saying. mustafa santiago ali, and maria, thank you all for being here. maria, let me go to you first.

vice president mike pence went to these facilities, physically was standing in the room where we've heard people have not shou showered for 40 days. he walked out of there and told the press everything was fine. i didn't see him talking to people but he said things were fantastic. this is from the pool. when the men saw the press arrived, they began shouting and wanted to tell us they had been there 40 days or longer. the men said they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. it was sweltering hot. agents were guarding the cages wearing face masks. that's the "washington post." now let's see some video and hear some sound of what the men were saying.

>> 40 days, how can the vice president have come out and claimed that he spoke to people who said things were fine when you can physically see that that is not true? >> i think the only way, joy, that that can happen is, frankly, to deny the vice president's own inhumanity and our humanity as a people in this country. what this shows us from the vice president and from the president from the very top is that we are talking about an administration whose culture is cruelty. this is a government based on chaos, fear and cruelty. what he witnessed, what every single person has gone to the concentration camps, to the detention camps have seen is pure cruelty, inhumanity paid for by our very tax dollars. >> marty, they are down to talking about the people complaining of treatment, 40

days of no shower, not getting toothbrushes, not getting food and they are basically calling them liars. here's ken pucinelli, who is acting supervisor of services, saying these people are essentially lying. >> the men and women are committed to doing their job in fulfilling that mission which includes deporting those who have gone all the way through the deportation process and gotten a removal order but not o'bade beyed it, of which there about a million people in this country. we have millions of people lying about their circumstances, fraudulently claiming asylum when they don't have a prayer of making an asylum case. >> if people are not being allowed to claim asylum which is perfectly legal, how can they make their asylum claims they're not letting them make? >> what he is talking about, he basically made an opinion on

their status. he is not abiding by our own laws. every single person has this. what i found very striking about the video with pence in that detention camp and that internment camp, joy, is he didn't approach the men. he didn't talk thoo them. he didn't see what he said do, if he could offer services. that's what struck me, he was seeing individuals that were not human. that is dehumanizing. i can't imagine not approaching these people and finding out what we can do for them. this is based on cruelty. it is the most duplicitous by the administration because they know it riles up the batse. when we know they're going to do deportation raids in cities, tearing up families, we're talking about leaving children behind. when a parent has to have a directive saying, who is going

to have my child in the event of getting arrested, that should be a shame. this is a stain on our country but we have to be diligent. the fact we had liberty for justice, we had so many people yesterday do vigils around the world in the name of what we're doing in this administration sheds light that the majority of americans don't believe in this. but we have to stay diligent, we have to have this news coverage, we can't avert our eyes because what's happening at the border is shameful and the world is watching. >> it's shameful to me, and i noted where we were able to see the vice president go was to see men, right? they were willing to show us these pictures of a bunch of men inside of those cages because the story they want us to believe is that the people coming across are not children and grandmas and moms, it's a bunch of what they want people to believe are gang members, right? so they only want you to see men. so they let us see him talking to men. not talking to them, just being

in the same room with them. then he denies what these men are saying is happening. they're shouting out, we haven't been able to shower for 40 days, skpe and he's pretending he didn't see or smell anything. even in a room with a bunch of men who haven't showered in 40 days? okay. it was a demonstration by putting these men on display and having the vice president show them, because they do want to tell his base, we are hurting the right people. is that too cruel of me to say? >> what struck me about all this was very much the same. first of all, maria teresa's point is really important. having those people, human beings in front of you, and not even engaging them is the ultimate in an otherwise whole group of people. secondly, i think you're right about the kids, but thirdly the horror is the point here, and that is more horrifying in some ways than anything.

the administration has said at various times, we want to send a message that people shouldn't try to get asylum here, they shouldn't come to the borders, they shouldn't try to escape violence. and the horror is the point in the political sense, which is so much of this is about sending a message to the president's political base. and it was really -- i'm glad you focused on josh dosses' powerful point about what's happening. vice president pence had a double weird argument. a, everybody is exaggerating the horror, but then if there is horror, it's because democrats aren't funding us. this is just pure politics of the very, very worst sort. >> yeah, it's shameful. and by the way, they're still separating children. i mentioned that earlier. at least 18 migrant children under age two separated from their parents. a house report found that they're still taking people's kids from them. let's talk about these raids. i want to talk about these raids that are coming up.

