ideas and -- >> soothing ideas. >> -- you can see how long -- you can see how that can translate online, and this helps explain why we get so many of those emails from campaigns where they say just give me a dollar or just give me $15, give me a dollar and a dream, and part of it is so that they can boost this number. if you get a lot of big donors you want to bring it down, if you don't you want to have a stat you can win. >> after a week like this we could all use a little soothing at some point. thank you very much. we will be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. you, too, can sign up by going to signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us, i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe" starts right now. what's your ethnicity? >> why is that relevant? >> they represent a dark underbelly in this country. >> she looks down with contempt on the hard working americans saying that ignorance is

pervasive in many parts of this country. and obviously and importantly omar has a history of launching vicious anti-semitic screeds. [ crowd sending "send her back ]" >> that's the president from his nuremberg rally from last night. >> something like that. two days and three unmistakable messages from the white house. last night's top he searching on the online dictionary. racism, socialism, gassism, concentration camp, xenophobia, big bigot. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it is thursday, july 18th.

along with joe, willie and me we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and co-host and executive producer of "the circ circus" john heilemann, jonathan lemire, white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamiche alcindor. hard news to cover for sure. at a campaign rally in greenville, north carolina, last night president trump launched into a five-minute broadside against congresswoman ilhan omar of minnesota who as a child refugee fled war torn somalia and became an american citizen and is one of the four house democrats of color who the president said should go back to their countries even though the other three were born in the united states. as the president went on about omar the crowd's fury increased leading to a new and alarming

rally chant. >> representative ilhan omar. omar laughed that americans speak of al qaeda in a menacing tone and remarked that you don't say america with this intensity. you say al qaeda, it makes you proud. al qaeda makes you proud. you don't speak that way about america. she looks down with contempt on the hard-working americans saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country. and obviously and importantly omar has a history of launching vicious anti-semitic screeds. [ crowd chanting send her back ]

>> congresswoman omar responded on social media with the words of the poet maya angelou, quote, you may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness but still like air i will rise. >> so, john heilemann, it's hard to say actually that this is shocking given everything that has preceded this moment, perhaps everything has led up to this, but this is the low point of -- i think it's the low point of the trump presidency and i would hope after last night's shocking display in any other context, under any other president, at any other time in american history that we can go

ahead and just be done with the fiction that donald trump is a bad guy running the country, but those at the rally, we need to try to figure out how to understand them a bit more. they once again made themselves perfectly clear last night. >> yeah. you know, we've all been watching this whole incredibly sad disgusting spectacle unfold since sunday and we move to political analysis and rightly he is the president of the united states, but i have to say, you know, the president -- i have not had much doubt about the fact that the president was a bigot and a racist and had a lot of hate in his heart for a long time. i think what we're witnessing now is something -- if you can imagine worse than that, the chief executive of the united

states of america is putting a target on the back of an individual american citizen. the president is inciting violence against an individual american. donald trump has done some pretty horrific things in the course of his time in the oval office, but this is undoubtedly, as you say, joe, not just the low point but the worst, the most depraved, disgusting and totally odious thing that the president has ever done and i think, you know -- >> that's saying a lot. >> we're heading -- we are already in a really bad place and we're headed someplace worse. >> really bad. dangerous. >> you know, i actually talked about yesterday about how republicans shamed themselves by not calling racism racism. i saw some people actually write columns that used to be respected trying to excuse the president's language and saying it's not racist, but the u.s.

equal employment opportunity commission, the federal agency that donald trump oversees that enforces laws against discrimination, specifically outlined such language that the president used last night and that his crowd used last night as an example of bias. in a section on national origin and anti-discrimination laws, their website, the federal government's website, president trump's website, says ethnic slurs and other verbal and physical conduct because of nationality are illegal. they are illegal if they're severe and pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment that interfere with work performance or negatively affect job opportunities. willie, it goes on to say in donald trump's government examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting or ethnic epitaphs such as making fun of a person's

foreign accents or -- wait for it -- comments like, go back to where you came from. willie, this is not a theoretical discussion about whether what donald trump said was illegal or not. this is the law of the land and if donald trump had said go back to where you came from in any -- any private company or if all of those people chanting that last night say it in their work today, they will be sued. could be sued. and guess what, the federal government wins those suits. it's unbelievable. >> yeah, that's the legal explanation, i suspect the president did not consult the eeoc before he made his comments last night. this is a game to him. this is a political game that he's playing. he believes it helps him in 2020. i agree with john, i think we're, what, 15 months away from

an election. there is much worse ahead of us right now after what we saw last night. yamiche alcindor, you know, over the last four years, let's call it, there's been hyperbole, there's been overreaction in some cases to president trump, but what we saw last night was, in fact, unamerican and by that i mean when you disagree with somebody in this country, even vehemently, the call is not to send them back to whatever country they came from. ilhan omar is an american citizen, she is an elected member of the united states congress. there are many points on which we all could disagree with her, the president could disagree with her, but on america you put somebody up against her to run against her in an election. you don't send her back to the country she came from and you certainly don't sell back from a podium and allow a frothy crowd on a hot summer night to chant "send her back." >> president trump has absolutely and clearly settled on a strategy of fear, focused on identity, focused on these

four women of color and specifically representative omar. he is not saying that he disagrees just with democrats' policies, he's saying that they will destroy your way of life and he's seeing that as the way to get people out of their homes to go vote for him. i think yesterday what we saw was the crystallization of president trump going from lock her up to send her back as a strategy to get people riled up. and i will say as i was watching that this morning i was really struck by -- there was a little girl sitting in the crowd and the crowd started chanting send her back and she kind of started looking around and eventually she started -- she started joining in, and i thought for a moment taking away the politics what we're seeing is the next generation of americans learning how to treat a representative of congress who was born in a different country but is now an american citizen. then i think what might be the saddest part of all of this. >> that is.

and, yamiche, you bring up the little girl. how about all the children of the people in this audience, the brothers, the sisters, the family members, the people watching. you know, many are very concerned, many know a lot more about the rise of fascism and dictatorships and the precious -- the preciousness of democracy and they believe that president trump has let us down this path and he has been allowed to lead us down this path and has desensitized us to racism every step of the way. every time -- every time he did it and there was no recourse, he created more danger for this country and i really -- i try not to invoke my father because i could never live up to even be half who he was, but people like my father and people like madeline all bright who came here and made this country greater, could coin the president's term, they will tell you that this is pure and simple

evil and that someone is going to get hurt, whether it be someone in an office today or in a school or anywhere in america, someone is going to get hurt, whether they are hurt personally, emotionally, psychologically or physically. let me just tell you we are not in a dangerous place, we are at a place where things are boiling over and this president is promulgating racism and violence. there's no two ways about it and there are people who know a lot more about this than me who will say we are in not just a dangerous place, we've gone over the line. >> we've gone far over the line. last night was a great example of that. the president, again, doing something that his own government says is illegal, something that could get a person or a company sued because it's racist. call racism by its name. it's racism. the united states -- >> it's law broken.

>> -- government calls it racism. so i'm not sure why journalists and columnists all can't just call racism by its name. >> joe, also several weeks ago he said he would take aid from a foreign government on a opponent. that is a clear definition of being a national security threat. i don't know what the answer is, but standing by idly and letting these messages that he's sending to the world pass by is not okay. >> well, first of all, i don't think people are standing by idly. >> republicans are. >> yeah, republicans are, but republicans are going to pay the ultimate price. i don't mean to be pollyannish here but for two years people said how can donald trump do what he can do. for two years people have said the institutions won't hold up. for two years people have said this man is a dictator and for two years i said we get to vote every two years. and what happened at the end of donald trump's first two years, after doing everything that shocked and stunned and deeply

saddened us, do you know what happened, republicans who went along with donald trump had the greatest landslide defeat in the history of american congress. in the history of american congress. they lost by more votes than any political party had ever lost. jonathan lemire, we were talking about this last night during the rally, this is day trading of the worst sort for donald trump. not only is it incredibly damaging to the fabric of america, it is short-sighted for donald trump. i can tell you as one of 435 members of congress when the democratic party nominates its presidential candidate, members of congress are like ants on an ant hill and it is at that point the person who wins that nomination, who is the face of the democratic party, and there ain't nothing that either the president nor any member of congress can do to change that

fact, but all of this will be forgotten by voters. they will not go into a voting booth going, oh, i'm going to vote against a congresswoman from some district in minnesota. they don't do that. but what will linger, what will remain, will be the suburban voters, the educated voters, the women, the blacks, the hispanics, latinos, the asian americans, the others, the muslim americans who will be so offended by this that they will go out and they will stand in line for as long as it takes to cast their vote to drive donald trump out of office. this is day trading of the worst sort. it is immoral and more than that for donald trump he needs to understand this is just stupid. this, the only thing that will remain from this, will be the

rage that he stirs up in his opponents' hearts which will make them go out and vote him out of office. >> let's remember that this rally last night in north carolina was originally scheduled to be a rebuttal to robert mueller's testimony. the special counsel was supposed to be in front of congress yesterday and this was going to be the president's chance to respond to that. that testimony has been postponed by a week, so the president settled on a new story line in the last few days about these four congress women of color and suggest that they go back to where they came. you are right, this is the fight he wants, it's the argument he wants. it doesn't mean it's the argument he is going to win. he is gambling that this is going to fire up his base, it's going to generate enthusiasm on his supporters, the people who rallied around him in 2016, those who the polls missed the trump campaign believes who could be there again but there is no question that it comes at a cost. it will be remembered by as you said suburban nights, remembered by voters of color, remembered by women and the republicans

have really stumbled into a real woman problem in recent years, but this is what this president wants to do for now regardless of the cost. he thinks this is the way to control the narrative, he sees the house democrats responding to his every move, we saw some failed impeachment talk last night which i'm sure get get to later in this show and more than anything it doesn't matter to him, the people around him, the consequence to american society in our politics. he has made this clear that he is willing to be the candidate who makes race a story more than any other presidential contender since george wallace in 1968. >> again, willie, though, in politics a week is a lifetime, we're still, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15 months away from the election. again, this will not be remembered by anybody but trump's opponents and, i mean,

you look at the people that he's driving away. here is a president that if he just campaigned on the economy he would probably be sitting at 50%, but he does these things and he thinks he's cementing his own support. he's got who he's got, he's not going to get anybody new, but he is driving away not only women, not only suburban voters, not only everybody else -- i mean, he's also depressing a part of his own vote who at the end of the day will say, do you know what, i voted for this guy because i thought he'd shake things up. i don't like the democrats. i'm just going to stay home. there is no political win to this and the most damning thing, the biggest message of the week is this is the week that the republican party codified their support of donald trump's racism. so next year is just like last year is going to be politically

disastrous for them. >> last night if you watch that lends credence to the argument that joe biden has made and other democrats have made as well which is a visceral one. there is the policy argument and then there is the visceral argument which is do you want four more years of this? you know the way you feel watching that rally last night, joe biden might ask do you want to continue to feel that way for four more years? do you want to feel divided? do you want to feel like we are at each other's throats? do you want a chance of sending back an american citizen who is a dually elected member of the united states congress. is that what you want? donald trump has made his decision, he has cast the die, he wants to solidify people who are already with him who aren't going to leave his side. remember it's a tiny sliver in a few states, 77,000, 78,000 people who won him the election in 2016, will they watch what happened last night and say, i can't take four more years of this and go out and vote, will they stay home or are they okay with what they saw last night?

