bit. you can sign up for the newsletter at sign-up @axios.com. that was nick saying he was out of here. >> that does it for us this monday morning, i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe" starts right now. you don't know though that this is a majority black district and when he calls it rat infested, no human being would live there, do you understand that's offensive to the americans who do live there? >> i understand that everything that donald trump says is offensive to some people. >> no human being would want to live there. >> when donald trump attacks -- >> this is being perceived as racist. do you understand why? >> i understand why. but that doesn't mean that it's racist. >> and here we go again. president trump spends another weekend unleashing another twitter attack at another member of congress who happens to be of color and the president's supporters insist it has nothing to do with race. no, this is not a re-air of a

previous broadcast. here we go again. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, july 29th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" david ignatius. senior adviser on moveon.org and an msnbc contributor, careen yaen pierre will be with us. and james fellows and nbc chief foreign affairs correspondent host of andrea mitchell reports, andrea mitchell. in a moment, we're going to get to the president's torrent of tweets against congressman elijah cummings. and the city of baltimore. in total, 15 new or shared tweets over the weekend. of course it comes on the heels of his ongoing attacks on four congressional women of color whom he said should go back to where they came from. in part because of the quote, filthy and hate-laced things he says they have said about the country.

this is from a man who has said that atlanta is falling apart. described philadelphia as struggling. and chicago totally out of control. called san francisco disgusting. and now baltimore a filthy place. we talk about the significance of it all beyond the outrage that the president always hopes to elicit but the damage he's committing here. but we begin with president donald trump announcing the departure of the director of national intelligence via tweet yesterday afternoon. he wrote, i am pleased to announce that highly respected congressman john ratcliffe of texas will be nominated by me to be the director of national intelligence. a former u.s. attorney john will lead and inspire greatness for the country he loves. dan coats the current director will be leaving office on august 15th. i would like to thank dan for his great service to our

country. the acting director will be named shortly. "the new york times" reports that coats a veteran republican lawmaker and former ambassador to germany had long wanted to go and told the president and vice president that he was ready to move on during a meeting last week. coats was known to give blunt intelligence assessments, breaking with the president on big topics like north korea and vladimir putin. >> we have some breaking news. the white house has announced on twitter that vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again. >> you -- vladimir putin coming -- >> did i hear you? >> yeah. yeah. >> okay. >> yeah. >> that's going to be special. >> so we go from a man who by most accounts spoke truth to power in dan coats to now a nominee for dni who is widely

seen as a trump loyalist. >> he also not only that, mika, but he was also one of the most embarrassing members during the mueller hearings. you can disagree with what robert mueller said and did at times i suppose. but he was screaming and yelling, talking about how mueller should be ashamed of himself for doing exactly what he was directed to do by the justice department without a doubt and we talked about it in realtime when we didn't know much about john ratcliffe at all, we said in realtime it was one of the most embarrassing performances of a very, very embarrassing day for those republicans judiciary members. >> third term congressman rat cliff was u.s. attorney for the eastern district of texas from 2007 to 2008. while he served four terms as

mayor of heath, texas. then a city of about 7,000 people. ratcliffe a member of the house judiciary committee also joined the intelligence committee earlier this year. pushing investigations into the use of fisa warrants and the president's allegations of bias against him at the fbi. "the new york times" reports that ratcliffe privately met with trump about the dni job just a week before he lectured former special counsel robert mueller in wednesday's hearing. a performance that the president shared via twitter and on fox news yesterday ratcliffe continued to call the report meaningless. >> americans need to know this as they listen to the democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle. volume two of this report was not authorized under the law. to be written. the chairman this morning when he said that donald trump is not above the law. he's not.

but he damn sure shouldn't be below the law which is where volume two of this report puts him. the person who learned the most about the mueller report during wednesday's hearings was robert mueller. and that's sad but true. the conclusions weren't from robert mueller and they were written by hillary clinton's de facto legal team and represented some of her aides. so the mueller report is really going to be difficult for the democrats or anyone to rely upon the findings of a report when they just listen to the man whose name on top of it, not have a command of what was even in it. >> well, you know what a clown show for a guy like that to be attacking a marine hero, a guy that changed the fbi. he doesn't know what robert mueller did or didn't do. maybe he didn't give a type of

performance that ratcliffe gave, screaming and humiliating himself. by the way, mika, ratcliffe was the guy who i think spurred a discussion here, if republicans are really -- i hate to call them that, a trump sycophant is going to call every democrat a socialist, can they call him a fascist? if they're going to mislabel them as socialists, then they should start calling ratcliffe a fascist and call him a fascist for the rest of his career until the fascist apologizes to capitalists who are democrats who he has mislabeled. so jonathan lemire, let me start with you and then we'll get to the ugliness of this election. is this really a guy that can get 50 votes from the united

states senate in a time when susan collins who's already -- who's already looking at a loss in maine because of her vote on the supreme court nominees, when you have susan collins in maine, when you have cory gardner in colorado, when you have jodi ernst in idaho, are they really -- they're up next year, are they really going to vote for a clown like this and yes, he's a clown. he acted like a clown last week. he basically is spewing words that he reads from donald trump's -- on donald trump's twitter feed and on conspiracy websites. are they -- i mean, will there be a majority of members of the united states senate voting to confirm this man to the most important position in america's intelligence community? >> i mean, joe, you mentioned the names that everybody is going to be watching. there's going to be incredible scrutiny and pressure on the

handful of republicans who sort of hold this nominee's fate in their hands. mitch mcconnell has a way of getting republicans in line but i don't know it's a guarantee here. i think it underscores just what a shift this is going to be from dan coats. i mean, coats was someone who as outlined earlier was known as someone who could speak truth to power and broke with the president on a number of issues and did so privately in the confines of the situation room. whether it was iran, north korea, or early on where the fight against isis stood and certainly on russia where coats time and time again warned about russia's not just -- what it did in 2016 but what it could do again. there's no subject that infuriates donald trump more than suggesting that russia played a role in his 2016 election. thinking it would delegitimize it in some way and now he gets a loyalist. yes as "the times" has reported, we spoke to the president about this several weeks ago and he used the appearance in the mueller hearing which raised all sorts of questions and stood in

stark contrast to the quiet dignity of robert mueller there. used it as a final audition for this job and delighted the president who has been telling not only his -- has posted on twitter about it, but telling aides this is the kind of person he wants as dni. >> well, andrea mitchell, this is a type of person he also wanted at the fed. and herman cain didn't make it to the fed. neither did stephen moore and i'm wondering if we're looking at a situation that the president throws red meat to the crowd, to his base, knowing that i would guess richard burr one of the few republicans that's acted honorably throughout the entire process and ran a very bipartisan intel committee investigation, i would find it hard to believe that richard burr could vote for this man or the other north carolina senator who is up for re-election next year or those i named earlier. what are you hearing? >> well, it's really notable that richard burr did not issue

any kind of statement about ratcliffe praising ratcliffe as you would expect if he were a partisan, a political figure. he's not been in fact he and mark warner had only on thursday released that stunning report saying that 50 of our states -- all 50 states had been attacked by russia. it was exactly that in that interview you played a clip of last year, last july in aspen, dan coats in that -- in the rest of the interview which last gone unnoticed he was very, very clear about russia's role and it was three days after the disastrous summit in helsinki when president trump had by name said that he believed vladimir putin over the intelligence agencies and over dan coats. so the fact that three days later dan coats was willing to stand up and go into chapter and verse of what the threat from russia was was a signature of the man. what he had done before in the

senate. what he had done as ambassador to germany and significantly how he rose to the level of dni which was not the expectation because of his political background. but he really was a truth teller and one of the few around the president and now what you have is with the departure of jim mattis, very few people willing to stand up to the president. notably in the president's announcement on twitter even though the two had discussed this a week ago, the fact that he announced this on twitter where coats after weeks of leaks that people like fred flights a controversial former bolton aide was being considered for the job said he'd step aside, but the fact it was announced that way as it was with tillerson was significant. and the fact that he said that an acting director would be named. by law and by practice, the deputy dni a very highly esteemed intelligence officer

sue gordon a career person should be stepping up and should immediately become acting dni. so it's clear he's planning to bring someone in from the political sector and that's troubling to the intelligence community. >> i was going to ask you, david ignatius, you spent years obviously covering the intel community closely and you have from time to time talked about events in the past administrations that have caused a real crisis of confidence inside the intel community. how does this stack up? >> i think this is the most serious attempt yet by the trump administration to politicize intelligence. it's something that donald trump tried to do from day one almost. he went out to the cia and gave a political speech in front of the wall of stars for the cia's fallen heroes. a lot of cia officers who to this day resent this. this is the latest and probably the most serious attempt to bring political figures into control of our intelligence

community. ratcliffe has been very much a party line man. his comments on mueller you discussed earlier i want to say briefly that what the danger of this is. dan coats was an unlikely hero. he was a politician himself but he won the trust of his workforce by pushing back the day of the helsinki summit when donald trump seemed to be siding with vladimir putin on his own. dan coats released a statement essentially defending the intelligence community. he didn't ask permission of the white house. he just did it and people loved him for that. the workforce in the intelligence community as near as i can tell is traumatized. people are looking over their shoulders. they're worried does anybody have their back? there's increasingly a narrative about the deep state being pushed by republican members of congress. they feel that they're in the bull's-eye. the final point to make, this may be the most important one, we depend for our security on

the cooperation of key intelligence partners around the world who can get to places that our intelligence officers can't. those services i know are increasingly worried about sharing their most precious secrets with the united states because of this wobble from president trump, from the white house, from his nominees in terms of oversight of intelligence. it worries them if they began to reduce the flow of information to the united states, we are less safe period. >> james fellows, i want you to talk about what's happened over the weekend at dni, but i want to is you a large -- ask you a larger question that we've wrestled with on this show from the beginning of donald trump's rise and right now. in fact i'm finishing up a book on donald trump and going back and getting perspective. it shocks me how many times the man will throw out red meat and

say something insulting. like for instance he attacked the pope the morning that nikki haley endorsed marco rubio. why would he -- you know, he got the endorsement off the front page. so i have been talking about ground noise versus signal. let's look at this weekend and we have him obviously tweeting calculated attacks on elijah cummings. just -- it's painfully obvious that he was trying to get the reaction that he got. then we have this other news that's going to impact us through, you know, the next year and a half. i'm just curious, you have been around this a very long time. how do we separate the signal and the ground noise and how fast do we run after that bait that is offensive, that is racist. but is also exactly what donald trump wants us to run after. >> this of course is the fundamental question or one of

many that we're all wrestling with every week for the past couple of years and for weeks ahead and i think this weekend shows that in particularly important relief. on the one hand, the noise, the attacks of representative cummings were generally offensive, genuinely racist and offensive and i think in the stark way that had been somewhat concealed in some of donald trump's previous distractions so they deserved actual attention while the announcement made that same day about having representative ratcliffe as the head of the dni director, that also is important in a different way. it's worth just saying for ten seconds the history of this particular job is why this appointment is so disturbing. as david was saying, this was a job created after the iraq war. as a way of avoiding the politicization of intelligence. the people who have been in it from have different backgrounds

from ambassadors to military professionals to dan coats who has grown into the job. but they have all taken it with the utmost seriousness. so i think it's both halves of the yin and yang puzzle but as president trump we have to deal with simultaneously. >> all right. up next, we'll get to president trump escalating his criticism of congressman and oversight committee chairman elijah cummings. top democrats are rebuking his comments along with baltimore's largest newspaper whose editorial board is out with a new piece entitled better to have a few rats than to be one. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back. i switched to geico and saved hundreds. that's a win. but it's not the only reason i switched. geico's a company i can trust, with over 75 years of great savings and service. ♪