we've now had -- i'm flipping this, but this is six more my p -- for my producers. you have a lot of frantic movement of telling people what you could do if you kicked down their door. i'm not sure what they could do if they kicked down their door. in thousands of cases the government mailed notices to incorrect addresses, set hearings on dates set for weekends, and you heard the mayor say, not in my town. you heard the mayors say, don't come to my town and take people. >> i haven't talked to a single mayor who wants an immigration raid on their city. this has nothing to do with crime. our crime numbers aren't impacted by illegal immigrants. >> all of our city personnel know we do not cooperate with i.c.e. we tell people their rights, we protect them. >> what we are working on is doing everything we can to push

back against what the trump administration is doing. >> is that going to be enough? can people -- can mayors in cities stop i.c.e. from coming in and taking people? >> they can't completely stop them. they are doing everything they can. they should continue to do everything they can. but this is a terror attack. the trump administration is launching terror attacks on our cities targeted at people out of status but also targeted at anybody who looks like they might be out of status. >> and they have arrested u.s. citizens. >> absolutely, even white people who just don't look white enough, according to i.c.e. so this terror attack is coming, and at some basic level, there is nothing you can do to stop it. we're talking about the hurricane. you have to kind of shelter in place. you have to try to ride this storm out because it's coming, and i applaud all of the

lawsuits trying to stop the trump administration at a legal level, but we see that he doesn't really care about the legality of it all, he just wants to kick the doors down. he's doing this to rally up his base. and we keep talking about that, but at some point the 62% of white people who voted for donald trump, the 52% of white women who voted for trump, at some point they are the ones who have to stop him because these people are being made to suffer for them. >> i mean, i asked you to stay, and thank you for agreeing to stay, mustafa, because there is an aspect of this that now coincides with this hurricane. this hurricane is about to hit louisiana. it now officially is a hurricane. it has now been classified as a hurricane. but there is also houston, which is one of the cities that's targeted. there is this -- you spoke about it after the break, and i was like, please stay so you can tell us. explain to me what you were telling me after the break last hour.

>> how this policy is actually anchoring people in danger. so there are ten cities that the i.c.e. raids are supposed to be happening at. one of them was new orleans and then they sort of rescinded that for a quick second, and the other is houston. if you're a mother with a child and you are being impacted from the floodwaters or from this hurricane and you are in new orleans, you probably won't go to a facility because you may be afraid your child might be taken away, you might be taken away. and for those folks when we went through katrina, many people went to houston to escape. so houston is on that list also. so if the storm impacts houston and people are migrating in that direction, or even if it doesn't and people are trying to escape there, then they may also be in the crosshairs of the trump administration with these ice raids. >> so you have to decide, marlena, if you want to live or potentially survive a deadly flooding or take a risk of losing your child by trying to save your child from deadly flooding. >> absolutely. i would agree completely.

this is about a reign of terror under this administration. what we've seen also is this is a part of politics. trump is talking to his base to rile up his voters. look, i'm being harsh, i'm trying to kick these people out, these black and brown people who don't belong here. they will either die or self-deport. on the other hand, the message is to our community. we don't want you here, you don't belong here and we're going after you. this is the bullying he's used to doing. we're going to conduct raids. whether they happen or not, our community needs to be prepared and this is where i'm really excited about the fact that we've got people across the country coming out last night to rally against this who are learning about what our rights are. because previous speakers are right, this is not only about undocumented immigrants, this is about anyone who looks, or who

is black or brown who speaks a different language who looks like they might be undocumented. >> i was thinking about this the last couple days, there is a difference between what the republicans are doing, what the democrats are doing. it's quite simply that democrats, because they're a part of that group, although you have black and brown communities that have undocumented people in their family, yes, it's part of the fight, but it's one thing to say i'm fighting for someone else, fighting for health care, fighting for them not taking them away. how much harder will you fight for yourself? they're saying we're protecting this country for us. it feels like it's a different level of fight. what do you think? >> the republicans -- they're not protecting themselves, they're protecting a very sliver. the democrats are literally saving themselves and protecting americans. these go to the core of our american values of who we are