>> yeah. and politically, joe and willie, i totally agree with you, this is day trading, i get it, politically for sure. i just -- we all agree, i'm sure, that what we saw last night insights violence, insights hatred. you have a president having an entire audience breaking federal law. do you think they're going to stop there? this is not good. we are over the line. still ahead on "morning joe," at the same time democrats rally together against the president's language, they are also split apart on the question of impeachment. we will run through that straight ahead, but first bill karins with a check on the severe heat wave. >> good morning to you. yesterday was brutally hot across the country, it's only going to get worse, especially as we go through saturday in the northeast. right now 153 million people, almost half of our population is under some sort of heat warning or advisory or watch from the midwest, ohio valley and now areas on the east coast. you are waking up this morning it already feels like 82 kansas city, same in des moines and

omaha, that's where it's going to be the worst today. it's not enjoyable in d.c. this morning, after the thunderstorms last night it's even more humid, 81 degrees and the air is super sticky. how bad will it feel and how dangerous will it be? some of the worst heat indices will be this afternoon in kansas city. these numbers are taken in the shade this afternoon. 109 in kansas city. d.c. today is the coolest of the next four days, same for new york and philadelphia and boston, too. on friday richmond gets up to 106, new york city 101. look at st. louis, 108. omaha 113. i mean, that's just brutal. by saturday this is the day it will be the hottest, new york city could feel like 111 degrees. that could be one of the highest heat indices in the entire country because of the hot temperatures and with the obviously dealing with the high humidity levels. you get it, this is it, this is almost guaranteed going to be the hottest week and weekend of the summer. check on the elderly, make sure you drink plenty of fluids. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. be right . don't miss your golden opportunity

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welcome back. jeffrey epstein is due back in a new york court later today where he is expected to learn from a federal judge whether or not he will be granted bail as he awaits trial on new sex crimes charges involving children, underaged girls. we have an update now on the footage found by our "morning joe" producers from back in 1992 that shows trump watching and commenting on women with epstein, who is now a sex offender and accused sex trafficker at trump's mar-a-lago estate. this is when it was private, it was not a club yet open to others. according to the "new york times" that party took place the same year trump hosted an off-camera affair with epstein

at mar-a-lago during which they were the only male guests and they had more than two dozen what are called calendar girls flown in to provide them with entertainment. >> you mean the only people at this meeting. >> just epstein and donald trump and 28 young women. >> you mean just -- because there there's donald trump and epstein and a lot of others. you're saying in that event they flew in 28, quote, calendar girls and are you saying it was the only people at mar-a-lago were at that party -- >> were epstein and trump. >> -- were epstein and donald trump. oh, my gosh. >> in that video we unearthed, you see epstein, another man and donald trump leering at women, salivating and looking at them as they're dancing and making some sort of comments that cause epstein to double over in laughter, this sex offender who is accused of sex trafficking, but in the background you see

jillian maxwell, i'm not sure i have her name well, but she is a british socialite who is accused of being epstein's recruiter of underaged girls. >> his pimp. >> who brought them in, recruited them and gave them money. there she is with the white shirt, dancing or something, i don't know what she's doing. >> this tape helps because you understand when donald trump said in 2002 that he loved, what did he say, jeffrey epstein was a great guy and he really loved women, just like donald, he loved women almost as much as donald did but he loved really young women, i go he is we understand. look at these two looking at women and pointing a them em. >> can't get over themselves. so president trump told reporters in the oval office last night -- last week that he had a falling out and was not a fan of jeffrey epstein. i guess this is when he was a fan. while the nature of trump's falling out with epstein remains unclear, the "times" reports

trump told associates that he banned epstein from mar-a-lago after a worker at trump's club was recruited to be a masseuse for epstein. while others close to epstein claim a business transaction related to a florida property ended their relationship. in 2016 the paper says then candidate trump's allies worked to minimize his association with epstein while noting that former president bill clinton had also been friends with the wealthy financier. it also reports that during a deposition in a 2010 lawsuit accusing him of trafficking children for sex, epstein declined to answer whether he and trump had ever socialized in the presence of underaged girls. >> john heilemann, we're getting reports this morning from "vanity fair" that there are about to be 2,000 documents that are going to be released in the epstein case which will likely reveal the associations between epstein and a number of extraordinarily powerful men,

former prime ministers, high ranking american political officials, ceos, et cetera, et cetera. it reminds me of something you said early in the 2016 campaign cycle when you and a lot of other reporters were trying to figure out exactly what was going on with epstein and who he associated with that was involved in the presidential race. it seems nobody was able to nail down that story at least during the campaign, but the "miami herald" have now put everybody in a position where in a few days they may be finding out the answers to a lot of those questions. >> yeah, and i think, look, joe, one of the things that's -- the reason why this story is not over by a long way and not over not only is there more to play here related to jeffrey epstein, but also related to others, potentially including the current president of the united states, is the fact that what the prosecutors have discovered in that safe and in jeffrey epstein's home includes a lot of

documents and a lot of video apparently which may prove to be not just embarrassing, but incriminating related to the behaviors of various individuals. there has been a lot of speculation about the extent to which some of epstein's wealth was derived by blackmailing powerful individuals in the worlds of politics, finance, technology and philanthropy and whether there is the basis of that blackmail rests in his possession, things that are now about to become public in the course of this investigation. so there are a lot of people i think nervous about this and there is a sense, i think, that -- i mean, certainly the most high profile person now that "new york times" story mentions it is the case that bill clinton had associations with jeffrey epstein and took flights around the world with him. that now has kind of faded from at least the center of this story because of the fact that donald trump has an association. you guys did some incredible

work unearthing that video, "the new york times" now picking it up and doing some more investigation here, as you know, there have been some pretty disturbing allegations that have surfaced in the past related to donald trump in the 2016 campaign, jane dough lawsuit was filed, later withdrawn, that accused the president on the premises of jeffrey epstein of engaging in sex crimes. that lawsuit was withdrawn after the lawyer for the woman said that she had faced death threats, but that was written about then, there were stories written about it in the press in 2016 and i think you are likely potentially to read some more stories about that question and i will say one last thing is that there was on the internet for a period of time, not that long ago, on vimeo the deposition of that jane doe in that lawsuit was on vimeo a few days ago and has disappeared from the website.

which has raised questions about what happened to that videotaped deposition which made some allegations against the current president of the united states. >> yamiche, over the course of 30 years or so as john said there have been some very, very powerful men in the orbit of jeffrey epstein who have socialized with him and many prosecutors, former, some who have actually worked in the southern district have raised the red flag for us that the fact that the public corruption unit is leading this investigation in a sex trafficking case perhaps indicates that a public official, either current or former, is involved here. >> it seems clear that there's going to be this widening net of people around jeffrey epstein, powerful men likely, who partook and who were breaking the law right along with him. president trump has been trying to really distance himself from epstein. i was there on the lawn when he walked out, secretary acosta essentially publicly saying, you know, he has become a distraction, we need to put this behind us, but it's clear that president trump isn't going to be able to put jeffrey epstein

behind him that easily. i also think the president said something on the lawn that stuck with me which was he said i wasn't on the island that epstein had, but there were other people that were, you should check into that. i think what the president was doing there was ignore the parties that i had maybe in the united states with epstein when he flew in girls, up to 28 women to have a private party, but let's look at other islands, possibly in st. thomas, that locals were calling pedophile island. i think we know it's pretty clear that epstein was using his wealth and using his access to young women to these children, rather, and inviting other people to abuse them. i think we're going to have to see more about who those people were, but it is clear to me and i think to a lot of other reporters just looking into this if it's in this unit they are obviously wondering who else is going to go down. and jeffrey epstein himself has probably also wondering if i'm going to take the fall, who else am i going to bring down with me. >> all right.

coming up, "new york times" times columnist tom friedman says it's not enough for democrats to point out donald trump's racism, that they need to do something about it and he has a specific idea. we will tell you what it is ahead. most people think a button is just a button. ♪ that a speaker is just a speaker. ♪ or - that the journey can't be the destination. most people haven't driven a lincoln. discover the lincoln approach to craftsmanship at the lincoln summer invitation. right now, get 0% apr on all 2019 lincoln vehicles plus no payments for up to 90 days. only at your lincoln dealer. ♪ how do you like it, ♪ how do you like it ♪ ♪ more, more, more

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what i would have done, brian, one thing i learned covering the middle east, do you want to make a point or do you want to make a difference. with trump you have to focus on making a difference because you can't outpoint him. with the democrats i would have announced we are having a national telethon our goal to make $100 million to register 100 million voters. every time trump makes another racist statement we will have a telethon. thank you for helping us raise money to register more democrats in swing states and districts around the country. if you just come back and say you are a bad guy and everyone -- we know that. his supporters don't need more information. they are not interested in information.

"new york times" columnist thomas friedman on the 11th hour on how he would respond to president trump they were the democrats. his latest piece in titled "trump is going to get reelected, isn't he?" he writes i'm struck in how many people have come up to me and said trump is going to get reelected, isn't he? in each case when i drill down to ask why i bumped into the democratic presidential debates in june. a lot of americans were shocked by some of the things they heard there. i was. dear democrats, this is not complicated. just nominate a decent, sane person, one committed to reunifying the country and creating more good jobs. a person who can gain the support of independents, moderate republicans and suburban women who abandoned donald trump in the midterms and thus swung the house of representatives to the democrats and could do the same for the presidency. and that candidate can win. please, spare me the revolution. it can wait.

win the presidency. hold the house and narrow the spread in the senate. a lot of good things still can be accomplished. joining us now president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "a world in disarray" richard haass. i want to ask you about our standing in the world in light of the president's tweets, in light of the rally we saw last night, in light of everything. i was talking to joe biden about that in iowa the other day and he made a pretty compelling case about something that i don't think voters think about every day because they're worried about kitchen table issues, they're worried about their paychecks and understandably so, but our standing in the world has gone down under trump and we are this many respects becoming a mockery and biden talked about the danger of that. he also made an incredible pitch that i thought separated him from the other democrats. he has a sense of his past experience not just working with obama and says he says i don't want to talk about obama.