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here, hello! starts with -hi!mple... how can i help? a data plan for everyone. everyone? everyone. let's send to everyone! [ camera clicking ] wifi up there? -ahhh. sure, why not? how'd he get out?! 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. all right. now to the president spending yet another weekend trashing yet another member of congress who happens to be of color on twitter.

this time it's the chairman of the house oversight committee, elijah cummings. and his west baltimore district. the first of the president's two-day attack came on saturday when the president claimed the maryland congressman's district is a quote disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. if he spent more time in baltimore, trump continued, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous and filthy place. in another tweet, the president wrote quote, why is so much money sent to the elijah cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the united states? no human being would want to live there. where is all the money going? how much is stolen? investigate this corrupt mess immediately. the president continued his attack yesterday, quote it's racist. elijah cummings would focus more

of his energy on helping the good people of his district and baltimore itself perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership. his radical oversight is a joke. in all, the president sent or shared 15 tweets attacking congressman cummings and the city of baltimore over the weekend and actually had a member of my family who worked in elijah's outreach office and saw first hand every day how hard he worked to meet the needs of his constituents and really a family that he made out of his community there. these tweets are beyond offensive and beyond inaccurate. joe? >> yeah, so karine, this is -- it's become far too predictable. donald trump continuing to attack people of color. it is -- i talk about the signal

and the ground noise. i must say though what is obvious to everyone the pace of his racist attacks are quickening. the pace of his abhorrent behavior, the intensity of his abhorrent behavior is increasing and the president actually does make it very difficult not to do exactly what he wants us to do and that is report on just how bigoted he has become. >> that's exactly right, joe. look, let me just say this about congressman cummings. donald trump is upset because congressman cummings is everything that donald trump is not. he is calm, he is smart. he is thoughtful. he actually works for his constituents. he's a good public servant. he is the example of the american dream, sons of a sharecropper who is now the chair of a very powerful committee. donald trump is threatened by congressman cummings.

look, i know people say and folks are saying to us, we have to ignore the noise. we have to ignore the tweets. we can't give donald trump the conversation that he wants us to have about racism but we have to continue to fight racism. we cannot turn away, we cannot look back because what donald trump's racism is a toxic and dangerous brew. we have known donald trump has been a racist for a very long time. that is not surprising. but now he is in a position of power. where policies are coming out of that position of power. look, we know that white nationalists have been around for a long time. but donald trump is giving them comfort and enabling them and so now we also see an increase in hate crimes. so we cannot stop talking about this. we cannot turn away. we have to continue to call this out. >> and as kevin cruise wrote yesterday in "the new york times" there are echoes of george wallace in donald trump's

inflammatory racist rhetoric. except for the fact that actually trump is far more specific in his racist attacks than even was wallace who would regularly talk about agitators and pointy headed bureaucrats. donald trump actually calls out people by name and since he's president of the united states puts their safety at risk. >> that's right. i mean, he's certainly never been a president or a presidential candidate since wallace who's wanted to make race more an issue than donald trump. it is -- it is -- his opponents of color or those who -- those cities that are traditionally minority majority, places like san francisco or oakland or ferguson or chicago, places that are led by people of color, by politicians of color, those are his targets time and time again. we have seen of course just in the last week or two his repeated attacks on the four congresswomen of color. he's gone an congressman john

lewis a civil rights hero time and time again. with representative cummings too, he oversees a powerful committee that last week voted to authorize cummings to have subpoena power to look at jared kushner and ivanka trump's work related emails which people have suggested was one of the triggers here to unleash this torrent from the president over the weekend. but let's al -- let's remind us again, he talks about congressman cummings' district. do you know whose district that is? that donald trump's district. he's the president of the entire united states and even the places that he criticizes at the end of the day that's under his jurisdiction and his watch. and it underscores there's never been a president who says it's not my problem. it's us versus them, that's not my people and that's what he's done here again today. >> yeah. of course, james fellows, that district also received less in tax cuts than large multinational corporations like

amazon. i mean, every person in baltimore received fewer dollars in tax cuts than fortune 500 companies. and just give us a little perspective on baltimore. it has been a city that's been suffering since the 1960s. long before elijah cummings ever received his first vote from the public. >> sure. baltimore represents many of the big northeastern and upper midwest cities that over the last generation plus have had a number of blows. there was the urban renewal plans of the '60s and 70s were in retrospect often ill founded. there were big losses at bethlehem steel so the traditional working class base of baltimore was disrupted as has been the case in ohio and in pennsylvania. what's been the focus in baltimore over the last generation there's ambitious

mayors. martin o'malley was a mayor of baltimore and he had an ambitious way of trying to deal with the city's problems. it has the crises or the challenges of other modern cities now. parts of the economy are very advanced. johns hopkins medical center is right there in representative cummings' district and the inner harbor and it has the most troubled area that you'll find any other city but it's slice of america in that way as is any other big city coping with the successes and the challenges and tragedies of the era. >> look at baltimore over the past 25 years the inner harbor project was an extraordinary step forward. what's happened with johns hopkins, andrea mitchell -- it's just a great step forward. michael bloomberg has had a huge impact on that campus and on that extension his support for johns hopkins has helped that entire area.

the best and the brightest students from around the world go to johns hopkins. yeah, it's -- there -- and which of course is in elijah cummings' district. so yes, there real challenges there. but you look at what happened in mccomb county this past week, after promising people a plant would stay open, it's closed. the deindustrialization there is hurting. i'm wondering, andrea, we have all of these racist comments coming from the president of the united states. who then after making the racist comments calls elijah cummings racist. and yet, republicans, silent. >> where are they? >> where are they? i just wonder where are the republicans yet again? and how do they think this is going to end when donald trump leaves town? >> exactly. where are the george w. bush republicans? where are the republicans of ronald reagan? where are the republicans who have always spoken up on these issues for decades and decades? it was the republican party that actually inspired condoleezza

rice's father to become a republican because he was reacting against the southern democrats who were leading the -- you know, the segregationist movement back then. it is shocking. where are the colin powell republicans? i cannot get over this. i mean, there's so many other issues to discuss but the racism that's emanating from the oval office and the real fear is that this becomes normalized. and that -- our two party system will be threatened by this because as the demography of our country changes that people will not understand that there is a legacy to the party of lincoln. and that legacy is being destroyed precisely by the republicans in the senate. >> and by the way, we talk about the legacy of the party of lincoln. it was a great legacy. you can also talk about parts of

ronald reagan's administration regarding immigration and again, his farewell speech to america focused on immigration and the need to keep america vital by continuing to keep our shores open to people from around the world that would re-energize americans. thank you, andrea mitchell. we greatly appreciate it. we can't wait to see you later today. i want to end with a personal note about elijah. this is man i had the privilege of calling my friend for years. donald trump's message to elijah cummings to spend more time in baltimore, a proud city that he calls rat and rodent infested, is not only racist but it's also disrespectful to a city that's of course the birth place of our national anthem. of course that's the national anthem that our bigoted president is also now using a a wedge issue to denigrate black athletes and to further divide

american. donald trump's clumsy attempt to appeal to the most bigoted supporters not only betrays the president's ignorance about the country that he's supposed to serve but it shows how little donald knows about my friend elijah. donald, donald, donald, you should know that unlike almost every other member of congress elijah goes home to his district every single night. he lives with the community that he serves. he's there for the good and he's there for the bad. there's more good than you would ever care to learn or know about. things like empowering minority owned businesses, working with faith based leaders, inner city educators and helping seniors in need. we have seen it and heard about

it first hand. but elijah cummings has also been there through the bad times and he's been braver than you, donald. braver than most. like in may of 2008 where a botched robbery had left a man repeatedly stabbed as he was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth. congressman cummings got down and aided that victim in the last minutes of his life. elijah said he held the man's head in his arms. and he tried to keep him from sitting up to stop the bleeding. the man was struggling to check on his wife and making sure his unborn son was okay. cummings later said it was a struggle for life so intense that i felt my own breath taken away. elijah cummings prayed over the man until the ambulances arrived and remembered how the man who did not speak english well squeezed his hands when he recognized the word jesus.

that story gives us just a glimpse of this man, elijah cummings. and who he is. he is personally felt the impact of gun violence not only in his city but also in his family. when he lost his nephew to a random shooting while away at college in 2011. but that tragedy like other tragedies only served to strengthen this great man's resolve. and when baltimore erupted in violence over the killing of freddie gray in the back of a police van, it was elijah cummings who took to the streets with the bullhorn, standing strong and standing right beside his constituents. because elijah cummings doesn't run away from service. he runs toward it. he provides americans a profile in courage and a time when that political trait is so sorely lacking in washington, d.c.

donald, elijah cummings has served honorably in a city racked by pain and violence long before he received his first vote as i said before. but unlike the pampered son of privilege, whose rich father bought him a diagnosis of bone spurs so he could play golf and play football and chase women while other young men of his age went to vietnam. elijah cummings chose to serve through challenging times. of when you were running away. like you did from the draft board. but for elijah, that would have been easier. but he wouldn't do it. if you want to know what elijah cummings does for his district, he comforts people who are frightened of you. >> they say i'm scared and i have not -- i have never in my total of 37 years in public service ever heard a constituent

say that they were scared of their leader. >> so you know what else elijah does, what elijah cummings does for his city? he makes it a fairer place at risk to his own physical safety. here's what he said a week ago when asked about your racist taunts against other racial minorities in congress. >> when i hear those things it takes me back like i said and i -- i can still remember bleeding from my forehead when people were throwing bottles -- and these were adults throwing bottles and saying go home, [ bleep ] and it just -- and again, he -- the president has to set the tone. he needs to be a role model. >> but it's impossible to even ask donald trump to be a role model at this point. maybe we should ask republicans but they're silent. they're carrying trump's banner.