and the facet of who we are. joy, this is the trump administration, and when i said a year ago the president was starting to do ethnic cleansing in the community, that's what he's doing. it's part of something larger. it's not just children at the border, it's not just immigration raids in the city in broad daylight, it's that you also connect the dots and say, why is he asking a citizenship question? why is he looking at individuals and making sure he's securing non-citizen districts? when you connect the dots, it's very clear he's going after the ethnic community. just in the state of texas where i am now, senator cornyn is up for reelection. he said nothing. he retweeted vice president pence. but you have 2.5 million unregistered american latinos who are young, present and will

be fighting for our families. that's when we need our allies at the door standing strong next to them and saying, this is the future. we are present. >> when you put all the different policies together, the census question which was revealed by a now deceased operative to say no, we want to make more rights for white and republican people. you have this attempt to -- just announcing in advance you're going to go out and deport thousands of people, which you wouldn't do that, he wants people to know they're doing it. it's saying, we want you to be afraid, you don't belong here. we're getting rid of you whether we have to take your kid, if we have to lock you in a cage, take your baby away, we'll do whatever we can to make you terrified. we don't want you here. it's about minority rule. >> minority rule all the way down to when you go back to what was the outcome of the election, trump losing the popular vote by

almost 3 million. but i have to say, i was most struck, i thought the most moving moment in aoc's testimony was when she talked about the american flag. and she spoke about the american flag being present at all of these places where people were being mistreated, and i thought that was a real call across party lines and across the lines of race and ethnicity in saying, do we as americans want this kind of treatment of other human beings to be the symbol of how our country behaves? i still believe that there was a vast majority in the united states that does not believe that this is who we are. this is not who we should be. and so i was really grateful she pointed out those flags, because this ain't us, and it shouldn't be us. >> that's right. >> and the thing, though, the challenge, e.j. -- right, i think for the democratic side,

the definition of "us" is just wider and broader and it's a much more multi-racial, multi-ethnic party, but not all of that group, which is a majority, votes. not all of those people can. they are being restricted from voting, they are being held back from voting. they are doing anything they can to make sure those people don't have any power. if the actual majority voted like a majority or could or were willing to, this couldn't happen. people need to start thinking about that. there is a lot of power in that majority if people used it. thank you all. really appreciate you guys. up next, barry is now a hurricane, as i just said. we'll have the latest from the gulf hurricane, next.

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barry is now a hurricane nearing landfall on the louisiana coast. joining me now is msnbc meteorologist bill karins. bill? >> the fact it is now a hurricane means very little in the terms of impact and damage that's going to happen over the next two to three days. it's more for the history books and the headlines and that's about it. with those 75-mile-per-hour winds, that's enough to do some mild damage. we're getting power outages out of it. it's moving here near new

iberia. it's a slow drift and then a slow drift through arkansas. slow-moving storms producing massive amounts of rain. most hurricanes are like a bagel. you have the hole in the middle which would be the eye. there is nothing on the northern side of this. the whole bottom half of the storm is the strong part. that's the part over the water. that's the part that hasn't moved inland yet that will. that's why we think the epic rain will come tonight and all day sunday and even into monday in some cases. that's why they issued the risk of flash flooding in areas of louisiana. that's like saying a high risk of tornadoes. that means life-threatening weather is heading that way. there are some cases to be record flooding. louisiana had a horrific flood in 2016. $15 billion worth of damage, 13 fatalities, 140,000 homes were damaged, and they're expecting a flood that could be similar to that. i read yesterday in the paper that some of those poor people

are still in fema trailers from three years ago that they were given and they now could be facing something like this again. again, it's louisiana tonight and tomorrow. that's the concern. central portions of the state from baton rouge to about halfway to new orleans. new orleans is looking much better. if they didn't get hit by the horrific storm from the levees, the river crested about three feet below the levees. that was fantastic news last night. we're still waiting to see if the pumps can hold up today in new orleans, but that's with any big storm. the main concern is shifting in central louisiana and then on up to arkansas. minor power outages. the winds are going to be 50 to 60. even new orleans could get up to 60-mile-an-hour winds. some of the rivers aren't expected to crest until middle of next week. >> i guess because there has been so much flooding there