we are in a new place. i want to talk about my experience. he knows world leaders. he has met them before. he has been on the world stage and has handled foreign policy issues at a very high level and says in many ways we need to get back to where we were while still moving forward. it is going to take someone who understands what it is we had in order to get back there. what is it that we have lost in the wake of this president? >> well, i would say two things, one is we've come quite a ways from ronald reagan's shining city on a hill. i think a lot of people around the world who unfortunately are living in increasingly anti-democratic, ill liberal authoritarian societies look at that and say that seems kind of familiar. for so long we thought of ourselves as different and exceptional. well, when you watch things last night, we are voluntarily giving up the high ground at an important part of foreign policy is not what diplomats do, it's simply who we are, it's the

example we set, how well we run our economy, how decent our politics. what kind of opportunity we offer to disadvantaged americans. that's one thing. the other thing and it gets a little bit in what joe biden was saying, is, you know, the history -- there is no pause button on history. so we're going through this kind of stuff, the world is moving on and, you know, china is doing what it's doing in terms of its own domestic development, in terms of increasing it's footprint, russia is doing what it's doing, north korea keeps building up it's nuclear systems, iran is pushing the edge of the envelope, maduro is still in power in venezuela. so we are distracted, but history, again, doesn't stop while we sort ourselves out over the next couple of years and whoever wins this election, whether it's donald trump or a democrat, he or she is going to inherit an extraordinarily difficult inbox. you mentioned my book and that was written a couple years ago, that was the inbox that the 45th president was going to inherit. i didn't know who it was going

to be when i wrote it. well, now a year and a half from now the only thing i do know is that next inbox is going to be considerably worse. >> much, much worse. richard, we showed the clips, talked about how not only were those chants and the president leading the chants unamerican, we showed how they were illegal if you just look at the federal government's own laws, their own regulations. it was illegal. if you do that in the workforce chances are very good you are going to be sued. let's not talk about historical comparisons between this sort of rhetoric, let's talk instead about examples of countries across the world right now that do this sort of thing or that you've seen do this sort of thing over the past 10, 15 years where you actually have leaders

pointing out a minority group to vilify, to humiliate, to suggest that the country needs to be ethnically cleansed and they need to be driven out of the country. what are some current examples of that? >> well, one is turkey with whom the united states is increasingly having a rough relationship. the turks have obviously gone after their significant kurdish minority and, again, you have a president in power who turkey who step by step is rolling back democracy there, increasingly consolidating power in his hands. obviously in china you have their repression of the uighurs, their oppression of political and civil rights in hong kong where what was supposed to be one country, two systems, increasingly is looking like one country one system. i will just say around the world, joe, people who do this for a living when you measure it, the phrase going around is there is a democratic recession. for decades after world war ii,

after the end of the cold war, the percentage of people around the globe who are living in democratic societies was going up. what we've seen over the last 10 or 15 years unfortunately now is that dial is turned in the opposite direction. i think one of the reasons is we are no longer setting the sort of example we should and, second of all, our foreign policy now ignores it. we've become so amoral, we no longer promote democracy or human rights, we no longer point a finger when terrible things are happening that the rest of the world thinks essentially they've got a blank check. in russia, china, turkey or the philippines, saudi arabia, you can kill journalists with impunity because the united states is no longer going to hold you accountable. here it's what we are not doing in terms of our foreign policy and it's what we are doing in terms of our domestic example that i think have contributed significantly to this -- to history going in the wrong direction around the world. >> john heilemann, i want to

turn for a moment back to that op-ed we were reading by tom friedman at the top of this block talking about the democrats keeping their head on straight and keeping their act together. it is interesting the blow back that democratic candidates got from the first debate not just from former republicans like myself, but also from quite a few democrats and even some progressives saying that perhaps the democrats went too far. it is interesting in the past few weeks watching them recalibrate themselves. joe biden in his inter few with mika saying, no, no, no, i'm not for the dee criminalization of immigrants coming across the border illegally. no, no, no, i'm not for government healthcare plans for illegal i'm granmmigrants. bullock said that yesterday but also you have kamala harris who backed off of the medicare for all claim during that debate. it seems that there is -- and

also busing. i mean, she also backed off the busing and said actually it should be voluntary in states and located at communities should make that decision instead of the federal government. so it seems that the democrats recalibrat recalibrated. do we just put that first debate down to spring training and expect a little more nuanced responses in the next debate coming up? >> i think for sure that you put it a little bit down to spring training and there is -- a lot of those candidates have never been on a presidential debate stage before, as you know, bernie sanders, joe biden the only two that have ever had that experience before. the format was tough, you get ten people on stage, but the reality, joe, is that there is, as you know, in every presidential campaign within a primary process, a nominating process, there is always the poll of the party base. so you're dealing if you are a republican with the poll of the -- to the right of the party base, if you are in the democratic party you're dealing with the pull of the left and what happens in every cycle is candidates get pulled a little

bit out of the candidate that ends up being the nominee gets pulled in a direction they don't want to be pulled and they have to pivot back and recalibrate towards the center when they run in the general election. the question in the democratic party in 2020 is whether the center of gravity has moved far enough to the left that it will pull these candidates in a permanent way or in a way so far to the -- in the progressive direction that it will be impossible for them to pivot back. although it's true what you just said about a variety -- a number of candidates who have tried to kind of recalibrate already even after just that one debate, you still have elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, you know, accounting for at least a third, maybe a little more of the vote in the democratic nominating electorate right now and those candidates are not recalibrating. those candidates will keep staking out positions pretty far to the left so there's going to be this pressure, this tension throughout the process and candidates who want to be more in the center left, candidates like biden, candidates like

harris and some of the others who right now are not registering high in the polls, steve bullock and mayor pete, those candidates will have pressure on them constantly to edge to the left and we will see how candidates will have pressure constantly to edge to the left. but that's not going to go away in any of these debates going forward as long as the progressive lane, the progressive share of the vote is as big as it is and there's no denying it's pretty big in the democratic electorate right now. >> rich, i want to ask you about iran. the foreign minister of iran is here in new york city and you had a private meeting with him. the posture of iran seems to be like president trump, you got out of the iran deal more than a year ago, we're not going to honor the terms if you're not going to. what did you get to him? the white house has signaled they're open to talks with iran. what did you hear from him? >> i don't think the iranians want a war either, but on the other hand, they're not just going to absorb the economic warfare that we are practicing against them. so what we're doing step by step pushing the envelope of the 2015

agreement, putting pressure on tanker traffic. what they basically want to do is signal the united states and the world, you make us feel pain, we're going to distribute some pain in return on you. and what they're hoping is that this leads us mainly through the europeans and others to back down on sanctions. but they're playing a risky game. they're sensitive to their politics, we're sensitive to ours. and i still think, willie, and they recognize it, that the chance of some kind of a miscalculation, they do something and then we feel the need to respond and suddenly it's katy bar the door and we're off to some sort of a set of military exchanges, they think that is some kind of a possibility. they know they are on a risky direction, but they feel compelled to do it given their own domestic politics. >> on that risky direction, there are reports from iranian state it have that they have seized another foreign oil tanker, taken crew of 12. the nationality of the tanker hasn't yet been identified, but that's clearly going to add to the tension of what's happening. but i also want to get your take

on the reports that it's going to be senator paul of kentucky, that the president has asked to be the emissary to iran. what do you think of his diplomatic ability to perhaps lower the tensions here? >> it's a signal. and the signal will be that the united states does not want a war. rand paul is essentially an isolationist. i don't think he's found a military intervention he's prepared to support. so the message that would be is that the united states doesn't want to this escalate. ironically, the message of that, therefore removes some of the leverage from us. but look, i think it shows that the -- this administration didn't think through its iran policy. it thought that if we got out of the agreement, we put massive economic pressure on iran, the regime would fall. clearly, that's not going to happen. so this is now phase two. we didn't think it through. and now the question is, how do we go from where we are to try to resurrect diplomacy. that's what rand paul's job would be. >> but if that's a signal from the white house, does that give

iran the ability to act with impunity? >> up to a point, but the danger is that this president will feel compelled to respond. world war i happened not because people sat down skpand said, it time to have a world war, one thing stumbled into another. things happened and they gained a dynamic of their own. the danger right now in the middle east is not that either side, i believe, sthas a stratec plan to bring about a war, it's that both sides are doing things that are pushing the buttons of the other and there's virtually no direct communication. and one of the things that could be good if rand paul or someone had the mandate, you'd finally reestablish some channel of direct communication. right now the chance that we misinterpret and missignal, i think the possibility there is much higher than financial markets recognize or that conversations seem to be taking into account. >> and reports are that senator paul pitched himself for this

new role out on the golf course with the president of the united states on saturday. we'll see if he lands it. richard haas, always good to see you. coming up next on "morning joe," president trump's latest campaign rally turns very ugly as the crowd begins chanting "send her back" in reference to a democratic congressman. plus, the house voted to block an effort to impeach president trump yesterday for his racist tweets about four democratic congresswomen. that was before his campaign rally in north carolina. and senator rand paul single handedly stalls legislation that would compensate first responders and survivors of the september 11th terrorist attacks. we'll show you his explanation for that move. and former "daily show" host jon stewart's response. "morning joe" is coming right back. s response "morning joe" is coming right back johnson & johnson is a baby company.

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build that wall. build that wall. build that wall.

[ chanting: lock her up ] [ chanting: drain the swamp ] [ chant iing: send her back ] >> how interesting you have the president, again, elected on a lie. he was elected on a lie where he said they were going to build the wall. >> hatred. >> and mexico was going to pay for it. that was a lie. both parts of it was a lie. you had a chance to do a deal with democrats, get $22 billion to build the wall. and he backed out. republicans in his own party didn't even want to build his own wall. he lied. he didn't get the wall built. the art of the deal, not even close. more like the art of the steal. and then you look, of course, at the next chant. i mean, "lock her up," no, the only people that have been locked up have been his national security adviser, his campaign

chairman, his assistant campaign chairman. i mean, we could go down the list, his foreign policy adviser. i mean, those people got locked up. and then, of course, "send her back." well, that's not going to happen. in fact because of that sort of hatred, it is going to be donald trump who gets sent back to mar-a-lago next november. >> or whatever is waiting for him when he leaves the white house. may not be mar-a-lago. welcome back to "morning joe." it's thursday, july 18th. still with joe, willie and me, we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, john heilemann. white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan la mir. white house correspondent for pbs "newshour," yamiche alcindor. and joining the conversation, former u.s. senator and now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill. and political writer for "the

washington post" and msnbc political analyst, robert costa. he's the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. >> john heilemann, we've all heard now, have been talking about it over the past hour, about the "send her back" chants. put that in perspective. where does that put us as a country? where does that put our politics? >> well, i think in an incredibly depressing and you know, i think dangerous place, you know, it's not just that -- i mean, this week has been -- i think you said in the 6:00 hour, joe, that it was the low point for the trump presidency, i think last night, and there have been a lot of low points, but last night, i think, really was the low point in the sense that, you know, the president's racism and bigotry and idiocy have been on display on many occasions, never more glaringly than this week. but to see the president of the united states standing at a rally, i think there's no way to interpret what he did yesterday other than to say that he's

placing a target on the back of a united states citizen. he's saying -- he's inciting, whipping up a frothy chant of violent impulses among his followers towards a united states citizen, an elected member of congress. i just -- i mean, i have had very low standards when it comes to what i expect from donald trump, but i never thought i would see a president of the united states -- he's picked on private citizens before. he's never incited violence against an individual private citizen in quite this way. and i feel as though you can feel the temperature is rising. you know, the kind of predictions that people have made that we could be heading into a 1968 kind of, 1972-kind of george wallace kind of campaign. we have -- you still have a long time between 14, 15 months between election day. and as bad as things right now,

and they are really bad and really ugly and really dangerous, they are just going to get worse. and at this moment, i think that causes -- should cause everyone who does not want to see violence in american political life to be very afraid. >> all right. >> and here's the moment that john was talking about from last night's rally in north carolina. >> representative ilhan omar -- [ crowd reacts ] omar laughed that americans speak of al qaida in a menacing tone, and remarked that you don't say america with this intensity, you say al qaeda, it makes you proud. al qaeda makes you proud. you don't speak that way about ameri america. she looks down with contempt on the hard-working americans, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this