how about mick mulvaney who served with cummings on the oversight committee for years. >> i was in congress for six years. if i had poverty in my district like they have in baltimore if i had crime in district like in chicago and homelessness like in san francisco and i spent all of my time in washington, d.c. chasing down this mueller investigation, this bizarre impeachment crusade, i'd get fired. i think if the president is right -- i think the president is right to raise that and it has zero to do with race. >> infested it sounds like vermin and sub human. these are all six members of -- members of congress who are people of color. >> i think you are spending way too much time reading between the lines. >> i'm not reading between the lines. i'm reading the lines. >> what an ignorant and hypocritical thing mick mulvaney just said about the mueller report. that you can't serve the country and your district, hey, mick, did you go home every night to your district in south carolina? i know you didn't. but i know elijah goes home to

his district every night. so how about a republican in -- we can talk about another republican in the separate branch of government or one who says he considers elijah to be one of his best friends, mark meadows who serves with him in congress. mark, remember just a few months ago when elijah cummings stuck up for you when a member on his side of the aisle described what you said was racist? >> my nieces and nephews are people of color. not many people know that. al but you know that,ing mr. chairman. you and i have a personal relationship that's not based on color. >> mr. meadows, you know and of all the people on this committee i have said it and got in trouble for it. that you're one of my best friends. i know that shocks a lot of people. >> and likewise, mr. chairman. >> yeah, but you are. and i would do -- i could see and feel your pain.

i feel it. >> so mark, what do you say about elijah cummings? what do you say about elijah now that he's been attacked as a racist? mark, we have a personal relationship, you and i. i enjoy talking to you. getting updates from you. are you going to the right thing, are you going to defend elijah like he defended you against a shocking charge? i hope you will. because guess what? you'll be remembered by what you do right now more than any bill you fight for. or any bill you pass or any bill you don't pass. by the way, a message out to the republicans, damned by your own silence. i'm getting tired of having to tell you this and please, ple e please, please, don't write your books about how i won the war after donald trump leaves town.

speak up now because if you don't, donald trump is going to bring you down. i have been around this town for a very long time, really dumb, short sighted people think that the guy who is president of the united states will be president forever. he's not. he's going home. he's going to mar-a-lago. and because of what he did this past weekend he'll be going to mar-a-lago on january 20th, 2021. think back to 2018. remember that? and everybody in the press was oh, my god, in is racism, it's going to defeat the democrats oh, oh, remember what the president did? he ran your party straight on, going 100 miles an hour into a wall. remember his racist messages then? come on, think about it. it's not that hard. you remember the caravan? yeah, that didn't work. remember sending troops to the border? oh, my, that backfired. remember the daily attacks on maxine waters as the new quote face of the democratic party?

suburban voters didn't like that. and it resulted -- all of that racism that right now you're ignoring all of that racism resulted in the historic defeat for the republican party. they lost by a larger vote margin -- i'm sorry. you lost by a larger vote margin than any party in the history of our constitutional republic. donald trump's already proven he doesn't need to resign in disgrace to take the party down with him. donald trump remains hellbent on dividing americans and he'll continue to tear this country apart until enough men and women of courage decide to say enough. and risk their political careers by simply doing the right thing. just two or three or four

senators calling out racism. that's enough. elijah cummings has that courage. donald trump doesn't. whose side are you on? we'll be right back. we'll be right back. this summer at panera, we're going all in on strawberries. at their reddest, ripest, they make everything better. like our strawberry poppyseed salad and new strawberry summer caprese salad. strawberry season is here. panera. food as it should be.

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welcome back. almost 1,400 people have reportedly been arrested in russia for participating in the latest anti-government pro democracy protests. that is the highest number of detained people for a russian protest demonstration in more than a decade. the opposition party called for the demonstrations after about 30 of its candidates were barred from the upcoming election from moscow's city council. for what it says are political reasons. election officials claimed the candidates failed to garner enough ballot signatures needed to be on the ballot. the protests turned violent at times and video shows riot police in helmets, body armor and batons assaulting and

dragging the protesters into waiting police trucks. meanwhile, the man who called for the protests, russian opposition leader alexi navelni has been hospitalized with a severe allergic reaction resulting from the harmful effects of undefined chemical substances. >> that sounds familiar. >> navalny was taken to the hospital from jail where he's serving a 30-day sentence. he was arrested last week for calling on people to attend saturday's anti-government protests and navalny has spent time in prison for speaking out against the government. let's bring in correspondent for "gq" magazine julia ioffe. also with us is co-host of "morning joe" "first look" yasmin vossoughian. thanks for staying on with us. julia, you first brought this to my attention on twitter.

i was following all of your tweets and this video as it was happening. it was incredibly disturbing. keeping inmind this is a man who donald trump reveres, vladimir putin. this is happening many believe because of him. tell us more about the details about the protests and what's happened to these demonstrators. >> thanks so much for having me on but i want to say before we get to the protests in moscow, you gave a shout-out to wonderful and venerable institutions in baltimore. my mother works at the amazing institution in baltimore serving the city so i wanted to give them a shout-out as well. >> thank you. >> so what's happening in moscow is there are municipal basically city council elections coming up and some independent politicians -- some of them from navalny's organization, the foundation to -- anti-corruption

foundation rather tried to register as candidates. they had a whole separate rule -- set of rules governing their registration as candidates. separate from the pro government pro kremlin candidates. they met those thresholds and were still not allowed on the ballot so they called for a peaceful demonstration and the police came down hard. putin is very -- he has always been very clear, basically do not give these people an inch, do not give them them legitimacy and take no risks. like if you let them into the city council they'll want to be in the state -- in the federal duma. in the congress. and then they're going to try to for the kremlin so don't give them an inch and crack down hard, a basic zero tolerance approach. >> julia, i'm david ignatius, i want to ask you about the dramatic pictures from the streets of moscow. is this a movement do you think

will grow and it will begin to present a real political threat to vladimir putin's ability to govern russia? >> you know, it's a good question, david, but i'm not sure. it's still a tiny percentage of moscow and that in turn is a tiny percentage of russia, but i do have to say putin's approval ratings are at a low. they're at the same low point they were -- i mean, relative low point they were in 2011 when massive protests swept the country. the mood in the country is definitely changing. people are getting more fed up with the corruption russia has one of the biggest wealth income -- wealth inequality gaps in the world. putin just raised the retirement age to the point where a lot of for example men will not be able to live to get their pensions. so people are generally starting to kind of grumble. this time as opposed to the protests in 2011 and 2012 there seems to be a kind of coherent leadership behind this movement. but -- and the internet thanks to youtube is very influential.

people are watching less tv and more youtube which is harder to control by the kremlin. so there's definitely the potential, but again, it's super hard to tell. putin has really beefed up, he's created more new agencies, more kind of security agencies to deal with protests. they have been authorized by the government, by the parliament to shoot into crowds now so he's clearly beefing up for a fight. i think the opposition is as well. but it's a long road ahead for them. >> james fellow is with us, and he has a question for you. >> as you know, right at this moment there's a semiparallel movement under way in hong kong and i think in a way that the chinese central authorities had not expected. there's a real movement for local -- for the beggary if i of the local institutions and to resists and resisting the law and all the rest. you cannot imagine this ending in a happy way in hong kong is there any perceived parallel in

russia about what's happening in the two countries now? >> i'm not sure, but the people who are protesting are generally some of the most educated, connected people in the country. so i'm sure they're paying attention to it. they often do compare themselves to other countries in the world and say you know we're no worse than, you know t last time i was there for protests they were protesting corruption and they were protesting in south korea, their prime minister for corruption. they got her out, are we any worse than the south koreans, i don't think we are. again, though, it's hard to see a path forward for them. given how much power, how much the state has a monopoly on violence. how many new security organizations have been created. i think there's going to be a rough road ahead for all of these people. >> but julia, when i lived in moscow, this is in 2009 or so, i saw a huge disparity between rich and poor. we well know that that has been what's driving much of the

conflict in that country. do you feel as if this is what is contributing to the protests that we are seeing now and how successful do you think it will actually be? >> well, i think that gap has widened, again russia has become the country with the biggest wealth gap in the world. but these set of protests are mostly people who are protesting are kind of upper middle class, urban connected people. they are kind of the white collar part of society. so they're not necessarily protesting income inequality. they're talking about the ability to control what's happening in your city, not even the country. this is a small ask. we are not going to control it but we want a small group of people on the moscow city council and they can't get that. this is similar to the protests in 2011 and 2012 it's about the access to -- it's kind of the

bourgeois face, kind of the access to the political system to match their socioeconomic power. >> all right. julia ioffe, thank you very much. yasmin, thank you very much. we'll be watching "morning joe" "first look" tomorrow morning at 5:00 p.m. james fellows, thank you as well. coming up, much more on the president's pick to lead the u.s. intelligence community, nominating a partisan loyalist to replace a man who wasn't afraid to speak the truth. "the new york times" peter baker has the latest reporting on the resignation of dan coats. >> i'm not sure that loyalist fits there as well as hack. he is a political hack for donald trump. >> we need to take a look -- >> if you saw his tirade at robert mueller. a war hero from vietnam. and a man that led us through 9/11. i think hack fits ratcliffe much

better than loyalist. >> we have to take a look at all of the foreign policy and intelligence positions. top positions. it's disturbing. plus, the president starts this morning with fresh attacks against congressman elijah cummings and the city of baltimore. extending now to a third straight day. >> and now he's attacking al sharpton. >> author, veteran and baltimore native, wes moore joins us with his thoughts. and we'll talk to senator chris murphy who says he can no longer stomach the president's twitter feed so he's decided to unfollow him. "morning joe" is coming right back. him. "morning joe" is coming ghrit back i used to book my hotel room on those travel sites but there was

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's monday, july 29th. still with us we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. columnist for "the washington post," david ignatius. senior adviser at moveon.org and an msnbc contributor karine

jean-pierre. joining the conversation, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," peter baker and ceo of the robin hood foundation, best selling author, u.s. army combat veteran and baltimore native, wes moore joins us. we begin this hour with the president spending another weekend trashing yet another congress member of color on twitter. this time it's the chairman of the house oversight committee, elijah cummings, and his west baltimore district. the first of the president's two-day attack came on saturday when the president claimed the maryland congressman's district is a quote, disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. if he spent more time in baltimore maybe he could clean up this dangerous and filthy place. in another tweet the president wrote, quote, why is so much money sent to elijah cummings's district when it's considered the most dangerous anywhere in the united states.