already, whether or not there was such existing flooding there. the worst case scenario was obviously katrina. how bad are we talking in terms of the flood risk for people there? >> this is new orleans on wednesday. this is when a thunderstorm dropped about 10 inches of rain in -- i think it was almost like two or three hours. the pumps couldn't hold up, so that's why they had to deal with issues of water like this. this would probably be worst case scenario is what i'm thinking could happen in new orleans. that's why i'm not overly concerned. the idea of getting that much rain in 10 hours is pretty slim. the areas we're most concerned with just outside of baton rouge, those are the regions we're still thinking could be in that narrow band of very heavy rain in the next 24 to 36 hours. they could maybe get 10 inches of rainfall, in isolated hours higher than that. that's why the concern, with the flash flooding in the next 12 hours, and then the river flooding when all the water heads into the rivers, joy. this could still very easily be a multi-billion-dollar weather

disaster. we haven't even begun to see the main event of this storm. >> thank you for keeping an eye on that for us. bill karins, thank you very much. really appreciate you. coming up, more "am joy" after the break. joy" after the break. what might seem like a small cough can be a big bad problem for your grandchildren. babies too young to be vaccinated against whooping cough are the most at risk for severe illness. help prevent this! talk to your doctor or pharmacist today about getting vaccinated against whooping cough.

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we respect the value of every member of our caucus. the diversity of it all is a wonderful thing. diversity is our strength, unity is our power. and we have a big fight, and we're in the arena, and that's all i'm going to say on the subject. >> speaker nancy pelosi is shifting to nice talk after a couple of weeks of increasing ugliness between herself and her democratic moderates and the four-star progressive freshmen who have come to be known as the squad. pelosi last week seemed to dismiss the group, and to particularly target otacio-cortez. she said all these people have

are their public whatever and their twitter world. but they didn't have any following. they're four people and that's how many votes they got. elie mystal is back with me, former democratic congressman donna edwards is joining as well. donna, i want to go to you first. you wrote a piece that's very interesting. you talked about the fact that these two sides need each other. there are four star freshmen who get a lot of attention. it probably annoys other members of congress, to be blunt. then they're standing out and going their own way on issues and bills. they went their own way on the house bill. the four of them ordered against the house version of this border funding bill and nine democrats actually voted against the funding. so they didn't do as they were told. is there a sense that that is the problem, that they're just not obeying and that that is what annoys house leadership? >> i don't think it's that, really. speakerconscience, and i think

should hold her to her word. i think part of what's going on here is, one, you have some generational issues, but you also have a circumstance where you've got these women who have risen to power. they came from the outside, some of them beating well-liked incumbents. i know, i've been there. and i think that is causing some friction both within the caucus and outside. but look, the bottom line is they do need each other. we talk about the outside/inside. the speaker has the lockdown on the inside. she has to get votes, she has to pass legislation. but we also need the energy and the activism that are energized by the squadme. we can't isolate them, they're not a nuisance, they need each other and they have to figure a way to work this out. the speaker holds the gavel, so i think it's in her hands to take control of this. and get all of staff off of twitter not speaking to them.

>> they're going to start doing mama jokes at each other. now they're having little twitter fights anonymously saying, no one is scared of these nerds. really? e. jch it kind of goes to which is the more important part of the base or the important part of america? is it sort of rural midwestern america that's america, or is it urban america which is the larger part. she said they have only four votes, that's all they represent. alexandria ocasio-cortez's district size is 691,813. each one of them represents more people in their district in the entire state of wyoming, the

entire state of vermont, the entire state of las laralaska, entire state of north dakota. these people represent a whole lot of people, not just four votes. your thoughts? >> you know, they can't be marginalized at all, but we have to remember when we're discussing this, dissent really is a bedrock of democracy. as donna says, we need both sides. the democratic party is extraordinarily diverse, not only racially but idealogically. we're seeing this play out. at the end of the day, the goal has to be to get rid of the orange orangutan. in the meantime, these folks, the four in the squad, they have constituencies. if aoc was not speaking up, believe me, some of the people she represents would be saying something to her. if iona presley, who defeated a competent democratic congressman, her mantra was change cannot wait. if she was now waiting, she

would be betraying the people who voted for her. so i applaud them, and i applaud speaker pelosi at the same time. if i lived at home, she would be my congresswoman. i admire her, i respect her, but both sides need to learn how to work together. we don't know what's happening behind closed doors. we've got crazy kelly anne conway running around calling this a cat fight. this is i healthy part of the democratic protcess, and we ougt to applaud it as long as in a couple months we're united in what democrats need to do, and that's take back the white house, the congress and the senate. >> you made a point on twitter that i thought was really important, elie, it's a national fight that's been brewing for a long time. the democratic party is equal. they're like 50-50. the latest pugh poll shows 58%