country. and obviously, and importantly, omar has a history of launching vicious anti-semitic screeds. [ audience chanting: send her back ] >> so, claire, it can happen here. it is happening here. a united states senator was there last night, thom tillis. and we will see what thom tillis says this morning to the people of north carolina, who will be deciding whether they re-elect him in 2020 or not, about a president that's talking about -- >> breaking federal law. >> breaking federal law. this is a violation of federal law, as we said last hour. the federal government sues companies who employees' say

things like -- and they use this -- go back to where you came from. that is a quote lifted directly from the u.s. equal employment opportunity commission. and the federal government regularly sues people who say that in the workplace. >> i think, joe, if we isolate what we just spa and think about it in perspective, you have to realize, we now have the leader of the most powerful country in the world that has staked its claim to freedom and the first amendment. and we now have a president that sees the path to power through hatred. that he is going to hold on to power through hate, anger, and fear. it is frightening for people who are not worried about it, who think this is just another cheap political trick in trump's book. this is much more than that. this is a watershed moment, i

think, in our country. and people need to talk about it with that kind of gravity. because if he allows these chants to continue, then he is putting the stake in the ground that we're not a country about freedom and the first amendment and it's okay to criticize your country in america, because we relish diversity of all kinds. instead, this is an ugly, ugly page in our history. and it makes me sick to my stomach that he has the power to do this and is wielding it like this. >> is that mike pence? >> joe, as you watch this coming from a podium with the presidential seal in front of it and the president is stepping back and allowing the "send her back" chant to take place, maybe i would appeal to the president if we could get ahold of him, we don't talk to him anymore, but all it takes is for one person

to take that message and send that signal, i'm thinking about the pizzagate totally made-up conspiracy theory, where it was floating around the internet during the 2016 campaign, where a guy walked into a pizza place with an ar-15 and started shooting, because he heard some signal. and when the president of the united states stands up there and dlirs a message like and that allows it to echo in a arena and gain steam and not to squelch it, all it takes is one person, one deranged person to hear that message and we're in a very, very dark place in this country. >> well, and the problem is, willie, the president of the united states knows this. >> yep. >> and he doesn't care. he knows that he had somebody that made pipe bombs and going to direct those pipe bombs against the president's political enemies. he fortunately was captured and

arrested. you, of course, have the lieutenant in the coast guard that had a kill list. and the kill list was of reporters, of journalists, of talk show hosts, of members of the democratic party, leaders of the democratic party, of democratic presidential candidates. and that had a kill list and was actually getting the guns, the weapons, the ammunition that he needed to kill all of those people. fortunately, he, too, was arrested. but not only did the president not condemn those acts, we couldn't get one republican member of congress to condemn those people with the kill lists. so the president knows perfectly well what he's doing. bob costa, it was just like during the campaign, where he told people in the audience that if they had legal fees for beating somebody up, he would pay for it, time and time again, he incited violence.

we have the, of course, the time that he talked about, quote, second amendment solutions to stop hillary clinton from appointing federal judges. said that in a rally, too. and of course, there seem to be no consequences for donald trump and he energized his crowd by these lurches towards violent imagery. >> and the crowd was a snapshot of the republican party, a republican party that this week only had four members of the house decide to rebuke president trump on the house floor about his racist tweets. and you have people inside of the white house who say, as long as this economy is strong and the federal reserve does not start to tick up the interest rates at all, and as long as the republicans in congress remain in the president's shadow and refuse to break with him, because they fear his opposition in a primary or a general election, president trump will continue to make these kind of

comments and try to cast the democratic party as the party of representative omar, rather than running against a democratic presidential contender. >> so, bob, what do members, what do republican members of congress think? what do senators like ben sasse think, who have remained silent through all of this? have they just decided they're going to make a deal with the political devil and keep their heads down, even when the president is talking about driving a lawfully elected american out of the country? >> many of them are keeping their heads down. they're staying quiet. when you ask them why, they say, they hear the media and other critics of president trump's conduct, who are rightfully raising real concerns about this kind of racist language and this kind of conduct at rallies. they say the institutional capital of the president's critics or of just reporting has been diminished by the president who every day is going out there

in a relentless fashion and trying to erode the institutional integrity of gatekeepers, of the media, of political leaders in both parties. and because of that style and the relentlessness of it and the inability of many of his critics in both parties to counter it or to have the energy to counter it day in, day out, they feel like they don't really have a strategy in terms of what's next or what actually comes next for this country. >> you know, willie, i'll say this again, because i think it bears repeating. especially for the republicans listening, we were a few of the people and the entire mainstream media who said donald trump could get elected. he could get to 270. we were mocked and ridiculed for it, but we saw a pathway forward for it. i say now, this is a losing proposition. all donald trump is doing is hardening his 38, 39% support that want to hear these sort of

things, but he's motivating his opponents in a way that the democratic party was attacking each other. now they're united. and omar is not going to be the face of the democratic party in 2020. it's going to be whoever they nominate. this is so short-sighted. it's not only immoral, it's just stupid. and i can't believe, willie, that there's not a republican on capitol hill in the united states senate that doesn't understand that. >> as close as we've gotten so far, joe, this is congressman mark walker, the vice chair of the house gop, he wrote this -- he's from north carolina, by the way, where the rally was held. he wrote, though it was brief, but i struggled with the "send her back" chant tonight representing representative omar. that should be our focus, not phrasing that's painful.

so couched as it was, he struggled. >> that is, of course, willie, that is, of course, pathetic. he struggled? there's nothing to struggle about. there's nothing to struggle about. and by the way, stop saying she hates america because she doesn't agree with you on every single point. it's being suspicious of israel is not hating america. it's just not the same. and i say that as a guy that's about as pro-israel as anybody on tv. >> well, so many of these congressmen live in fear of donald trump. they don't want to cross him even on something as objectively bad as we saw last night. and it was somewhat heartening seeing prominent conservatives last night saying, no way, we disagree with her on all of these issues including israel, but "send her back" to an american citizen who was dually elected. that's not how you win an argument. but we haven't heard that from congress. the rally last night was

scheduled on the day that special counsel robert mueller was supposed to testify on capitol hill. presumably, the president intended to respond. instead, president trump got to respond to a house vote to table an impeachment resolution, with 332 members, including 137 democrats, voting against moving forward with impeachment right no now. >> the united states house of representatives has overwhelmingly voted to kill the most ridiculous project i've ever been involved in, the resolution -- how stupid is that -- on impeachment? many of those people that voted for us this afternoon, in somewhat of a sneak attack, a real sneak attack, many of those people that voted for us were democrats. and i want to thank them. because they did the right thing for our country. >> the bid to impeachment president trump was introduced by democratic congressman al green of texas. again, lawmakers voted, 332-95

with a majority of democrats voting alongside republicans to table the measure for now. it marked first time the democratic-controlled chamber has weighed in on impeachment, an issue that's caused division within the party. >> we have six committees that are working on following the facts in terms of any abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and the rest, that the president may have engaged in. that is the serious path that we are on. not that mr. green is not serious. >> so jonathan lamir, nancy pelosi did not want this vote. here we are and the president got to celebrate the small number of democrats who actually joined republicans on that vote. >> yeah, last night, the president even said it was this vote, the fact that democrats crossed over and supported him and the fact that republicans were nearly unanimous in backing him, that that should be the real story last night. of course, as he so often does, he steps on his own headline

with the "send her back" chants. but this is revealing that these divides in the democratic party that, yes, this issue last night was tabled. it's not going away. this is something that speaker pelosi is going to have to deal with time and time again. there's a real movement within the party to move on impeachment, to proceed down that path. she has not wanted that, she has not wanted that from the beginning. she said, we have other investigative measures we're going to carry through. that there's a real concern, that why there may be morally righteous reasons to impeach this president, that it's politically dangerous, that it could be handing him a real win if they do that. and it also goes to show just how this president dictates what happens in congress. that there isn't much of a democratic pro-agenda right now. it is very reactionary to what he is doing. that he is, just in the last few days, of course starting with the tweets on sunday and all the comments about these four congresswomen of color, that they're responding to that and that's what led to this movement yesterday that was defeated. but it just adds to this

murkyness and i think the president is happy to play that game, play puppet master in the house and make it an "us versus them" and as ugly as possible. >> so yamiche, you know over the last several weeks of back and forth that speaker pelosi is going to meet with congresswoman ocasio-cortez to air thiniron ts out that have been aired in public. she says she doesn't want to leap there partially because she believes that conversation helps the president. >> speaker nancy pelosi is in a tough position. she is both having to understand and deal with the concerns of her members who want to see an impeachment proceeding, who say the president's done enough through what they learned in the mueller report, but also in these attacks against these four congresswomen, that he should be made to be held to task through impeachment hearings. then, of course, you have democrats who are trying to win districts and hold ton distrion

districts that president trump won. and those people want nothing to do with impeachment. i also think that this week shows that nancy pelosi, she was going to be in this battle to really try to wrangle back the democratic party from theseconge more power than most freshman have had in the past, and she feels engaged in having this argument and then the president weighs in and now the entire party has to back these four congresswomen. many of the democrats in the house have been telling reporters on and off the record that they were frustrated, that they think that these four congresswomen might not stand for the party in the way that the party is now standing for them. but the bottom line is, when you have four congresswomen being attacked with racist tweets, you have to stand behind them. so i think that nancy pelosi is really trying to walk this fine line. but i agree with what jonathan said, which is that this is what the president wants to be talking about. he wants to be able to say, look, the house -- there are some members saying that they

want to impeach me, but they can't even get that passed. and by the way, what exactly are they doing in the house other than trying to harass me. so last night's is vote goes hand in hand with the message he's been trying to tell his supporters, which is that democrats are really focused on taking an elected president out of office. >> so bob costa, it's heilemann here, let me ask you this. as we look beyond the -- this moment, as difficult as it is to do, we look towards next week, you've got bob mueller coming up to the hill and this impeachment talk, though the vote went nowhere yesterday, there's no doubt that every day, the number of democrats supporting an impeachment inquiry continues to tick up, kind of like clock work. so that's happening and president trump has fueled some new interest in opening impeachment inquiry with these moves this week. the second thing that's happened, it seems to me, and the one i want to ask you about is the debt ceiling negotiations that are looming out there. and it seems to be hard to imagine anything the president

has done this week has made it easier for skraecretary mnuchin get the debt ceiling deal that he needs. and if that does not happen and threatens the president's economic record, he is in some really big trouble on the political front. >> and you have a white house, john, that wants to see the debt limit extended to protect that market status. they know that the federal reserve and the debt limit are the biggest threats to the stock market in creating volatility. you have, at this point, though, a president who's willing to push speaker pelosi, who has been willing to work with him on many fronts, especially on trade, on the debt limit, to the brink. and the more he uses these racist tweets and has these kind of rallies, it makes it more difficult to come to an agreement on the debt limit. where you have both sides coming together to rise federal spending levels across both defense and non-defense areas. that's what needs to happen in the next week if they want to get a debt limit extension. speaker pelosi is someone who can play chess on different

boards at the same time. her allies tell me, she can still cut a deal with mnuchin, the treasury secretary, while allowing the mueller testimony to move forward, to allow to impeachment ideas to be explored. she can do both things. but she is someone who's a political leader, not just an activist. she has been a longtime activist in the democratic party. she wants to work with the president on u.s. mca and trade. she wants to get a debt limit deal. the question she faces is, how much longer can she keep her left flank at bay? >> claire mccaskill, you have twice -- were twice elected to the united states in a very red state. you know that state very well. you saw the political ground shift underneath you last year. i'm curious, why the shift -- and i ask that in light of last night's rally, and how do you believe americans, independents,