no human being would want to live there. where is all of this money going? how much is stolen? investigate this corrupt mess immediately. the president continued his attack yesterday quote, if racist elijah cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district in baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped create over many years of incompetent leadership. his radical oversight is a joke. in all, the president sent or shared 15 tweets attacking congressman cummings and the city of baltimore over the weekend. >> yeah. >> at times he couldn't even spell his name right because the president doesn't care about being accurate. >> no. one thing -- >> he cares about being racist. >> one thing he cares about is attacking black men. he loves to attack black men, he loves attacking black women. he's doing -- and the pace as i said last hour is quickening and now he's attacking our good

friend al sharpton. reverend al is on the phone right now. so rev, you're in the elijah cummings hall of fame and i would call it a hall of fame because such a good man. but so donald trump tweeting today, he said that you and he always got along well and that you loved trump, but he said that you hate whites and hate cops which is very interesting, al, because i think you probably know and most people know that me i'm about as white as they come and you and i are good friend. what do you think about donald trump reaching out and deciding to start attacking you? >> well, i think this is trump getting ready for -- he's going to attack the most visible black person that comes across his desk and he thinks can set a tone. i'm not going to bite the bait.

the fact of the matter is i have released on instagram -- my instagram pictures of donald trump coming to national action network conventions. one where he was -- james brown and reverend jackson, despite the fact that i marched on him about central park, he came to my convention because -- now all of a sudden i'm all of these names. fine. the fact of the matter is, i couldn't have conned him to come. he came because he was trying to have it both ways which he's trying to do now. we need to stand up and deal with the fact that this president's policies hurt people all over this country and despite people like elijah cummings have delivered for their district and could deliver if they were empowered that we need not get into the side show of a man that one minute calls you names and next minute stands up and smiling at your

convention. he'll do anything including -- if it's to his advantage. i'm not going to fall prey to that. i'm not going to bite that bait. >> you know, rev, we talked about this before. we ran a package on "morning joe" a couple of months ago talking about how donald trump has shifted his position on race time and again. he went from central park five myths to then suddenly in 1990s when it served him well to be close friends with people of color, with boxers, with hip-hop artists, with civil rights leaders like yourself. suddenly, he was your best friend. even dated african-american women. even into the 2000s and had a very close relationship with people of color in new york city and across america. now suddenly, now suddenly, you know, he gets into politics.

he plays the birther card and now he's even attacking you. somebody that he has long said he was close with. >> yeah. and you have got to ask yourself this question. he would support us and come to us even after i would challenge him in marching him about central park and attacking him on the birther. but make this note. on december 1, 2016, three weeks after the election, he called me after seeing me on this show, "morning joe," and asked me to come and meet with him. he was president elect, and he wanted me to come meet with him at mar-a-lago. i said i will only meet with you if i can bring other leaders of the national civil rights organization. no, al, i just know you, let's meet and let's talk. why would you want as president elect of the united states to meet with a troublemaker and a conman? other than you are knowing better than that.

that's who he is. we know who he is. the question is what are we going to do about it? >> so that's -- that is the question. and i have some questions for you about that, reverend al. obviously you don't want to take the bait. you -- you know how he operates, you can handle it, i can get that. but how do people stand up who know this is wrong? the concern of course is that if you laugh this off or say it's just donald trump, you know, that's the way he is, we are desensitizing people by the day to racism. something that is clearly wrong, that is against the law and so my question for you is how do we not ignore this? what is the action that needs to be taken? it's obviously upon the republicans who are still stepping up for trump and defending him with their sile e silence, what is the best way to hold them accountable and to have them speak out and put

their names and faces on this if this is what they support or to finally force them to speak out against what is clearly wrong? how does that happen? how do we do that? >> i think inherent in your question, because we have to change our target where we start challenging the republicans particularly those up for senate races this year, that you're going to stand up and really deal with the head of your party, donald trump, or you're the one that's going to suffer the consequences. you must make the target mcconnell who is running again in kentucky and those that have some skin in the game in 2020. and tell them that you are co-signers and co-conspirators and accomplices to the moral decay that this president is

putting forward. you've got to challenge his cheerleaders. ask people like the fox crowd, then if these people are so bad, joe scarborough and you, mika, and now me and elijah cummings, then why does the president call people like sharpton and ask him for meetings and make him look to his own base inconsistent or use that to go after the senators and the republican leadership that have -- while he's peddling racism and dividing this country. we must say we may not get him directly ever to grow up, but we can make those around him know that you're going down with him or you're going to stand up with us. >> well, again, it's a great message and we just put up a picture of donald trump with you back in 2006 at the national action network convention. that was back, reverend, when

you were cheating on your wind sprints. you look much more fit these days and it's so interesting -- thank you, rev, for being with us. you can't say it enough. this is back when donald trump is giving money to hillary clinton and giving money to nancy pelosi and giving money to rahm emanuel and giving money to chuck schumer and giving money to the democratic national committee and saying that hillary clinton would be a great president of the united states. again, i just -- it's amazing that conservatives and republicans are falling for this and i have said it all along i was shocked they were falling for a life long democrat who decided to play the racist card when he thought it might get him a little bit of traction in the republican party. peter baker, so you're reporting that this all began when donald trump ironically enough saw a woman of color on fox news talking about this and you say

that fox news actually inspired his outbursts this weekend. tell us about it. >> well, on saturday morning, "fox & friends" one of his favorite shows aside from this, there was video she had shot of some neighborhoods she said in elijah cummings' west baltimore district and it was trash in the streets and boarded up houses and so forth and her point was look, if congressman cummings is so concerned about the conditions at the border why doesn't he take care of his own constituents? and clearly the president saw it because within a short amount of time he lashed out at congressman cummings along similar lines. making exactly the same points. and that led to a whole extraordinary weekend of tweets against congressman cummings from the president and reactions from the congressman and his

allies and debates about who was racist and who was not and the president said this wasn't racist to make the comments but a lot of people saw the words he used being, you know, feeding into the racist trope and it's a majority african-american district it must be filthy and disgusting and it's -- it was a pretty ugly weekend on all fronts. >> so peter, i want to ask you and jonathan lemire, both of you cover the white house. i personally think and i think there's probably data to back this up -- there is data to back this up, that the racist attacks don't help the president of the united states, don't help the republican party. you can go back to 2018. the president was talking about infestation. in fact, i think one of the programs you talked about was talking about people bringing leprosy and what, smallpox,

chickenpox or something into caravans into the united states. it was really racist stuff and so peter, i'll start with you and go to jonathan lemire. what do you hear about the strategy behind this? behind these racist attacks over the past several weeks. the strategy that backfired on the president of the republican party in 2018 and it seems more likely to backfire in 2020 when the electorate expands, becomes less white, becomes younger, becomes more diverse. >> yeah. the president is doubling down on his strategy basically. where others would advise him and other politicians to back off to try to minimize racial strife and discord. he seems to seek it out. he seems to be drawing the line in the sand. he's trying to do it seems is ask americans which side of that line they're on. a line of in his view, you know, relatively homogeneous largely white america that he remembers

from his youth and from his younger days and increasingly multiculture foreign born demographically changing america that has made many americans uncomfortable and feeling dislocated. so he's playing along lines that other politicians have sought to heal and he does and see any consequence other than obviously, you know, what our political gain he interprets in come from this. >> yeah. that's right. the president has been telling people and around him, this is how -- this is the fight he wants to have. it was the congresswomen of color a few weeks ago and now it's congressman cummings that he feels like this can ignite his base and win in a way that he won in 2016. appealing to the midwest rust belt states the trio that we always talk about that he thinks he can win there again. obviously that ignores the defeats that he suffered his party suffered in 2018. but also ignores other

circumstances in 2016 that led to his election including russian outside interference and james comey letter of the last week and that time around he ran against another candidate with very, very high unfavorability numbers which we're not sure he'll see this time around. the difference is this. between 2018 and what he'll see in 2020 is that in 2020 his name will be on the ballot again and he believes there are voters out there people who supported him in 2016, republicans who did not come out in 2018 because there are more republicans that are trump supporters and he thinks they'll be for him again next november. >> all right. "the baltimore sun" hit back at president trump's comments about congressman elijah cummings' seventh congressional direct, specifically that of west baltimore. the editorial board wrote in part quote it's not hard to see what's going on here. the congressman has been a thorn in this president's side and mr. trump sees attacking african-american members of congress as good politics.

as it both warms the cockles of white supremists who love him and causes the thoughtful people who don't to scream. while we would not sink to name calling in the trumpian manner or rudely point out that he failed to spell the congressman's name correctly, it's cummings, not coming, we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the oval office the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women's private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of vladimir putin and the guy who insisted there are good people among murderous neo-nazis that he still is not fooling most americans into believing he's even slightly competent in his current posts. or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. better to have some vermin

living in your neighborhood than to be one. wes moore, not sure i can top that. but i'll let you take it from there. i know you have close ties to baltimore and a lot of respect for elijah cummings. >> a tremendous amount of respect for elijah cummings and baltimore is a place that helped raise me. baltimore is a place i still call home now. baltimore is a place that i'm raising my two children. and so the president's comments about no human being would want to live there, well, i'm one of the human beings that proudly chooses to live there and all baltimoreans are. but the thing that we know about these comments it's a familiar line of attack. we took it personally but the truth is we took it personally, we shouldn't take it personally when the line of attack was on puerto rico and on the disability community. and when the line of attack was on mexican americans.

this is a very familiar trope that he continues to lay out and the thing is that we have a president of the united states who is looking at human suffering with mockery. who is looking at human suffering and talking about it with a smile. you know? the challenges that we are battling through and people on the ground battling through them in baltimore are real. but what we actually need is support and resources and context and leadership at this time. the kind of leadership that elijah cummings is providing to our district for a very long time. so instead of just talking about the challenges, elijah cummings has actually been one of the leading voices on making sure we can make sure that big pharma companies are not price gouging our communities. elijah cummings is one of the leading voices to address some of the structural historical issues that are taking place inside of our city. >> that is for sure. and david ignatius, i mean, i don't think it's lost on all of

us that obviously as head of oversight elijah cummings is, you know, the president's opponent at this point in the mueller game. and elijah cummings has a lot of power to call him out. power that he's exercising. what are the dangers that you see coming out of this? >> you know, mika, increasingly i worry that trump with this recklessly divisive rhetoric is really inciting the country. this is a frazzled country. i sometimes wonder if donald trump would like to see america -- american cities burning as a way of rallying his base. it sometimes seems there's nothing he won't do. no wound that he won't rip a scab open. no person -- distinguished person like elijah cummings he's not prepare to attack and i wonder if he is just trying to push us closer to the brink. it's just so disturbing, day by

day you think it can't get worse and it does. >> wow. so far the only response from chairman cummings came saturday morning when he tweeted quote, mr. president, i go home to my district daily, each morning i wake up i go and fight for my neighbors. it is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the branch and just yesterday i held a hearing on the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs and the financial hardships that families across the nation and in baltimore are facing. mr. president, can we address this together? two years ago i went to the white house to ask you to endorse my bill to let the government negotiate directly for lower drug prices. you told me then that you supported the legislation that you would work with me to make it lap. i took you at your word. >> karine, this is what again has flummoxed me for several years.