are liberal, the rest are -- they pretty much are even in size. they fought it out in the democratic primary in 2016. there is a lot of anxiety that needs to come out, maybe? >> this comes out about every ten years, right? it helps clear all the bad blood. no, let them fight now and we'll come together when it's time to come together around the convention. one of the problems we did in 2016 is that we didn't have this fight. we didn't have this fight in 2016. there was a lot of establishment control in 2016 and we didn't have this fight so let's have this fight, let's have it early and i think that's the right way to go, actually. here's the thing. you want to disagree with aoc's policies, that's fine. you want to disagree with the squad trying to make democrats act like progressives as opposed to running back the 1996 triangulation strategy, that's fine. what has to stop is the coded language that is deployed almost exclusively against people of color and particularly against these women.

oh, they're so inexperienced. i wish they would just do the wo work and stop trying to grab headlines. these are the same people who said the same thing about barack obama at the same time. the same white people, the same black people who couldn't figure out how to vote for barack obama until white people voted for him first. this is the same thing that's happened before. >> can i just say, julie ann, there was an attitude with barack obama, but there is a sense they beat our friends and now they're trying to come in here and run the show. >> i know people are resentful who had relationship with these people, and hey, this is a democratic protscess. i think aoc crossed the line when she talked about picking on women of color. our first congresswoman said she does support nancy pelosi even though she did it before.

and another woman of color, it's not because you picked a fight. if you pick a fight, don't complain when you get bruised. aoc has been picking fights. >> donna, let me go to that for a second. our reporter was tweeting out these fights that are literally now happening -- some people are using their names, some are not. some are using the democratic party twitter account to bash the staff members of other members. you served in congress. is that as unprecedented as that seemed to be, to take it there? i get what juliana is saying, that if you start something you take it back. they're using individual accounts now. >> it's completely inappropriate, and the speaker actually chastised the staff representative of ocas ocasio-cortez's. but her staff and the democratic

staff under king jeffries actually took after the other staff. i think they all need to get all of their staff off of twitter, because when your name is on the door, your staff speak for you. look, there are legitimate policy debates here. the debate that i want to have and the split that i really see is, frankly, the liberal wing, the progressive wing of the democratic caucus on this question of impeachment. there are serious policy differences, and they've got to get them ironed out. >> absolutely. i think they should all do trust exercises. >> juliana malveaux, donna ed cards, elie miss althoug erke cards, elie miss althoug erkli elie mystal, thank you very

much. >> i think there is a ton of resentment against bernie where warren is able to have a progressive legislative history without really alienating people and playing the safe card. aliee and playing the safe card. that led to the ride ♪ which took them to the place where they discovered that sometimes a little down time can lift you right up. ♪ flights, hotels, cars, activities, vacation rentals. expedia. everything you need to go.

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i want elizabeth warren. >> you think it's going to be a

woman's acandidate? >> yes, i think it's a woman's turn. >> the policy is wrong and she's proving she's willing to get down in the weeds to effectuate policy and make it work the way she wants it to. she has proven she's a fierce advocate both in the courtroom and out for a vision. i think when you add those two things together, i don't see how the country wouldn't. >> some pretty strong reaction from democratic voters i spoke with at the net roots nation convention on y why 2020 should and must be the year of the woman. and why at least one of those women, elizabeth warren, will get another opportunity to garner more attention when she takes the center stage there. the msnbc wall street poll shows warren is climb and go now trails joe biden by just 7 points. kamala harris is behind by 13%. dean obadalla, columnist for