formerly moderate republicans are going to respond? will donald trump ultimately be reward eed for that racist rhetoric last night? >> well, it's interesting. the strategy seems to be in the trump campaign that we can find more voters that have never participated before that see this world through this lens of hatred and anger. and i doubt that is true. but that's clearly their strategy. they think they can grow the number of people that are under their tent by finding people who have never registered to vote before. and here's the thing that people need to remember, that keeps getting lost in all of this. in america right now, about 25% of americans self-identify as republicans. and about 25% of americans identify as democrats. 50%, almost 50% as of june,

identify as independents. and it is those voters that donald trump is alienating. it is those voters that we have an opportunity to sweep up as democrats, if, in fact, our candidate realizes that that's where the election will be won. there is not going to be millions and millions and millions of new voters on the edges that are going to all of a sudden show up for the first time. it's still going to be decided by those voters who refuse at this point to call themselves a member of either party. >> and you look at charlottesville and the after-effect. it was the independents that you're talking about, claire, that swung against donald trump, that made his approval ratings go down. you look at events like this past weekend. it is independents that disapprove of this sort of racist rhetoric that will swing against him. i agree with you, this is so short-sighted, it is amoral, it

is bad for america. and the only thing that donald trump cares about, donald, i know you're watching, so let me just tell you, this is bad politics. it's bad for america. you may not care about that, but this is also very bad for you politically. >> and joe, it's so bad -- >> robert costa -- go ahead, claire. >> let me get this in real quick. it's so bad, joe, that i actually believe that if thom tillis or any other senator stood up at this point, cory gardner or any of them, and were willing to lose their seat over saying what is obviously true, they would make history and i got to tell you, it's okay out here, guys. it's not the end of the world. you will survive if you don't have your office! but the notion that they are so morally bankrupt in the republican side of the senate at this point that no one is calling a press conference this morning to say, no, not in america, we're not going to have a president do that behind the presidential seal. >> that's right!

>> well, the people who put this at risk, mika, thom tillis, who was up in the swing state of north carolina, cory gardner, who is up in the swing state of colorado, joni ernst, who is up in the swing state of iowa, where donald trump went from being very popular to being upsidedown. you have -- what about susan collins in maine? does souvenir collins really think that she's going to get re-elected staying quiet when donald trump is talking about a sort of political ethnic cleansing, that if you don't like a muslim american, you can try to drive her from that country. people in maine won't put up with this anymore independents in iowa, colorado, or north carolina will. they either speak out or they lose. >> well, hiding from the cameras today and saying nothing is just as bad at this point. and they know it. robert costa, thank you for your reporting. and still ahead on "morning

joe" -- >> and you have a young guy -- buttigi buttigieg. they're saying how to say his name. boot-edge-edge. he's a beauty. he runs a failed city. his city is doing so badly. >> president trump says he doesn't see pete buttigieg as a threat, but still took some time last night to attack him. mark leibovich has new reporting about the south bend mayor next on "morning joe." "morning joe. johnson & johnson is a baby company. but we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. from the day you're born yesss, i'm doing it all. the water. the exercise. the fiber. month after month, and i still have belly pain and recurring constipation.

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so come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. and then you have a young guy, buttigieg. they're saying how to say his name, boot-edge-edge. he's a beauty. he runs a failed city. his city is doing so badly. and then he goes back home and

african-americans literally were so angry at him for the lousy job. and he's supposed to be like a hot young star. if that's the hot young star, i guess i just don't know stardom anymore. that is not a star. that's not a star! boot-edge-edge. you say "boot," and then add "edge, edge." boot-edge-edge. now, i don't see him dealing with president xi of china. i don't see him meeting successfully with kim jong-un. >> really working through that pronouncer in the prompter last night. buttigieg. joining us now, chief national correspondent for "new york times" magazine, mark leibovich. also with us this morning, "new york times" reporter, jeremy peters. another classic mark leibovich profile here of mayor pete buttigieg. what is the mayor still figuring out at this point? >> well, how to run for president.

i think everyone is right now still finding their way. it's very, very early. and the president's clip just there was pretty interesting. it was actually remarkably on brand in that, yeah, pete buttigieg loves sort of talking about the pronounceuatiation of name. one of the hottest merchandise thing has been these phonetic pronunciation t-shirts you see all of his rallies and his fund-raisers. but, he was interesting, because i caught him during this moment where he had this meteoric rise, he was getting a ton of money and getting a ton of press and raising a ton of money, and then he collided head-on with this reality back in south bend, there was a police shooting involving an african-american citizen who may or may not have had a knife with him. anyway, he was shot and killed. and i caught mayor buttigieg right in the middle of this and spent some time with him in south bend. and as the president said, there was this uproar and there was this big, big uprising in south

bend. so i checked in with him as his trajectory fell and his story became a lot more interesting. >> this is the mayor of a city about 200,000 people. effectively came out of nowhere. he came on this show, he does town halls, he's always incredibly versed with the issues. he struggled as the president referenced in his own way last night at that town hall meeting. he didn't seem to handle that well, didn't know how to find his footing. how's he working past that? and when you look at the polling, inside the polling, he really, really struggles, unlike almost any other leading candidate with african-americans voters. >> yeah, and he continues to. obviously, this police shooting made matter s worse for him. i was at that town hall in south bend. it was a pretty crazy scene. he didn't have any command of the situation at all. there were times where it just looked like that situation was going to devolve and you had no

idea where it was going to go. but look, i think mayor buttigieg, mayor pete as he calls himself or a lot of people call him, he's just riding this out and he's aware this is a long game in a campaign and time does tend to heal things. and what you need for, you know, maximizing your time in a campaign is money. and he's raised a ton of it. and he's been really focused on that. and he's consistently polled in the top three. and now in the top five. he's dropped back a little bit. he sort of lost his flavor of the month status to senator warren and senator harris over the last few weeks. but, look, he has impressed a lot of people. he has a lot of room to grow, obviously, with african-american voters. and at the very least, he's a pretty fresh face and someone that the field has never had before and a chance to check another big historic box if you're a democrat, which would be the first openly gay president we've had in this country. >> hey, jeremy, it's jonathan lamir, you have a new piece out about how president trump is setting tone of the 2020 election. and we certainly saw it last

night from the rally stage in north carolina. tell us a little bit about how it's going to be similar to what he did in 2016, but what might some key differences be, as well? >> i think we saw a lot of that last night. you saw this classic trump branding effort, where he brands through reputation. he mentioned omar's name nine times by my count over the course of about five minutes. he didn't do that with anybody else. and by saying "omar, omar, omar," a name that sounds foreign to some people, it's reminiscent of what a lot of conservatives did with barrack hussein obama in trying to portray him as this "other" kind of figure. i think the one thing we can expect, you can guarantee anything in this race, is that this is going to be the ugliest presidential campaign we have probably seen since 1968. this is a president who is already borrowing pages from richard nixon's playbook. the line that he used for omar, "send them back," is reminiscent

of america, love it or leave it, which republicans and nixon supporters used in 1972 to counter vietnam war protesters and smear them as unpatriotic and anti-american. that is essentially trump's message. it's, in the hospital only are these people against me and against you, they hate me, they hate you, they hate this country. and this is a civilizational clash, as far as he sees it. and it's really the only thing that he can do, the only thing he knows how to do. and as you know, anybody who tries to correct him otherwise, as people i've spoken to, have spoken directly to trump over the last few days, he doesn't want to hear it and he won't listen. >> i just want to know, jeremy, inside the trump campaign, it amazes me how he can continue to portray himself as a non-elite to these voters and talk about others derogatorily as if

they're elite. this is a guy with gold-gilt toilets for goodness sake. he is as elite as they can get. what is going on inside their campaign as far as registering voters. are they already out there at these rallies trying to find people who have not participated, pause it seems to me, this is their only strategy to try to grow this band of folks that are angry and accept a message of hate. >> you hit the nail on the head there, senator. that's exactly right. and it is interesting, in the 2015/'16 time period when we were all watching him come out of nowhere, he managed to convince these audiences that he was a man of the people, as he flew around on his gold-plated private jet from city to city in iowa -- places like iowa and new hampshire. so there's that aspect of it. but the key to the election as far as the trump campaign and the rnc see it is finding and

activating those non-voters, those irregular voters. people who didn't come out and vote for him in 2016, but who would have if they could have been convinced to. the campaign chairman, brad parscale has said, as maggie haberman and annie carnegie reported hour piece, there are very few swing voters. you're not going to change anyone's mind. he's a really good guy win see him in a different light. that's not happening. they need to go into rural areas and find these voters. that's very expensive and that's why it's so key and so -- really kifl an impressive feat for them that they've raised so much money and it's so important that they do that because they need that money to find these voters. >> hey, i want to widen the discussion from mayor pete to the democratic field and your -- on your side. we've got tonight, the cnn draw

to determine who's going to be in which debate, in their upcoming debates a little bit less than two weeks away. the only difference in the ones who qualify, we found out yesterday, you have steve bullock who makes the debate, but everybody else is the same as they were at the msnbc debates last month. i just want to -- give me a sense soft where you think, not just mayor pete, but others -- this seems to me like a pretty important debate. a lot of these candidates are really struggling for oxygen, they're struggling for money. what we learned if the first set of debates is that if you can go after someone and score a hit, you get rewarded. you get rewarded financially and in the polls, certainly kamala harris learned that, but so did julian castro. what do you see for that set of debates. do you think everybody walks into those debates learning that lesson and they'at we're going see a very raucous affair. >> there's some of that. i think the last debate argues in both directions. scastro had

night, but not a lot of traction since then, especially in the polls. if you speak to a lot of democrats, a cnn draw to figure out who's going on tonight cnn debate stage, the sooner this can get done, the better. i think there's a real appetite among a lot of democrats, either involved in the campaign or not, to pare the field, to get the sort of big, kind of dog pile aspect of this campaign out of the way, so you can focus on actually having a choice. and frankly, a couple of other people i talked to, not over the mayor pete piece, but just since the piece closed said that things like this week when you have donald trump acting in a quintessentially donald trump divisive way helps someone like joe biden, because there's less of an appetite to, as tom friedman said in one of his columns this week, to postpone the revolution and maybe land the plane a little bit. so i think things like a debate draw are very preliminary and i

think a lot of people are looking forward to getting out of the way. and there's always an appetite for people to try to break out and make a name for themselves in these things. but again, that's a temporary phase and will probably end pretty soon. >> there will be 20 kalwill be in two nights for this race. mark leibovich, jeremy peters, thank both. coming up, republican senator rand paul blocks legislation that would fastrack an extension to the 9/11 victims' compensation fund. now comedian and advocate jon stewart who has been on issue this from the beginning is hitting back. plus, our montana contingency continues. yesterday. we had steve bullock on the show today. today, two more from montana. the first, democratic senator jon tester. he joins our conversation next. and as we go to break, a look at the latest cover of "time" magazine. this week's issue focuses on the new space race as well as the 50th anniversary of the apollo