donald trump reaches out to elijah cummings after watching elijah on this show. they met, together donald trump could have worked with elijah cummings for a bipartisan bill, to bring down the cost of medication. and it seemed like they could move forward in that way. nancy pelosi when she was on our show the morning donald trump got inaugurated said he can be a very gracious, a very warm person. they had a good relationship going back some time, that they could get things done. and yet, when given these political opportunities that would be huge political wins, he's chosen to divide time and time again in a short sighted, bigoted approach that is sure to get him defeated next year. i do not understand it and i never will. >> yeah, joe, so on january 20,

2017, donald trump put his hand on the bible technically two bibles and took the oath of the presidency to be a president for all of us. and since that day, since that moment, every hour he seems to just prove that to be wrong. right? he is not a president for black people. he's not a president for women. he's not a president for brown people. he's not a president for the lgbtq community. he chooses to double down and triple down on bigotry and racism and now what we are seeing in 2019, a modern day president who is choosing to use racism, division, hatred to win thinking he's going to win 2020 with that. so i say to folks who are watching, we cannot allow this to happen. we have to figure out who are we as a country moving forward. who are we? do we want this? right? because all of this is going to come down to november 2020.

and i say to republicans especially republicans' leadership. please, speak up. enough is enough. we are a young democracy we really are. you know? i was really struck by what ignatius was saying. i don't know where donald trump wants to take this. but wherever it is it's going to be dangerous. it can lead to a horrible civil war. you know, this is -- he is testing us. he's testing the democracy. he's shredding the constitution. and so republicans, the leadership in the republican party, need to stand up. you have to speak up. because if you don't, you are encouraging this. you are picking donald trump, loyalty to donald trump instead of to the country. >> karine, thank you so much for being with us. we really appreciate it. we really appreciate your words. david ignatius, why don't we follow-up on that point.

you remember very well 1966, '67 and '68 and you remember the riots in washington and in baltimore. the riots -- my gosh, the riots in detroit. a lot of cities that never really recovered from the riots of those years. and you saw america on a razor's edge. it happened before. it can happen again. i wonder if you're correct. if that is where donald trump wants to take us and if that sounds extreme, people should just go back and watch ken burns' documentary on vietnam or other documentaries on that time. it's happened before, it can happen again. >> joe, it's terrible to think that a president would deliberately push us toward greater confrontation, divisiveness, anger and rage but that's what we see every day.

every day tweets seem to be about that. as you say, we have seen what can happen in a country that's divided. i did grow up in the '60s. i watched my city of washington in flames as the rage just exploded after the assassination of martin luther king. those were terrible times for our country. it took a long time to heal from that and it's just so painful to see a president seeming to push us more and more toward confrontation. i think what you keep saying, joe and mika both, it's up to republicans to slow this down. to speak out and say this is -- this is our country. this is dry tinder, you know, put away the matches. >> if they don't like what happened at the north carolina rally a few weeks ago, they don't want to see what's going to be happening in the coming

weeks. if this sort of racial animus and bigotry continues. so peter baker, why don't we talk about another bit of news that broke over the weekend, dan coats the former senator, the former ambassador to germany and now head of dni is going to stepping down. and donald trump after considering devin nunes if anyone can believe that has ended up with i think it's john ratcliffe. he's extraordinarily controversial. there's not a single democrat who will vote for him. he often speaks as trump tweets. so i'm wondering does the white house really believe that people like chairman burr, cory gardner, susan collins, joni ernst, other people who are up

in 2020 will vote for this spot at the dni? >> it's a great question. senator burr who you mentioned the chairman of the senate intelligence committee privately expressed his concern, in fact he thought that the congressman ratcliffe would be a too political of a figure for that particular role. not that we haven't had political people in it. obviously, you know, dan coats was a republican senator. but he was not seen as somebody who was especially partisan. he did not take the job in that capacity. he certainly didn't, you know, behave that way as dni. and congressman ratcliffe showed last week with the hearings involving robert mueller that he's a very fierce defender of the president and a believer in some of the theories that the president has advanced about the origin of the russian investigation rather than express concern about russia's intervention in democracy on behalf of president trump and what he said last week was that

he was concerned that russia was actually helping hillary clinton by feeding information to christopher steele for the now famous dossier. he made it very clear his point of view in those hearings. president trump was watching and clearly enjoyed watching that performance. he had already met with congressman ratcliffe on july 19th, just five days before the hearings. but i think he clearly likes the idea of somebody who is going to be in that role who shares his point of view, who shares his world view, more attuned to his policies and more attuned to the way he wants that job conducted. >> all right, peter baker, thank you very much. quite a serious time. still ahead on "morning joe" after a weekend of attacks on yet another lawmaker of color, one senator has had enough of what he calls the president's hate-filled racist and demeaning twitter feed. democratic senator chris murphy is standing by. he joins the conversation next on "morning joe." who's dog is this?

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so come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. welcome back to "morning joe." joinings now member of the foreign relations committee democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut. also with us, co-host of "morning joe" "first look" ayman mohyeldin. he has a new piece in "vanity fair" investigating the murder of jamal khashoggi. we'll get to that in a moment and also, yasmin vossoughian is back as well. thank you both very much. senator murphy, i guess first of all let's talk about the president's twitter feed. i want to get to the new choice of the dni, at least but you're going to unfollow the president. what is it going to accomplish? >> if i want to unfollow the president i need to get into a different line of work.

>> yeah. >> yesterday morning, i just decided that i had had enough of starting my days with this kind of racist, hateful, demeaning negativity. obviously i'm in this business and i am in the united states senate to try to stop his hateful agenda from moving into law. but it's just -- to my, i think a moment in time where we all need to find ways to sort of lift up the way in which we talk. sometimes i get trapped by reading the president's twitter feed and trying to immediately respond to it. i don't want to be in that circle anymore. >> right. so what -- you know, look, the media has its job to do. senator murphy, i'm not asking you to do the media's job but i'm just thinking if i were you or in a position like this, i would walk right over to any republican counterparts that i'm friends with, cameras rolling, and say, what gives? where are you on this? are we the friends that we thought we were, are we working

together for the same country? where are you on this if i had the ability to do that, i would do it. where are you, republican counterparts, and what's your responsibility to start talking to them face-to-face in broad day light with cameras rolling on what is happening with the racism emanating from the oval office? >> so you know we have had lots of those conversations over the past two years trying to prod our republican colleagues to step up and you know do what -- >> what stops them? >> i think it's a number of things that stops them. one they're afraid of him. they don't want to lose a primary and the they tell us, well you'd be better off with us in the senate in the long run rather than a bunch of trump clones who get elected in primaries. second though they make the case, many of them, that they are working behind the scenes with him to try to smooth out the rough edges and if we took him on directly politically it would be worse than it is today. i think this week you can't make the case any longer that it could get any worse. he is literally setting this

country on fire, so many of us who have listened to that argument from our republican friends who tell us don't take away our ability to try to talk to him and influence him quietly. we're going to call that out as the bs that it is and try to get them to finally do the things that many did in the 1950s to finally marginalize joe mccarthy. it was the republicans who did that, but not democrats ultimately. thing is a week in which there are probably harder conversations in the senate between democrats and republican senators than there have been in the past. >> speaking of your republican friends the president has announced the new choice for dni, representative ratcliffe. first, do you think he's qualified for that position? >> so i don't know this guy. i think he's a television character that the president has watched on tv. and he wants to put somebody in this position who's going to agree with his political take on intelligence. i'll do my own evaluation but it strikes me as an inappropriate choice for the job in a moment

when we're trying to lift intelligence out of the political soup. something that, you know, dan coats tried to do on a regular basis and he should be applauded for that. >> so his confirmation would seem not to be assured, there are a handful of senators who will carry his face in their hands. >> this will be a lot of hand to hand combat and i don't think the president's comments in the last couple of weeks which are certainly making a lot of republicans uncomfortable are going to help ratcliffe's confirmation. his meetings and hearings will be important but he can't escape that twitter feed or escape the fact that he has been one of the president's accomplices in trying to politicize this. we'll be having a lot of hearings over the next couple of days. >> the murder of jamal khashoggi ignited worldwide criticism of

the kingdom of saudi arabia. but it's not the first time they have taken action against those who spoke out against the kingdom an it's something that ayman is investigating for a new piece out in "vanity fair" entitled "the crosshairs." tell us what you found. >> yeah, mika, this was an investigation i have been conducting for the better part of the last five or six months, i traveled to different continents, interviewed more than 30 people including the families of saudi dissidents and activists. some of them disappeared. it was quite a stark contrast of what we have been hearing from the saudi government. on the one hand shortly after the killing of jamal khashoggi we heard from the saudis this was a rogue operation, that this was an anomaly, but when we kind of took the big picture approach over the last couple of months and started to piece together the time line and the attacks that have been happening on various saudi dissidents and activists there's a clear pattern here, among those who live in europe, that live in the

u.s., that live in canada for example. and what we have learned for the first time is that americans are being caught up in this. in one brazen operation that the saudis went after a saudi prince in france they kidnapped with them three americans that were flown to saudi arabia against their will. held for three days. they had their phones, passports, everything confiscated and deleted and then flown back to the u.s. that was something that is not widely been reported. we had a chance to speak to those americans for the first time and hear their accounts. also in some cases, there are american families that have a saudi relative that has been taken in custody and they have not even heard from over the course of the years. so there's troubling implications for american citizens. we had a chance to interview congressman adam schiff who wants to do a deep dive and understand the risk to saudi residents that live in the u.s. and americans caught up in the operations. >> so senator, you're hearing

what amin says and we know about the brutal murder of jamal khashoggi and then you think of the president's veto of the bipartisan resolution to block saudi arms sales, $8 billion. the president said it would hurt our economy if we don't stick with this arms deal. how do you square that? >> well, listen, what's so bizarre is that after the murder of jamal khashoggi, after the imprisonment of several american citizens, the reported electrocati electrocution of one, the arms sale robs the american companies of jobs because the president has allowed for a technology transfer to the saudis to let some of these smart bombs be built there rather than in american companies. so it's just not true that this is about american jobs. this is ultimately about rewarding a saudi government for their abuse of the united states in our relationship and we look

weak to the world right now because we have signalled that if you capture american citizens, if you use our weapons to kill citizens as they do in yemen today, there will be no consequences. what is the reason for the inexplicable nature of the trump actions on saudi arabia? and i think he's told us what the reason is. he has told us that the saudis put a lot of money into his properties. we know that jared kushner makes a lot of money -- >> you believe it's very personal? >> i think this is very, very personal. >> listen, he's trying to do everything the opposite of what barack obama did and that's an aspect of his reorientation away from iran to the saudis but there's likely a financial explanation for this policy. >> so ayman, this is david ignatius. very powerful reporting about jamal khashoggi, my late

colleague. i want to ask you about something i find particularly troubling that the person you identify in your piece as essentially the organizer of these efforts to go after dissidents like khashoggi has not been charged in saudi arabia. from everything we know continues to operate. even advises former colleagues. what about that? why is there so little apparent effort to assign responsibility? >> that's a tough question to understand without having keen insight into the mind of the crown prince and more importantly the inner politics of the royal court. he's somebody who has demonstrated a willingness and ruthlessness to serve this crown prince in a way that has earned him a lot of reward and trust within the upper echelons of the ruling elite in saudi arabia.