"the daily beast" and will bunch of the enquirer. dean, what have you seen so far, and do you see people gravitating toward one candidate or another? >> yes, very much so. the energy here, the excitement here is remarkable. the diversity here, what a contrast to like cpac where diverse did i is all different white people. these are different colors, backgrounds, sexual orientations. i've never seen so many muslims in my life. i spoke to about 100 people and i asked, who do you like, liz warren? there was good applause. bernie? pretty good applause. joe biden, nobody applauded. it became funny, one person applauded. i said, would you support joe biden as a nominee? everyone applauded. we want to win, we want to defeat donald trump, so that's our focus. >> and behind you i just want to note for folks that ohan ilmar

is speaking behind him. they said this is pretty generally a bernie crowd, although senator sanders is not there, but when he wiwe spoke w lot of people who were with him last time or liked him, they were mostly still shopping. so he hasn't locked in what would have been his vote. what do you think? >> i think that's absolutely right, joy. the bernie people have a presence here, but let's wait and see. there is a lot of enthusiasm about electing a woman. i've seen it in so many events. if you look at the list of the panels, so many are women elected for the first time in 0 2016 or 2017. i looked at how to win back the blue collar voter in 2020 and it had to be sponsored by the teamsters because it wasn't part of the vibe here. many of the people here were journalists and not panelists.

i think women power was a big scene. >> i think there was like a game. i don't know if you saw on the board where they were putting up who should drop out next, and we looked at it and the people who had the most votes was biden. that's not going to happen, but there was a sense of the people who wanted to reach out to the other side that that's not what people there were really into. another thing here. the 2020 nominees, they were asked by our abc "wall street journal" poll should they push big scale, big, big policies or smaller scale policies? it's a pretty big difference. people want big policy. are you hearing that kind of thing, dean? >> absolutely. people want bold, progressive vision here. they don't want timidity, they don't want transition stuff. climate change, medical care. it's all different age groups, all different sexual

orientations, and intersectional work. i've seen so many panels with different communities coming together. it's been energizing for me, frankly, where you come in here, you get recharged, you hear these stories of people working with other communities. this is the biggest turnout since any in 2006 when it started. this is the biggest turnout, 2,600 people, and it's going to energize people, i think. >> from january, it said, a quarter of a century ago, when president bill clinton was in the white house and governing as a new democrat, the democratic party was not a liberal party. in fact, back then, 25% of democrats regarded themselves as liberal, 25% as conservative, and 48% as moderate. there is a sense in washington, they have to fight for those white working class democrats who shifted from donald trump,

who shifted from reagan. that's not where the fight is. but the polling is not showing where the party is. where do you get a sense that the, quote, unquote, party is right now? >> it's not just the polling, it's also the grassroots. this is a real grassroots event. and if there is a theme of this event it's what malcolm x said. these are people doing things in their communities and doing progressive things. they're working on the green new deal, they're working on any ma -- ending mass incarceration. that's where the energy of the party is. it's not a very conservative party. any moderate wing of the party is a quiet wing. they're not going to be at an event like this, i don't think. this is a moderate event but a very progressive event. >> the interests have moved in the direction of the progressive wing of the party, whether it's people believing there should be gun reform, whether it's people believing there should be health care. are you surprised by who didn't show up?

who is the most surprising to you that isn't there, that's not coming? >> bernie sanders is the number one surprise that he's not here, because this would be a crowd that actually likes him a great deal. i would have loved to see joe biden here. i think he would have found a respe respective audience. senator booker was here last year. great responses. i'm stunned that neither one has come back. but kirsten gillibrand will be here. people are respectful here, but energy is on the left. it's great, we're taking over. >> you found a community! that's exactly right. it was great to see you yesterday. we ran into you yesterday. dean, and iona presley speaking behind you, so the squad of the popular freshmen are there speaking right now. thank you so much, dean odalla. get yourself a cheesesteak.

the nightmare that never seems to end. believe it or not, obamacare still under attack. republicans are still trying to take health care. more on that next. ealth care more on that next. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

in the last hour, barry became a hurricane, bearing down on the gulf coast where it threatens to drop 24 inches of rain over the next few days. first, the health care of tens of millions of americans is also at risk. that's because a federal appeals court could very well declare the affordable care act to be unconstitutional. a low court ruling struck down the entire rule on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional because people are going without health care. people on both sides of the aisle are calling that faulty, but given donald trump and mitch mcconnell, who knows which way the supreme court could come down. joining me now is dr. cory aber. dr. common sense is what we like to call you. they said the original judge said the question before the court involves the 2010-2017

congre congresses. they're saying when he struck down the law, the whole law became invalidated. the judges are sofrt of agreein with him saying when the courts struck down just the tax part of it, when the congress got rid of that, they never said, but keep the rest of the law. does that make sense to you? >> you know that doesn't make sense. that is so ridiculous. let's be clear here, the whole concept of them trying to strike down the affordable care act right now is falling outside ofovo of over tton's window. 24 million people have health care because of the affordable care act. they said the bubble would burst and the amounts would go through the ceiling. they said the insurance companies would have this death spiral. what has happened there? we know the insurance companies have made money and they're expanding into other counties,