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a camera might figure it out. that was easy! glad i could help. at xfinity, we're here to make life simple. easy. awesome. so come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. welcome backing to "morning joe." live pictures, 7:45 in the morning of the united states capitol. inside that building, republican senator rand paul of kentucky blocked the fast track approval of an extension of the 9/11 victim compensation fund, which would have ensured the fund never runs out of money. the legislation has 74 senate co-sponsors and passed the house last week overwhelmingly. senator paul objected to a request by senator kirsten gillibrand of new york to approve the bill by unanimous consent, arguing any new spending should be offset by corresponding cuts. >> any new spending we are approaching, any new program

that's going to have the longevity of 70, 80 years should be offset by cutting spending that's less valuable. we need to at the very least have this debate. i will be offering up an amendment if this bill should come to the floor, but until then, i will object. >> jon stewart, who has been a evacuate advocate for these 9/11 first responders right from the beginning had this reaction to senator paul. >> it's absolutely outrageous. and pardon me if i'm not impressed in any way by rand paul's fiscal responsibility virtue signaling. rand paul presented tissue paper avoidance of the $1.5 trillion tax cut that added hundreds of billions of dollars to our deficit. and now he stands up at the last minute after 15 years of blood, sweat, and tears from the 9/11 community to say that, it's all over now now we're going to balance the budget on the backs of the 9/11 first responder community. >> a spokesperson for senator

paul later told the hill he is, quote, not blocking anything, adding, he's simply seeking to pay for it. claire mccaskill, let me just go to you on this. you've dealt with this issue before. his taking care of victims of 9/11, people who worked on the pile, who klicleaned up first responders for months and breathed in all that toxic air. it's for the families of those who died, senator paul talks about fiscal responsibility, the office of management and budget in the white house announced just this week that we'll have a $1 trillion deficit under in administration of as of next year. what's your response to senator paul here? >> you know, rand, rand, rand, come on. the hypocrisy here is stunning. and the notion that he's comfortable doing this, you know, he has absolutely -- he plays golf with the president. the president loves debt. he thinks the president is great. the president loves deficits. under this president, the

deficit has gone very high. our debt continues to climb. and he's a co-conspirator in that. so this notion that he's going to carve out some piece of fiscal responsibility in light of what the republican party is doing right now is beyond the pale. and it's not just unusual for rand to rtry to stand out and b the one that causes problems. but so stupid. and he looks ridiculous. >> so mika, rand paul, as jon stewart pointed out, voted for the tax cut of 2017, which of course added to the deficit, but the buck stops with the heros of 9/11. >> yeah, absolutely. and joining us now, member of the veterans affairs and appropriations committees, democratic senator jon tester of montana. i want to start off, senator, with your republican counterpart in montana, a trump state. what should your republican counterpart be saying today

about trump's rally and the chants "send her back" and his incitement of hatred to congresswoman omar last night? >> democrats and republicans alike, and we haven't heard much from the republicans being critical on the president's remarks. but you have to call it what it is, it's racism. and quite frankly, dividing the country. that's how he hopes to win, i guess. but it's not good for the country. and if republicans don't start standing up and saying stop, stop this insanity, it's going to continue. and the country will continue to suffer even greater. >> is it okay to say nothing? is that -- is that enough? like, at this point, should your republican counterpart and all republicans stand up and say something today?

>> well, i mean, look, unless you like racism, absolutely you should stand up. you have to walk before you can run. i've heard a little bit of out a few of them, but they should be standing up en mass saying it's not appropriate, this isn't what our party is about, but it is because trump is their leader. >> let me ask you, how much did donald trump win your state by? >> i think he won by 21 points. >> so he won by 21 points. you spoke out, you had no problem speaking out against racism in charlottesville. you've had no problem speaking out against his racist comments, even when supporting him on issues when you getaway with those issues and you got re-elected. please, tell other democrats how to do that going into 2020. >> well, i think you don't take the bait that president trump came out here. you say that what he has done is disgraceful for the country. and then you talk about things like high costs of health care, high costs of higher education. what you're going to do on the

southern border to help stop the situations down there. i think those -- the kind of issues that really hit home, how you're going to invest in infrastructure and how you're going to pay for it, i think those are the issues that really will move the folks who will get you elected. and i don't think, even in states where donald trump won big, that it did you any good running away from donald trump. i think you need to go back and punch him in the face. the truth is this guy is bad for this country. we're running trillion dollar deficits as the last piece showed. quite frankly, all of our allies we've distanced. he's wrapped his arm around the folks who are -- the death spots in the world. i just -- yoli don't get it mys. the bottom line is we need a candidate who can beat him in 2020 and i think with him get one. >> take the message to the

people who can influence rand paul. but i'm curious, you work with rand paul all the time. you know rand paul voted for this massive tax cut which blew a hole in the deficit and the national debt. i'm curious, do you see rand paul going to the noor and against the pork barrel spending that goes back to kentucky? kentucky gets 1.50 back for every dollar they send to washington, d.c. does rand paul go on the floor and true to cut pork barrel spending back to his own constituents? >> i certainly haven't heard it. you can look at this issue different wants. he asked for unanimous consent, we got it. central mcconnell should bring this bill to the floor and let's vote. my guess is it will pass by

large numbers. have the debate and vote. we don't vote in the senate except for judges. and it's crazy. so they put a uc up, should have got everybody in the senate to support it, but it didn't. and because we don't -- the floor and we don't vote, it empowers people like rand paul. senator mcconnell needs to take this bill to the floor and instead of getting out of here tonight or tomorrow morning, bring it to the floor and we'll vote on the dog gone thing and we'll get the folks what they deserve and what they've earned and what this country stands for and support the people who help us. senators, somebody you know who i'm sure was a troublemaker when you worked with her is with us and has a question for you. >> oh, boy. this could be fun, tester. this could be fun. but let me ask you how frustrating it is. this meme is out there that somehow democrats aren't trying to do things that matter for america's families.

that democrats aren't legislating in the house on prescription drugs and the opoid issues. nobody talk bes that because trump, frankly, takes up all the oxygen in the room and the media covers his outrageousness instead of covering the real work that's getting done. pinpoint for our viewers how bad it is that mcconnell has basically stopped the business of america in the united states senate. >> well, you said it. if you take a look at the greatest deliberative body, we don't deliberate any more. the rules have been changed to make us almost like the house. honestly, we don't take up issues that we can come together and debate and challenge one another and move forward with a bill that's good for the country. instead, we do judge after judge after judge after judge after judge after judge. and that is about it. and i'm going to tell you, the

people of this country need some revisions in health care so they can avoid to get sick. there are all sorts, pick one, infrastructure, all of the bo above and we sit back and do nothing in the united states senate. it's absolutely the craziest thing that i've ever seen. and it's nothing like i thought it was going to be before i got here. and until we get a leader on the floor of the senate who is willing to take bills up so we can vote on them and have the debate and if they go down, they go down. if they pass, they pass. we're going to have a dysfunctional senate where one person like rand paul can stop the whole thing. >> wow, senator john tester, thank you very much. and claire, thank you, as well. we have more ahead on last night's disturbing chant at donald trump's rally in north carolina. plus, an update on the footage that our producers found of donald trump partying with jeffrey epstein at mar-a-lago in 1992 as well as gilane maxwell,

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but big corporations and special interests are in control. nothing's happening for real people. our democracy has been purchased. the candidates running for president have great ideas. but we can't get anything done unless we make our democracy serve the people again. i'm tom steyer. i approve this message. i'm running for president because it's time our democracy works for people.

dto experiencer gthe luxury you desire on a full line of utility vehicles. at the lexus golden opportunity sales event. lease the 2019 rx 350 for $389 a month, for 36 months, and we'll make your first month's payment. experience amazing. what's your -- >> why is that relevant? >> they represent a dark underbelly in this country of -- >> she looks down with contempt on the hard working americans saying that ignorance is

pervasive in many parts of this country. and, obviously, and importantly, omar has a history of launching vicious anti semantic screams. >> that's the president, actually, from his rally from last night. >> something like that. two days and three unmistakable messages from the white house. last night's top searches on merriam-webster dixary, racism, socialism, fascism, concentration camp, xenophobia, bigot. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, july 18th.

along with joe, willie and me, we have john heilman, jonathan lamere, amish alsendor. great group this morning. hard news to cover, surely. at a campaign rally last night, president trump launched into a five-minute broadside against congresswoman omar of minnesota who as a child refugee fled war-torn somalia and became an american citizen and is one of the four house democrats of color who the president said should go back to their countries, even though the other three were born in the united states. as the president went on about omar, the crowd's fury increased, lead to go a new and alarming rally chant.

>> representative mar, omar left that american speak of al qaeda in a menacing tone and remarked that you don't say america with this intensity. you say al qaeda makes you proud. al qaeda makes you proud. you don't speak that way about america. she looks down with contempt on the hard working americans saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country. and, obviously and importantly, omar has a history of launching vicious anti semantic screams.

congresswoman omar responded on social media with the words of the poet maya angelou. quote, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, i will rise. so john heilman, it's hard to say, actually, that this is shocking given everything that has preceded this moment, perhaps everything has led up to this. but this is the low point of -- i think it's the loy point of the trump presidency. and i would hope, after laugh night's shocking display in any other context under any other president, any other time in american history, that we can go

ahead and be done with the fiction that donald trump is a bad guy running the country, but that those at the rally, we need to figure out how to understand them a bit more. they, once again, made themselves perfectly clear last night. >> yeah. i've been -- you know, we've all been watching this whole incredibly sad disgusting spectacle unfold since sunday. and we moved to political analysis and rightly he's the president of the united states. but i've got to say, you know, the president, i have not had much doubt about the fact that the president was a bigot and a racist and had a lot of hate in his heart for a long time. i think what we're witnessing now is something, if you can imagine it worse than that, the chief executive of the united states of america is putting a

target on the back of an individual american citizen. that's -- i mean, the president is inciting violence against an individual american. donald trump has done some pretty horrific things in the course of his time in the oval office, but this is undoubtedly, as you say, joe, not just the low point, but the worst. the most debravepraved, disgust and odious thing that the president has ever done. and i think we're headed into -- we're already in a really bad place and we're headed to some place worse. >> a far worse place. >> dangerous. >> and, you know, i actually talked about yesterday about how republicans shamed themselves by not calling racism racism. i saw some people actually write columns that used to be respected trying to excuse the president's language and saying it's not racist. but the u.s. equal employment

opportunity commission, the federal agency that donald trump oversees that enforces laws against discrimination specifically outlined such language that the president used last night and that his crowd used last night as an example of bias. in a section on national origin and anti-discrimination laws, their website, the federal government's website, president trump's he website says, ethnic slurs and other visual and physical conduct because of nationality are illegal. they are illegal if they're severe and pervasive and create an intimidating hostile or offensive working environment that interfere with work performance and negatively affect job opportunities. and, willie, it goes on to say in donald trump's deposit, examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethic he taepitathh

as making fun of a person's foreign accent or comments like go back to where you came from. willie, this is not a theoretical discussion about whether what donald trump was illegal or not. this is the law of the land. and if donald trump had said go back to where you came from in any, any private company, or if all of those people chanting that last night say it in their work today, they will be sued, could be sued. and guess what? the federal government wins those suits. it's unbelievable. >> that's the legal explanation. i suspect the president did not consult the eeoc before he made thinks comments last night. this is a game to him. this is a political game that he's playing. he believes it helps him in 2020. i think we're, what, 15 months away from an election?