the interesting thing has to do with why has he not at least been put on trial or charged? we don't know how serious the saudi government is about trying to bring these individuals who are involved in the killing of jamal khashoggi to trial. how much of this is genuine, how much of this is lip service to the americans and to other countries who wanted to at least see some kind of measure in order to justify the big pictures we heard from the senator here saying that it's business as usual between the trump administration and the crown prince and the saudis. was this enough to keep them quiet? the americans have put them on the sanctions list but it's not enough for the saudi crown prince to say i'll take one of the most senior loyal advisers and put him on trial. because then it sends a message within the internal saudi leadership and others that served this crown prince loyally if you somehow get exposed, get caught, you could possibly face the death penalty or face even more severe consequences in prison that they don't want to simply go down that road. so the message now is if you

serve the crown prince loyally there's no accountability. >> so senator, actually in terms of a follow-up from both this and just the larger conversation we're having, it is about how -- what are we doing and what controls are we putting on the administration and thinking of 2020 and beyond. a lot of the conversation has been focused on this idea of, you know is there a conversation with republican lawmakers about will you stand up? will you say something? but the truth is that politicians on move where the constituents tell them to move. what then is the conversation about beyond having the private conversations with republican lawmakers about the constituents? about being able to address things like everything from voter suppression and, you know, voter enrollment, but then also about asking us, asking the citizens to be able to help is drive and steer this conversation instead of waiting to be led by politicians who might have different reasons as to why they will or won't do

certain things. >> that's exactly right. this is a grand experiment the idea of a democratic melting pot, right? we get to govern ourselves and we do it in a multicultural country. we have never had this before, 240 years in. we want it to be around for another 240 years so this is a moment for citizens to stand up, to run for school boards, to ask questions about whether their local elections are being protected, what is their state government doing? this is a moment to celebrate diversity at the local level, to reach out to somebody who worships differently than you who comes from a different place. to welcome immigrants in to your town. so this doesn't ultimately have to be a conversation that happens in washington or on these shows. this is a conversation that can happen in communities all across the country and citizens can take control of that. that's the miracle of this nation that it ultimately just isn't on our shoulders. frankly, it will put more pressure on the republicans if they see republicans and democrats, local elected republicans can stand up and say

something. and if they do that, maybe it will lift up and put wind beneath the wings of the republicans here in washington who have been very silent for far too long. >> all right, senator chris murphy, thank you so much. ayman's new piece is in "vanity fair" and you can see him and yasmin every morning right before us, "morning joe." >> high five. >> david ignatius, first of all, we had the navy naming a destroyer after your father and you spent the fast few weeks in the middle east with the military. so tell us about both of those experiences. >> well, we have been talking about painful things this morning. i had the great pleasure of seeing america at its very best over the last couple weeks over

the weekend on saturday, the navy did commission a mighty destroyer named for my dad who is now 98. the "uss paul ignatius." and my daughter called it to life in a ritual, the sailors ran on board and took their places and she was standing in for my mom who passed away in january. i have been traveling with the centcom commander throughout the middle east. we were in oman, we were in jetta, we were in afghanistan. then we were in syria. that picture is showing kind of the mad max look at our forces out in the desert on a very southern border of syria. that's me aboard the "uss boxer" and now it's the most famous ship in the navy because it disabled the iranian drones

flying over the ships. that's a view out of the osprey as we were going from one place to the other. one of my colleagues getting a little shut eye there. there's a view of kabul at sunset. when you're on a trip like this, you see the very best that our country has. young men and women who are serving in these very dangerous war environments, doing so bravely and creatively. every time i make one of the trips i come back with some confidence about the power and momentum of the country that we love represented by these young soldiers, sailors, marines. you know, they are out there every day and they sure are doing a great job. >> you give us hope. david, thank you. coming up, president trump is denying accusations of racism

after attacking congressman elijah cummings. trump was also accused of being racist in 2017 after the white supremacist rally in charlottesville accused because he was. you can see it. former governor of virginia, terry mcauliffe, joins us next with the behind the scenes story of that violent unite the right rally. we're back in just a moment. xfinity mobile is a wireless network

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when they staged a torch-lit march on the university of virginia campus in charlottesville. joining us now former chairman of the dnc, terry mcauliffe. he was the governor of virginia at the time of the rally and author of "beyond charlottesville: taking a stand against white nationalism." terry, it's always great to have you on. but this is such a grave time for our country. tell us about the book and also let's go beyond to what's happening now. how do we call out those who are silent about the racism in our midst today? >> obviously you see a pattern here, mika. it was really hard for me as governor that day and friday night which you saw on the grounds of university of virginia with all of their torches and screaming neo-nazi slogans and saturday a thousand people, mostly armed, screaming the most vile things against african-americans, telling

members of the jewish faith they would burn them and burn them like they burned them in auschwitz. how did we get to a place in this country people think they could do this? they used to wear hoods in this country and do it at night, but now they don't think they have to. john lewis writes the forward and we had a lot of discussions about racism and where we go from here. i opened my book with president trump, he rightfully called me as governor what's going on. i explained the people we had in our state, what they were saying, what they were doing. i said this is a real opportunity. president clinton had oklahoma city, president bush 9/11. this was a time for the president to step up to the world this is not who we are, we do not support neo-nazi or white supremacists. they all had their nazi swastikas and chants. i was confident after we hung up the phone he would do the right

thing. he would go first and then i would do my press conference. what happened, mika, he prepared to go out and condemn the neo-nazis. someone got to him in the white house and said no, mr. president, you will not condemn neo-nazis and said that will not happen. he went out and said there were fine people on both sides. i was there. there were not fine people on that side. they killed heather heyer that day. i lost two of my state policemen who were flying in the helicopter that day. these were horrible racists to come to that state. hi to do my press conference. i said go home, get the heck out of virginia, leave the country. they prepped they're patriots and are a bunch of cowards. i don't blame trump for specific acts, mika, but i blame donald trump for the divisions and people feel comfortable they can come out like this on a city

street in america. >> absolutely. >> the president didn't condemn it that day unequivocally. time and time again he's been reluctant, slow, if at all to criticize acts by white supremacists and racists time and time again. it only escalated in recent weeks. wearing your other hat, former rnc chairman, how do they combat him next november on these terms? he seems so eager to fight this election on this idea of race? >> it's a good question but more and more democrats think in the upcoming debate they have got to make it clear the next president will be about healing the nation and uniting the nation. that has to be the message the candidates talk about. but trump wants us fighting in this mud pile with him. why does he keep going to immigration and issues of race? wearing my former hat i think

fundamentally a really flawed strategy, i think his only strategy is there are enough people who didn't come out in 2016, my insightful, hateful rhetoric i can get them to come out from underneath wherever they are, i just don't believe that. i think he needs independent women in order to rebuild 50% of this nation. fundamentally, it's a flawed strategy. donald trump came out for who he was, support of the of the white supremacist movement and came out and left them die as a racist that day. he had an opportunity to lead the country. he failed that day. i talked to him that day. he failed america, and i think he failed the world. >> you're right when you call this idea of a healing nation and healing the nation and loving this nation doesn't mean lying about it. it means we do have a history and we do have ghosts we still very much battle in this country. i think about it in my own case. my maternal grandfather was the

first one born in south carolina in our family and the ku klux family ran him out not just of south carolina but the country. the question i have for you is this, i get repeatedly asked, do you think donald trump is a racist? and my honest question back to them is, what does he need to say for people to stop asking me that question? what does he need to do for people to stop asking me the question do i think he's a racist? >> i think first of all he needs to stop the rhetoric. number two, he needs to lead. i talk about this in the book for every elected officials. i'm tired of a bunch of white people sitting around feeling good about themselves. do something. we have inequities in schools and health care. that's what john lewis and i talked about in this book, how do we go forward? as bad as charlottesville one, it ripped the scab off. racism is alive and well in this country. for too long people felt we

dealt with racism. we haven't. you read this book and talk about the history of virginia, i took the confederate flag off the order of license plates. there are symbols to racism and h hatred in this country. we have to get rid of those symbols. and do something. we can't have inferior schools and health care delivery and mandatory criminal sentences where we have an unjust criminal system. i pardoned a guy he was a drug addict, who life sentences and 130 years. are you kidding me? i can go on chapter and verse. we have to fix this. we're a mosaic style of immigrants from all over the world. donald trump is trying to divide us. let's beat him and end racism by dealing with the issues. it's here but do something. just quit talking about it, get out and do something. that's what john lewis and i

talk about, the last chapter. hopefully it motivates you to get out there and shake it up. >> absolutely. the book is "beyond charlottesville: taking a stand against white nationalism." terry mcauliffe, great message. thank you very much. please come back. wes moore, thank you very much as well. ahead we will talk to another baltimore native and leading black lives matter activist about the president's attack on his city and congressman amazel cummings. and who is leaving and who is on the way in? "morning joe" is coming back in two minutes. just a fever. this is not just the flu. it's meningitis b... and you're not there to help. while meningitis b is uncommon... once symptoms appear, they can progress quickly and can be fatal...