like in nashville, tennessee. blue cross/blue shield just expanded. so this doesn't make any sense. and even if they happen to win with this ridiculous argument, it's going to be a period victory at best because they have no plan. they have no plan to replace it with. they just don't have it. so you're never going to have health care that's going to be better for the consumer and costs less. that cannot happen. >> let me play you quickly an ad from protect our care which targets some senators or part of this goal to take people's health care away. take a look. >> announcer: president trump and republicans are in court this week to strike down our health care laws and rip away health care for millions of americans. if the trump administration is successful, it would end health care for millions of americans, raise costs of treatment and drugs and put our system into chaos. >> could you come up with a rationale of why they're so

determined, other than obama did it, to get rid of 130 million protections for preexisting conditions, et cetera? this would seem to be a fundamentally unpopular idea, but they're so determined to do it. >> i think what's happened is we have fallen into the abyss of total bipartisanship -- >> partisanship. >> we apartisanship. we are not bipartisan in any way at all, and it's all about trying to get their point across. they're trying to get their point across and it's really going to jeopardize the folks that are getting the most insurance. even the places like west virginia and kentucky, the places that really supported donald trump and the republicans are losing health care, and they still, at some point, are trying to support this. it really kind of doesn't make a lot of sense, but we know, preexisting illnesses, nobody wants their preexisting illness provision taken. we also know just as an aside, if we lose the funding for the

affordable care act, it's also going to take away the money for the medical expansions in the other states, just the funding to actually make this happen. people now come to me that never had insurance at all, and we have saved so much money because we're catching them before they have cancer. we're catching them before they have to get their legs amputated with their diabetes. they would just go into the emergency room before that, which we were having to pay for, anyway. so this is just purely partisanship. i will say, you know, a little bit of the fragrance from the hand that gives the rose, a little bit of fragrance stays. so that's why i'm begging the republican party and the democratic party to come together, because we know that the obamacare, aca, is not perfect. but we know it's better than what was out there, and we know that right now, people's lives are being saved and that's what's most important. >> and you know very much about new orleans. that is your hometown. talk a little bit about what should people be doing now to protect themselves? you know when people have to shelter, when people have to run

from a hurricane, there is a lot that can wind up getting left behind in terms of taking care of themselves physically, et cetera. if you have anything to say about that. >> i withstood all the hurricanes, hurricane katrina. just make sure you have enough medicine for three or four months, and even though it won't be that long, it probably won't be anything, but have your medicine. make sure you take care of your pets, make sure you take care of your elderly, make sure you take care of your children. the media is now saying new orleans is having a big problem with all the flooding coming back. that's not usually downtown in new orleans proper, but in some of the outlying areas. call your family and make sure they're okay, but new orleans lives in resilience, so we'll be fine. >> and the threat is really outside new orleans. it's mostly to the people who are in lower income of what is outside new orleans, what we think of as the vacationing part. >> that's right.

we'll be back after the break. right. we'll be back after the break. hey! i'm bill slowsky jr.,

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that is our show for today. "am joy" will be back tomorrow at 10:00 eastern. alex witt is up next. it's great to see you. >> i might ask you to do a little overtime with me tomorrow, because i want to talk about your book. who is that about? >> somebody orange-ish. >> everybody knows, but we'll get to it tomorrow. >> okay, talk to you tomorrow. good day to all of you at

msnbc headquarters in new york. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." bracing for barry. new orleans and the gulf coast preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. the latest on the storm's track and its impact, next. to drink out of a toilet bowl, i believe them. >> we do have a crisis at our border. it is one of morality. >> why were we not funding i.c.e. so we have a place to be able to put people when they come through border patrol? >> border stories. congress takes up the issue and then the vice president takes a trip to a detention center. you're going to hear what both sides are saying. strange farewell. what is behind the president's praise of his outgoing labor secretary? and what does it have to do with jeffrey epstein? but we begin this hour with breaking news of water rescues as hurricane barry is bearing down on the gulf coast. at this hour coast guard officials say they've rescued 11 people as well as some pets in taribone parish in