there is much worse ahead of us right now after what we saw last night. and over the last four years, let's call its, there's been hyperbole, there's been overreaction in some cases to president trump. but what we saw last night was, in fact, un-american. and by that i mean when you disagree with someone in this country, the call is not to send them back to whatever country you came from. omar is a united states citizen. the president could disagree with her. but in america, you put somebody up against her to run against her in an election. you don't send her back to the country she came from and you certainty don't step back from a podium and allow a frothy crowd on a hot summer night to chant send her back. >> president trump has absolutely and clearly settled on a strategy of fear focused on identity, focused on these four

women of color and specifically representative omar. he's not saying that he disagrees just with democrats's policies. he's saying that they will destroy your way of life and he's seeing that as the way to get people out of their homes to go vote for him. i think yesterday what we saw was the crystalzation of president trump going from lock her up to send her back as a strategy to get people riled up. and i will say, as i was watching that this morning, i was really struck by there was a little girl sitting in the crowd. and the crowd started chanting send her back and she kind of started looking around and eventually she started joining in. and i thought for a moment, taking away the politics, what we are seeing is the next generation of americans learning how to treat a representative of congress who was born in a different country, but is now an american citizen. and that i think is what might be the saddest part of all of this. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump said his access hollywood tape was just

locker room talk. would he say the same about whatever he and jeffrey epstein were discussing in this 1992 video unearthed by "morning joe"? lordy, there are tapes. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. u're watchi" we'll be right back. johnson & johnson is a baby company. but we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. ♪ i want it that way... i can't believe it. that karl brought his karaoke machine? ♪ ain't nothing but a heartache... ♪ no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. ♪ i never wanna hear you say... ♪ no, kevin... no, kevin! believe it!

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joib. jeffrey epstein is due back in a courtroom today where he is expected to learn from a federal judge whether or not he will be granted bail as he awaits trial on new sex crimes charges involving children, underage girls. and we have an update now on the footage found by our "morning joe" producers from back in 1992 chat shows tru

that shows trump watching and commenting with epstein who is now an accused sex trafficker at the mar-a-lago estate. according to the "new york times," that party took place the same year trump hosted an off-camera affair with epstein at mar-a-lago during which they were the only male guests and they had more than two dozen what are called calendar girls flown in to provide them with entertainment. >> wait, just -- you mean the only people -- >> just epstein and donald trump and 28 young women. >> because there's donald trump and epstein and a lot of others there. but you're saying in that event, they flew in 28, quote, calendar girls and are you saying it was the only people at mar-a-lago at that party were epstein and donald trump? >> and in that video that we unearthed, you see epstein and

donald trump glaring at women and salivating as they are dancing and making some comments that caused epstein to double over in laughter. this sex offender who is accused of sex trafficking. but in the background, you see gilaine maxwell. i'm not sure if i have her name right. she was a british socialite who is accused of being epstein's underage recruiter of underage girls. she's there in the background in the white shirt. she's dancing or something. i don't know what she's doing. >> i can understand when donald trump said in 2002 that he loved -- what did he say, jeffrey epstein was a great guy and he really loved women just like donald. he loved women almost as much as donald did, but that he loved really young women. now i guess we understand. look at these two looking at women and pointing at them.

>> so president ptrump told reporters last week that he had a falling out and was not a fan of jeffrey epstein. i guess this is when he was a fan. while the nature of trump's falling out remains unclear, the times reports trump sold associates that he banned epstein from mar-a-lago after a worker at trump's club was recruited to be a masseuse for epstein. while others close to epstein claim a business transaction related to a florida property ended their relationship. in 2016, the paper says then candidate trump's allies worked to minimize his association with epstein while noting that former president bill clinton had also been friends with the wealthy financier. it reports that during a deposition in a 2010 lawsuit accusing him of trafficking children for sex, epstein declined to answer whether he and trump had ever socialized in the presence of underage girls. >> so john, we're getting

reports this morning from "vanity fair" that they're about to be 2,000 documents that are going to be released in the epstein case which will likely reveal the associations between epstein and a number of extraordinarily powerful men, former prime ministers, high ranking american political officials, ceos, etcetera. it reminds me of something you said early in the 2016 campaign cycle when you and a lot of other reporters were trying to figure out exactly what was going on with epstein and who he associated with that was involved in the presidential race. it seems nobody was able to mail down that story, at least during the campaign, but now everybody has been put into a position where in a few days, they may be finding out the answers to a lot of those questions. >> yeah. and i think, look, joe, one of the things that's -- the reason why this story is not over by a long way and not only -- not

only is there more to play here related to jeffrey epstein, but also related to others, potentially including the president of the united states, is the fact that what the prosecutors have discovered in that safe and in jeffrey epstein's home includes a lot of documents and a lot of video, apparently, which may prove to be not just embarrassing, but incriminating related to the behaviors of various individuals. there's been a lot of speculation about the extent to which some of epstein's wealth was derived by blackmailing powerful individuals in the world of politics, finance, technology and if a lphilanthro whether the basis of that blackmail rests in his possession. so there arelty of people, i think, nervous about this. there's a sense that certainly the most high profile person

now, it is the case that bill clinton had association with jeffrey epstein and took flights around the world with him. that now has kind of faded from at least the center of this story because of the fact of the donald trump association. the "new york times" now picking it up and doing some more investigation here. as you know, there have been some pretty disturbing allegations that have surfaced in the past related to donald trump in the 2016 campaign, jane doe lawsuit was filed that accused the premises of engaging in sex crimes. that lawsuit was withdrawn after the lawyer for the woman said that she would face death threats, but that was written about them. there were stories written about it in the press in 2016 and i think you are likely potentially to read some more stories about that question. and i'll say one last thing is that there was, on the internet for a period of time, the

deposition of that jane doe in that lawsuit was on just a few days ago and now has suddenly disappeared from the website which has raised some questions around people who are following this case about what happened to that videotaped deposition which made some allegations against the current president of the united states. coming up on "morning joe," columnist tom freedman unpacks a question that has a lot of democrats nervous right now. trump is going to get re-elected, isn't he? we'll talk about his new opinion piece, next on "morning joe." hn piece, next on "morning joe. johnson & johnson is a baby company. but we're also a cancer fighting,

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one thing i learned covering the middle east, did you want to make a point or did you want to make a difference? what i would have done with the democrats, i would have tonight announced we're having a national telethon and our goal is to raise $100 million to register $100 million new registered voters in the country. thank you, donald. thank you for helping us raise money to register more democrats

in swing states and districts around the country. but if you come back and say you're a bad guy and every is opining he's a bad guy, we know that. his supporters don't need more information. they're not interested in information. >> the "new york times" columnist thomas freedman last night on how he would respond if he was a democrat. he writes this part this, i'm struck at how many people have come up to me recently and said trump is going to get re-elected, isn't he? and in each case, when i drilled down to ask why, i bumped into the presidential democratic debates in june. i think a lot of americans were shocked by the things they heard there. i was. deer democrats, this is not complicated. just nominated decent sane person, one committed to reunion fiesing the country and creating more good jobs. a person who can gain the support of independents,

moderate republicans and suburban women who abandon donald trump in the midterms and thus swung the house of representatives to the democrats and could do the same for the presidency. and that candidate can win. please, spare me the revolution you. it can wait. win the presidency. hold the house narrow to spread in the senate. a lot of good things still can be accomplished. joining us now, author of the book "a world in disarray," richard haas. i was talking to joe biden and people are worried about their paychecks and understandably so. but our understanding is the world has gone down under trump and we're, in many respects,

becoming a mockery. biden talked about the danger of that. he also made an incredible pitch that i thought separated him from the other democrats. he has a sense not just of talk, obama. he said i want to talk about my experience. he knows world leaders. he's met them before. he's been on the world stage and he's handled foreign policy issues at a very high level and says in many ways we need to get back to where we were while still moving forward. it is going to take someone who understands what it is we had in order to get back there. what is it that we have lost in the wake of this president? >> one, we've come quite a ways away from ronald reagan sitting on the hill. a lot of people are living in anti-democratic libertarian societies. look at that. and they go, that seems kind of

familiar. for so long, we thought of otherwise acid different and exceptional. well, when you watched things last night, we're voluntarily giving up the high ground and an important part of foreign policy is not what diplomates do. it's simply who we are, it's the example we set, how well we run our economy, how decent other politics. we offer to disadvantaged americans. so that is one thing. the other thing, and it gets to what joe biden was saying is the history, there is no pause button on history. so we're going through this kind of stuff, the world is moving on. and, you know, china is doing what it's doing in terms of its own domestic development in terms of increasing its footprint around the world. russia is doing what it's doing in europe. north korea keeps building up its nuclear systems. iran has pressed the edge of the envelope. so we're distracted. but history, again, doesn't stop. we sort ourselves out over the next couple of years and whoever

wins this election, whether it's donald trump or a democrat, he or she is going to inherit an extraordinarily difficult -- you know, you mentioned my book. that was written a couple of years ago. that was the inbox that the 45th president was going to inherit. i didn't know who it was going be when i wrote it. now, a year and a half from now, the only thing i do know is that next inbox is going to be considerably worse. coming up, we'll talk to the candidate challenging steve dans for u.s. senate in monday. he's a former refugee and has plenty to say about the national conversation right now. the democratic mayor of helena joins the conversation next on "morning joe." na joins the conversation next on "morning joe." johnson & johnson is a baby company.

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welcome back to ""morning joe." some of the stories we're following this morning, an attack on a japanese animation studio has left 36 people injured or dead. those numbers could rise as authorities continue to investigate a series of planned explosions that swept through the three-story building on the outskirts of kyoto. the blaze reportedly broke out around 10:30 a.m. local time at the kyoto animation company after a man sprayed and ignited what appeared to be gasoline throughout the studio. according to the dput deputy chief of kyoto police, the suspect, a 41-year-old man is in police custody. he was being treated for his injuries in a hospital according to officials. we will follow that. a massachusetts prosecutor yesterday asked for charges to be dropped against actor kevin spacey, who had been accused of

groping a young man at a resort island bar back in july of 2016 after the accuser refused to testify. spacey's defense demanded to examine the accuser's cell phone that he had the morning of the alleged incident at a bar in nantucket. they said they say it had information supporting spacey's innocence. but the case appeared to suffer last week when the boy invoked his fifth amendment rights after being questioned about whether he deleted messages from his phone. the oscar winning actor was charged with indecent assault and battery and the prosecution brought last year. he has denied the allegations. and a story that is getting more attention every day, several members of congress are calling for rapper asak rocky to be released from a swedish jail where he is currently being held following an altercation in stockholm three weeks ago.

rocky, who was in sweden on the european leg of his tour was arrested on july 2nd after voluntarily going to the police in stockholm for question background a street fight he was reportedly involved in. the stockholm prosecutor's office has stated that rocky is, quote, suspected of aggravated assault. supporters for rocky maintain he and two of his companions are acting in self-defense. swedish prosecutors must decide by friday whether to charge rocky or release him. according to "the washington post," members of congress have said the men have been faced with inhumane conditions and human rights violations, including 23 hours per day of solitary confinement. lawmakers have urged the u.s. state department to do more to facilitate the men's release. a spokesperson for the state department told the paper that the department is following this case closely.