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>> i understand that everything donald trump says is offensive to some people. >> no human being would want to live there. >> when donald trump attacks people -- >> this is being perceived as racist. do you understand why? >> i understand why but that doesn't mean that it's racist. >> and here we go again. president trump spends another weekend unleashing another twitter attack at another member of congress who happens to be of color. and the president's supporters insist has nothing to do with race. no, this is not a reair of a previous broadcast. here we go again. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, july 29th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. columnist and associated editor of "the washington post," david ignatius. senior adviser on moveon.org and msnbc contributor janine st.

pierre. and senior nbc host correspondent, host of "andrea mitchell reports," and andrea mitchell. we will get to elijah cummings and the tweets from the president trump over the weekend. and it comes on the heels of his ongoing attacks on four congresswomen of color that he said should go back to where they came from. the part because of the filthy, hate-laced things he said they've said about the country. this is from a man who said that atlanta is falling apart. described philadelphia as struggling and chicago totally out of control. called san francisco disgusting and now baltimore, a filthy place. we talk about the significance of it all beyond just simply the outrage the president always hopes to elicit but the damage he's committing here. but we begin with president donald trump announcing the

departure of the director of national intelligence via a tweet yesterday afternoon. he wrote, i'm pleased to announce that highly respected congressman john ratcliffe of texas will be nominated by me to be the director of national intelligence. a former u.s. attorney, john will lead and inspire greatness for the country he loves. dan coats, the current director, will be leaving office ton august 15th. i would like to thank dan for his great service to our country. the acting director will be named shortly. "the new york times" reports that coats, a veteran republican lawmakers and form ambassador to germany, had long wanted to go and told the president and vice president he was ready to move on during a meeting last week. coats was known to give blunt intelligence assessments, breaking with the president on big topics like north korea and vladimir putin. >> we have some breaking news. the white house has announced on

twitter that vp violent is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again. [ laughter ] >> vladimir putin coming to the white house -- >> i heard that. >> yeah. >> okay. that's gonna be special. [ laughter ] >> so we go from' man who by most accounts spoke truth to power in dan coats to now a nominee for dni who is widely seen as a trump -- >> he was not only that, mika, but also one of the most embarrassing members during the mueller hearings. you can disagree with what robert mueller said and did at times, i suppose, but he was screaming and yelling, talking about how mueller should be ashamed of himself for doing

exactly what he was directed to do by the justice department. without a doubt -- and we talked about it in realtime when we really didn't know much about john radcliffe at all, we said in realtime it was one of the most embarrassing performances of a very, very embarrassing day for those republicans judiciary members. >> you should mention that third term in congress, john ratcliffe, attorney for eastern district of texas, while he served four terms as mayor of heath, texas. then a city of about 7,000 people. ratcliffe, a member of the house judiciary committee also joined the intelligence committee earlier this year, pushing investigations into the use of fivia warrants and president's allegations of bias against him with the fbi. ratcliffe privately met with

trump about the dni job just a week before he lectured former special counsel robert mueller in wednesday's hearing. a performance the president shared via twitter. and on fox news yesterday ratcliffe continued to call the report meaningless. >> americans need to know this as they listen to the democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle. volume two of this report was not authorized under the law to be written. i agree with the chairman this morning when he said donald trump is not above the law. he's not. but he damn sure shouldn't be below the law, which is where volume two of this report puts him. >> trey gowdy said it best this week, the person who learned the most about the mueller report during wednesday's hearings is robert mueller. that's sad but true. really what it meant were the mueller report wasn't by facts, nerp written by robert mueller by hillary clinton's legal team,

even though who supported her and some of her aides. the mueller report will be difficult for the democrats or anyone to rely upon a findings of the report who they just listen to the man whose name was on top of it not have a command of what was even in it. >> what a clown show for a guy like that to be attacking a marine hero, a guy who changed the fbi. he doesn't know what robert mueller did or didn't do. maybe he didn't give a type of performance that ratcliffe gave, the screaming and humiliating himself. by the way, mika, ratcliffe was the guy who i think spurred the discussion here where i asked a question, if republicans are really -- i hate to even call them that -- a trumpist sycophant is going to call every democrat a socialist, can democrats call ratcliffe a fascist? it seems fair to me if they're going to mislabel democrats who

are not socialists, and democrats should just start calling ratcliffe a fascist. and call him a fascist throughout this entire process. call him a fascist for the rest of his career until this fascist apologizes to capitalists who are democrats who he has mislabeled. jonathan lemire, let me start with you, and then we'll get to the ugliness of this election. is this really a guy that can get 50 votes from the united states senate at a time when susan collins, who's already -- who's already looking at a loss in maine because of her vote on supreme court nominees, we have susan collins in maine, we have cory gardner in colorado, jody ir-steen, iowa. are they really going to vote for a clown like this. yes, he's a clown. he acted like a clown last week.

and he's basically spewing words that he reads on donald trump's -- on donald trump's twitter feed and on conspiracy websites. are they real? will there be a majority of members in the united states senate voting to confirm this man to the most important position in america's intelligence community? >> joe, you mentioned names everybody will be watching. there will be incredible pressure on a handful of republicans who hold the nominee's fate in their hands. certainly mitch mcconnell has a way to get republicans in line but i don't think it's a guarantee here. i think it underscores what a shift it will be as dan coats. dan coats, as outlined earlier, could speak the truth and break with president trump and did so privately on the confines of the situation whether it was iran, north korea or early on where isis stood and certainly russia,

where coats time and time again warned what russia did in 2016 but what it could do again. and no subject rages donald trump more than suggesting russia could have affected the 2016 election and could again. now a loyalist, and you spoke to the president about this a few weeks ago, who last week used his appearance in the mueller hearing, which raised all sorts of questions and stood in stark contrast to the quiet dignity of robert mueller there. used it as a final audition for this job, and delighted the president, who has not only posted on twitter about it but telling aides this is the kind of person he wants at dni. >> andrea mitchell, this is the type of person he also wanted at the fed and herman cain didn't make it to the fed, neither did stephen moore. so i'm wondering if we are looking at a swaks like that, the president throws red meat to

his base, knowing i would guess richard burr, one of the few republicans who has acted honorably throughout this entire process and ran a very bipartisan intel committee investigation, i would find it hard to believe richard burr could vote for this man or the other north carolina senator who is up for re-election next year, or those i named earlier. what are you hearing? >> well, it's really notable richard burr did not issue any kind of statement praising ratcliffe as you would expect if he were a partisan political figure. he's not been. in fact, he and mark warner had only on thursday with a stunning report were saying 50 of our states, all 50 states had been attacked by russia. and it was exactly in that interview you played a clip of last year, last july in aspen, dan coats in the rest of that

interview, which has gone relatively unnoticed, he was relatively clear about russia's role. it was three days after the disastrous summit in helsinki, when president trump had by name said that he believed vladimir putin over the intelligence agencies and over dan coats. so the fact that three days later dan coats was willing to stand up and go into chapter and verse of what the threat from russia was, was a signature of the man of what he has done before in the senate and what he had done as ambassador to germany, and significantly how he rose to the level of dni, which was not the expectation because it is political background, some diplomatic background. but he really was a truth-teller and one of the few around the president. now what you have is with the departure of jim mattis, you have very few people willing to stand up to the president. notably in the president's announcement on twitter, even though the two discussed this a week ago, the fact he announced

this on twitter where coats after weeks of leaks that people like fred flights, very controversial aide was being considered for the job, said he would step aside. the fact it was announced that way as it was with tillerson, you remember the humiliation of that, was significant. and also the fact he said an acting director would be named by law and by practice. the deputy dni, very highly esteemed intelligence officer, sue gordon, a career person, should be stepping up and immediately become acting dni. now it's clear he's planning to bring somebody in from the political sector and that's very troubling. >> i was going to ask you, robert ignatius, you have studied this closely and talked from time to time about the crisis of confidence inside the intel community.

how does this stack up? >> i think this is the most serious attempt yet by the trump administration to politicize intelligence. it's something donald trump did from day one almost. he went out and gave a very political speech in front of the wall of cia fallen heroes. there are a lot of cia officers to this day that resent that. this is the latest and probably the most serious attempt to bring political figures into control of our intelligence community. ratcliffe has been very much a party line man. his comments on mueller you discussed earlier. i just want to say briefly what the danger of this is. dan coats was an unlikely hero. he was a politician himself but he won the trust of his workforce by push ing back. the day of the helsinki summit when donald trump seemed to be siding with vladimir putin, on his own dan coats released a

statement essentially defending the intelligence community. he didn't ask permission from the white house, he just did it. and people loved him for that. the workforce in the intelligence community as near as i can tell is traumatized. people are looking over their shoulders. they're worried, does anybody have their back? there's increasingly worry about the deep state being pushed by members of congress. they feel they're the bull's-eye. the final point to make, and this may be most important one, we depend on security on the cooperation of key intelligence partner around the world that can get to places that our intelligence officers can't. those services i know are increasingly worried about sharing their moment precious secrets of the united states because of this wobble on president trump from the white house and his nominees and oversight of intelligence, if they begin to reduce the flow of

information in the united states, we are less safe. still ahead, the biggest story we're following and the president's racist attacks on the elijah cummings and the city of baltimore. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. i mean, if you haven't thought about switching to geico, frankly, you're missing out. uh... the mobile app makes it easy to manage your policy, even way out here. your marshmallow's... get digital id cards, emergency roadside service, even file a... whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa! oops, that cheeky little thing got away from me. my bad. geico. it's easy to manage your policy whenever, wherever. can i trouble you for another marshmallow? at their reddest, ripest, they make everything better. like our strawberry poppyseed salad and new strawberry summer caprese salad. strawberry season is here. panera. food as it should be.

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you want a sidekick? i'm gonna find you one. see that guy over there? he's too big. look at you two. bickering like a couple of old ladies. woo! ♪ now to the president spending yet another weekend trashing yet another member of congress who happens to be of color on twitter. this time it's the chairman of the house oversight committee, elijah cummings. and his west baltimore district. the first of the president's two-day attack came on saturday when the president claimed the maryland congressman's district is a, quote, disgusting and rat and rodent infested mess.

if he spent more time in baltimore, trump continued, maybe he can help clean up this very dangerous and filthy place. in another tweet the president wrote, quote, why is so much money sent to the elijah cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the united states? no human being would want to live there. where is all of the money going? how much is stolen? investigate this corrupt mess immediately. the president continued his attack yesterday, quoted racist elijah cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district and baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership. his radical oversight is a joke. in all the president sent or shared 15 tweets attacking

congressman cummings and the city of baltimore over the weekend. i actually have a member of family who worked in elijah's outreach office and saw firsthand every day how hard he worked to meet the needs of his constituents, and really a family he made out of his community there. these tweets are beyond offensive and beyond inaccurate. joe? >> yes, karine, this has become far too predictable. donald trump, of course, continuing to attack people of color. it is -- i talked about the signal, the ground noise. i must say though what is obvious to everyone, the pace of his racist attacks are quickening. the pace of his abhorrent behavior, the intensity of his abhorrent behavior is increasing, and the president actually does make it very

difficult not to do exactly what he wants us to do and that is report on just how bigoted he's become. >> that's exactly right, joe. let me just say this about congressman cummings. donald trump is up why set because congressman cummings is everything donald trump is not. he's calm and smart and thoughtful. he works for his constituents. he's a good public servant. he's an example of the american dream, son of a share cropper who is now the chair of a very powerful committee. donald trump is threatened by congressman cummings. look, i know people say and folks are saying to us, we have to ignore the noise. we have to ignore the tweets. we can't give donald trump the conversation he wants us to have about racism, but we have to continue to fight racism. we cannot turn away. we cannot look back. what donald trump's racism is a toxic and dangerous brew.