>> willie, this is just a bizarre case. this is a guy, i'm sure you've seen the video, he's being followed around the streets of stockholm by two people who are taunting him and they repeatedly taunt him. he turns around and says, hey, come on, leave us alone. we don't want to fight. we don't want to fight. then they continued to follow him around. he pushed them away and then went in to report this to stockholm police. they arrested him, did not charge him. threw him into solitary confinement in heinous conditions. he has lost millions and millions of dollars for simply pushing people away who were harassing him. lost millions and millions of

dollars and other music artists from america and across the world are wisely saying, no way in hell am i going to perform in sweden as long as this is going on. it really is unbelievable coming from sweden. they have kept this guy in solitary confinement under the worst circumstances because he was being harassed on the streets of stack home. >> yeah. i have not heard a good explanation, frankly, over the last couple of weeks from swedish police about why they're holding him at all, number one. and number two, as you said, 23 hours a day in solitary, effectively. this is a fight that took place on june 30th. it's now july the 18th. shortly after the fight, asap rocky turned himself in and said yes, here is what happened. here is some individuvideo. i'm glad this pressure is being put on. we can find out if there's a good reason for holding him.

it's hard to believe there is one based on what we've seen from the video. but this has now risen to the state department stepping in on his behalf. >> it's one thing if there is an investigation of an altercation. the notion that it would be an 18-day investigation over a street altercation that would involve solitary confinement seems pretty inexplicable and it's fantastic that there is the kind of pressure now being applied. >> and the government is, mika, getting involved. i spoke yesterday to a high ranking official inside the white house and they are exerting maximum pressure right now over the swedish government and saying this is unacceptable. it's unacceptable for anyone, any american to be harassed, pushed around on the streets of stockholm and then being kept in solitary confinement under the worst conditions without being

charged. by the way, it's costing him millions of dollars. if you are an entertainer of any kind, why the hell would you ever go to sweden if they don't release this guy immediately? >> we will be following this. last hour, we had montana's senior senator, john tester, on the show who addressed the president's racist rhetoric about several democratic congressmen. >> is it okay to say nothing? is that -- is that enough? at this point, should your republican counterpart and all republicans stand up and say something today? >> well, i mean, look, unless you like racism, absolutely you should stand up. >> helena. joining us now, the mayor of helena, montana, democrat wilmot, a former war refugee, a

navy retiree. also with us walter isaacson is with us, as well. >> mayor, tell us why are you running for the senate and what should your opponent he be saying right now about the president's chance of sending a united states congresswoman, quote, back to where she came from? >> well, good morning. and thanks for having me. it's a pleasure to be here. i am running because right now montana has one senator representing montana. the other senator is part of the executive branch. i'm rining because the people -- the senator that's supposed to be representing us is not representing us. he does not know the people of montana. i've been traveling the state and that is the one constant i hear. we have not interacted with our senator in two years. the only time we see him, when we go on facebook.

and that's not how you should govern. and, of course, right now, i'm calling on senator danes to apologize for just wholeheartedly agreeing to what the president said. i think that is way below the peel when -- that's not what the people of montana are looking for. they're looking for a representative, they're looking for a senator who will represent them and have an independent mind. that's what they're looking for. and that's why i think i can run -- i'm running and that's why i'm going on win. >> mr. mayor, it's jonathan lamere. you have a remarkable personal story. you're a refugee of the liberian civil war and now a naval reservist here in the united states. talk to us about what you see with this administration and how they're treating refugees and those seeking asylum. there's movement to toughen the regulations at the southern border and elsewhere. how much of that is going to inform what you want to do were

you to be elected? >> you see, the thing here is, people that are seeking asylum, we have to get it straight. they're not breaking the law. our law says come to a port of entry. so when they're coming to the port of entry, they're seeking asylum. don't get me wrong. no democrat wants an open border like the talking points that are being put out there. it's important that we acknowledge our rules and regulations and laws and abide by them. we're a law-abiding country. and when i get to the senate, the first thing i will try to do is try to bring civility because i'm not fool's hearted to think that we're going be able to work with each other without being civil to each other. so civility is primary because if you're to do the people's job, if you want to work fort people of montana, you have to

cross the party line and work for the people of montana. that would be my first act and that's what i'm going to try to do. i won't be able to pass anything if i don't work with the other side. >> mr. mayor, it's willie geist. it's great to have you on the show this morning. you're a refugee from the liberian civil war who came to helena, montana, for your safety and for your family's safety. congresswoman ilhar omar of minnesota. last night, the president led chants of send her back. what did you hear in those chants last night? >> you know, it was sad that we are at that level. like our former first lady said, when they go low, we go high. but it was sad to start telling americans to go back. if that's the case, this country

will be empty. because -- and for our -- for senator danes to pick that up and re-echo and knowing that i am his pont and going to be taking his seat, it says a lot. the dog whistle continues. it's sad. we should be trying to get the country together. this country has never been this divided. >> mayor wilmot collins, thank you so much for being on the show this morning and good luck to you. thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. isaacson, let's talk about what happened last night. i'm curious, your thoughts. >> you know, i remember back in the 1968, 1972 races when george wallace decided this is a purposeful strategy and in some ways, his rhetoric was not even quite as inflammatory as we're seeing trump's. trump is not only doing things

that are racist, but he's making everybody he around him racist. and doing it both because i think it's in his soul and make up and also because it's in his political interest. and in some ways, i think one of the dangers is it's taken the democrats, you know, putting their hair on fire so that they are not even being able to explain well that we need to have secure borders as well as open arms in this country. >> let's explain to everybody, walter, that you could take judicial notice that what the president said was racist. you can go to any court in the land and a federal judge would tell you, yes, that is racist language because the u.s. code says it is. you're not allowed to say go back to where you came from. >> nope. >> yeah. if you say that in the office, the federal government has and will sue you and has and will

sue your employer. so these trumpists that are running around saying, oh, it may have been a stupid thing to say, but it's not racist, not the case. it is racist and the federal government has declared this language racist for years. exactly. and you look at the man we just talked to. here is somebody who came here, spend two years going through the process legally, and then spent he 20 years serving his country in the military, has a daughter serving in the navy. you would think people like that could say i don't need a lecture on patriotism for people who avoided the draft or people whose family never served. i know how to love my country. >> all right. still ahead on "morning joe," the method to the madness. we'll speak with the authors of a new book on donald trump's ascent as told by those who he hired and fired. by those who he hired and fired. but we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling,

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we love you, daddy. good night. i love you guys. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. but we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. all right. joining us now, reporters who are coauthors of a new book "the method to the madness, donald trump's ascent as told by those who were hired, fired, inspired, and inaugurated." this concept is pretty amazing because we've seen the method to the madness, first hand, but why don't you start off with the concept for the book.

what was the inspiration? >> well, we have 114 on-the-record, no anonymous sources, telling the story that trump was incredibly intentional over a 15-year period in his plan and strategy to become president. as an example of what we have, if you're talking about racism today, if you want final, audible evidence that trump is a racist, you can ask bill pruitt who was named in our book, an apprentice producer, who says on the record that trump used the "n" word back stage on a tape that you could probably get to explain his hiring decision on the first season of "the apprentice." if qualmi jackson the candidate who was not fired were to file a lawsuit perhaps in discovery against mark brunette, mgm, and maybe nbc, he could force mgm to open that archive and we could know for sure if there was a tape. and sam nunnberg who was trump's

close adviser, like i said 114 on-the-record sources in the book says if such a tape were to emerge it would change the outcome of the 2020 election. >> well. >> i was going to ask you, you say there is a method to the madness. what is the method? does he believe that this is a deeply racist country? >> he believes there are voters who he can win 100% of who agree with his views. he has really smart advisers telling him that. another method. these tweets, his speeches. he's got us running in circles talking about it all morning on this great news show. he is -- he loves the media. has studied it for years as we talk about with the new york tabloids where he really learned to hone his craft. he was made for twitter. this was a man who learned twitter in his 60s. we have a great story about how he did that in the book. >> on a far less weighty topic, as someone who has been to

probably about 100 or so of these trump rallies, and is intimately familiar with his rally sound track, you apparently in the book have a nugget as to why he picked -- you can't always get what you want. the song would always play him out at the rally. tell us why? >> well, i think he went to a rolling stones show with his social media manager who is really one of the great sources in our book, a major force. and he liked the show. he liked the song. i think it's pretty simple. if he likes the way the music sounds and he sees the crowd is into it, he wants the crowd to get pumped up and he blasts it out. >> i want to give the rolling stones a little credit while we're talking about it. we had a fake hurricane down in new orleans this past weekend. rolling stones still played their concert and they were at preservation hall both nights while everybody else was pretending there was a hurricane. >> give the stones the credit. >> good for them. hopefully there was no deeper

meaning behind the song choice for the stones. i know they have been upset donald trump used it. >> you guys just talked about the "n" word, about the possibility of an "n" word tape. i want to ask you. authors always appreciate the jump ball. for either one of you in terms of news in this book, things that, you know, bread crumbs journalists might want to follow akin to what you just offered what else is in the book that deserves further scrutiny and might open a pathway toward big revelations about donald trump? >> something we mentioned, i usually win the jump balls. something we mentioned opening in the book is trump's 1986 i believe trip to russia. he comes back from this trip, which is supposedly to talk about a trump hotel, and he immediately places -- spends $100,000. trump doesn't spend money for no reason ever. he spends $100,000 on ads saying that we should stop supporting nato. what happened there? was he placing those ads because he hoped to curry favor with

russia? does this go back all that way? i'll tell you, this is a nonpartisan book, but we have great nuggets there. here is another one. trump drank. he drank alcohol. we have his bartender in there. there are so many little scoops in here that build up a profile of this guy, and he said way back in '82 in a great interview with the celebrity reporter that he knew it would be a challenge for a guy like him to get elected and he spent 30 years figuring that out. >> even having this book that trump predicted in 2005 he'd run in 2016 against, quote, his friend hillary. that was in 2005. aaron, i want to go back. this book levies an incredibly serious charge which was laid out at the top of this interview that donald trump used the "n" word according to one producer of "the apprentice." is there another witness who confirms that or just a single source? >> carolyn kepsher was also there. >> she said he said it?

>> she denied hearing it but other people in the room as well said she turned red, she couldn't handle trump saying that, and, you know, she doesn't work there anymore. i think there's been a lot of bitterness. she has left the trump organization in favor of, well, trump basically replaced her with his own children. >> we're telling you exactly where to find the tape. it is not a big hunt. if there's a tape we'll hear it. if not, then it's not there. it's not complicated. >> very interesting. i'd like to see the tape. the new book is "the method to the madness" donald trump's ascent as told by those who were hired, fired, inspired, and inaugurated. allen salkin and aaron short thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> it's great to have you here. can't wait to read the book. walter, we've got about 30 seconds. give us your final thoughts. >> you know, i think we keep

descending into more and more of this swirl of people stoking up racism, and i know everybody said it on this show, but it's time for people to just pause and say, enough is enough. this is not the way we should be speaking in this country. for some republicans to start standing up to donald trump. >> yes, i think to most republicans serving in washington, it is time. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. hope you are ready because we are live from aspen, colorado for the aspen security forum where we are talking trade, national security, and how that viral face app is turning into a national security story. we are digging into elizabeth warren's brand new plan to take on wall street. >> i'm chris jansing in new york. we'll get back to stephanie in that beautiful setng