we knew donald trump has been a racist for a very long time. that is not surprising. but now he's in a position of power where policies are coming out of that position of power. look, we know white nationalists have been around for a very long time but donald trump is giving them comfort and enabling them and so now we also see an increase in hate crimes so we cannot stop talking about this, we cannot turn away. we have to continue to call this out. >> and as kevin cruz wrote yesterday, jonathan lemire in "the new york times," there are echoes of george wallace and donald trump's inflammatory racist rhetoric except for the fact that actually trump is far more specific in his racist attacks than even was george wallace, who would regularly talk about agitators pointy-headed bureaucrats. donald trump actually calls out people by name, and because he's president of the united states we've seen this time and again,

puts their safety at risk. >> that's right. he's certainly never been a presidential candidate since wallace who wanted to make race more of an issue than donald trump. his opponents of color or those cities that are traditionally minority/majority. places like san francisco or oakland or ferguson, chicago, places that are led by people of color, politicians of color. those are his targets time and time again. we've seen the courts just in the last week or two, his repeated attacks on the four congresswomen of color. he's gone off john lewis, civil rights hero time and time again. this is someone -- let's point out about representative cummings too. he oversees a powerful committee, house oversight committee, that just last week voted to authorize cummings to have subpoena power to look at jared kushner and ivanka trump's war-related emails, which people close to the president suggested is one of the triggers here to

unleash this torrent over the weekend. also, let's remind us again, he talks about elijah cummings district. you know whose else it is? donald trump. he's president of the united states. at the end of the day that's under his jurisdiction. that's under his watch. it underscores time and time again there's never been a president quick to say those not my problem, it's us versus them. those aren't my people. that is what he's done here today. we will continue this important conversation just ahead and bring in professor of history, walter isaacson and leading voice in the black lives matter movement. we're back in just a moment. hmm. exactly.

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festival in northern california. gilroy police chief said one suspect is among the fatalities but police believe a second person may have been involved. >> there were reports of shootings on the north side of the garlic festival area. officers were in that area and engaged the suspect in less than a minute. the suspect was shot and killed. they used some sort of a tool to cut through the fence to be able to gain access through the secure fence line. that's how they got into the festival area itself. we have one suspect that we know that is down. we have some witnesses reporting there may have been a second suspect but we don't know if that suspect was engaged in any shooting or whether they may have been in some sort of a

support role for the first person we have accounted for. >> the suspect used a rifle and appeared to be shooting somewhat randomly. adding that investigators had no information on a possible motive. authorities remained at the scene overnight and are expected to hold a press conference later this morning. we will, of course, be following this story as we get more is information. and back now to the president's torrent of twitter screed over the weekend on congressman elijah cummings and the people of baltimore, what tma t ma tas tiesing two american leaders. joining us is water isaacson, and ceo of all in together, nonpartisan women's civic and political organization, and civil rights activist and leader in the black lives matter

movement who was born and raised in west baltimore. >> so great to have you with us. walter, let's start with you, you grew up in the civil rights area, it's interesting they compared donald trump to george wallace but actually compared president trump unfavorably to george wallace. you member george wallace would point positive pointy had much headed people and that. donald trump is doing that by name. you would have death threats going up, supporters arrested with pipe bombs, supporters with kill lists and huge military cache of guns. of course, the white supremacist killings in the synagogue in pittsburgh. is it possible that actually donald trump is more inflammatory and more dangerous to america than george wallace

was? >> well, i read kevin kruse's column. i saw you pointed it out too. it was interesting for what both you said that he singles out, trump does, individuals which makes it very dangerous. singles out the four congresswomen. singles out elijah cummings. something wallace didn't do. wallace was an insidious person. he was in that class of people who tried to divide our nation and did it in the of all ways, divide it on racial lines. george wallace, especially when we got to 1972, his final presidential campaign, spoke in code words and in some ways it was more a person of his time. i find donald trump, and i can't fully articulate it. i will let others, dure or some other experts do it, even more odious. he's doing it from what seems

like a deeply racist core and he's not even bothering to speak in code words anymore. just as i grew up thinking not only is george wallace a racist but anybody who could support him is a racist. i'm beginning to believe anybody who tolerates donald trump is now is signing on to this very divisive agenda. >> if you endorse donald trump, you as president, you endorse charlottesville and what he did, the moral equivalency between nazis and protesters. you, of course, support the attacks, what he's done, racist attacks on hispanics calling them breeders, supporting the attacks on muslims, calling for a muslim registry, attacks on mexicans. can you go down the list. now, of course, you have elijah, al sharpton, you have four women

of congress in congress. and let's talk about baltimore city, a city you know very well. a little-known fact, actually crime was going down in baltimore until the freddy gray murder. and the obviously the concerns that followed that. talk about baltimore, the improvements that have been made but also what needs to be done moving forward for a very proud city, and city that's made some positive steps in certain ways. >> you know, there's no way to talk about the poverty of the city of baltimore without talking to the policies that encouraged that policy or talk about addiction in the city of baltimore without talking about the fact people still think addiction is a moral problem and not a public health crisis. when you think about it see, it's like what happens when its the birthplace of red lining, what happens when you have a school system that repeatedly -- governor hogan will not fund in a way that's adequate.

of course the conditions look a certain way. what is really troubling about trump's latest comments, because they're not new, but a lot of people participate in the logic that blames people for being poor as opposed to acknowledging a system did this to help. this is a moment where people should be defiant, there should be courageous political leadership. michelle obama said when they go low, we go high. that wasn't about pacificism but going back to our convictions and back to what caused us to get into this work in the first place. we go high and fight. i'm from baltimore. i live in baltimore. i know that city is as american as any other city. if we commit to fixing baltimore, we can fix anything. >> darae, that grew out of the '60s and manufacturing and things elijah cummings had nothing to do with. he inherited a troubled city.

there had been really good gang work but there's still a long way to go. you can see that of gm in michigan, they just lost more jobs that donald trump promised to keep. there's been a challenge and cities fighting to make that city a better place for 40 years. >> that's true. you think about it and baltimore was literally the place where redlining was built. baltimore was the place in the county where people were notified when black people moved into the neighborhood. this was by design. the problems of the city of baltimore wasn't happenstance and this is true of so many american cities. what worries me too is there are people my goodness, i get he's racist. he's been racist for a long time and the republican party is complicit in this. so this should be a moment to stand up and say enough is enough and where people use their structural power to stop

him and people should be defiant in this moment, people should be courageous. we shouldn't just take this sitting down. >> lauren leader, you have written about these differences, these controversies and how they evolve over time, getting to the finish line. what is the finish line here, and how do we get there? >> i don't think there is a finish line. i think this is a long-term question for the nation, which is how we continue to work to reconcile our racist history and where we are today as a country. i was looking at this amazing poll that came out just about a month and a half ago from pugh that asked republicans and democrats their views on race. one of the pieces of data that stood out to me is that in 77% of republicans, they said they felt that there was too much -- one of the major problems for the country is too much view of race as an issue. whereas 77% of democrats see the opposite, that we're not paying

enough attention to race. we've seen a constant probe of the republican party for a long time, the denial of race as a key issue. even back to the vice presidential debate in a question about baltimore where mike pence debates whether or not there was policing problems in america. they invested in this idea racism doesn't exist. we're not going to see race. we're not going to talk about these issues and i think that's really destructive. we have to acknowledge the truth of where we are and where we are as a nation if we hope to move forward. corporate america is doing this by focusing on diversity issues, corporate leaders reconciling the challenges of operating in a diverse world and we need more conversation about this. >> you brought up the pugh poll. i believe that's the same poll that said americans were

actually becoming more sensitive about racism as a reaction to the hatred that was being sued out by donald trump. and these are bleak times, walter. but you know, taking this back to the 1960s, it was the birmingham church bombings, that tragedy, that finally awakened millions of white americans. it was selma and what happened to the freedom writers there that woke up americans outside of the deep south. it is often the horrific action of racists that actually awaken the moral conscience of americans who are sleeping, sleepwalking through history. as johnson would say. perhaps the pugh poll offers us at least the glimmer of hope. >> you know, my father, who's the most moral person i ever knew, said to me when i was growing up in new orleans the late 1960s, there are two types

of people. you can judge everybody in this country, everybody in the state, everybody in the city, two types of people, those who are resisting the civil rights movement and those who now understand why it has to proceed. and i think that, you know, we're going to judge in history whether it starts with charlottesville or anything else, we're going to just be able to say what side you are on. and i have my father's words ringing in my ears at all times when i watch people not realize that this is the fundamental moral choice we're making now. >> there are a lot of rural districts in this country that are poorer than baltimore, that have struggled with, say, opioid addiction and violence that stems from that. those districts are often prominently white and represented in congress by white elected officials. the president doesn't seem to criticize those nearly as much, if at all.

he's clearly playing to a certain part of his base. have you seen the last few years of the trump administration, do you think this could be an effective tactic? do you think there's enough that can push back against that to oust him from office next year? >> here's the thing is we already know he's running on white nationalism as a platform and set of policy ideas. that is clear. i think it will mobilize his base for sure but the numbers are on our side. both people voted for hillary than him last time. the question is can we organize people, i think that is real. and a reminder racism is not simply a set of ideas or comments. racism is fundamentally about practices. so his comments are dangerous. he wants to kick 3 million people on food stamps and the cages, practices of racism we never need to lose sight of. what trump would love us to do is stay talking about everything he says so people don't pay

attention to the practices, the practices that matter. >> dore mckesson, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. ahead we're going to go live to the southern border at the firsthand look at the administration's policy for asylum seekers. how it works and what it's like there. plus faith leaders are taking a stand against the trump administration's immigration policies with a nonviolent protest in el paso he today. the reverend william barber, who is leading the call to action joins us next on "morning joe." when i was diagnosed with breast cancer,

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tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the u.s. are be exposed to dangerous situations in mexico as they wait for their claims to be processed. many with no word on when that will be. it's all part of the trump administration's remain in

mexico program. nbc news correspondent cal perry went to juarez, mexico and joins us now from el paso, texas, with more. >> hey, mika, good morning. this is the third iteration of child separation and now remains the mexico program. they all have consistent themes. supposed to be deterrents from the trump administration. they cause cruelty south of the border. but amongst the people donald trump wants to present themselves at the port of entry, this is causing confusion again and these people are trying to enter the country legally. these are just some of the faces of trump administration's remain in poll mexico policy. several people remain in one room in this church. >> if they're mpp they're sentenced to be here a year, maybe more. >> reporter: before finding a place to stay, migrants have to

check in across town at a central facility. right now there are up to 12,000 people waiting at this part of the border for a chance at a hearing. >> people here grow impatient at times when they do not call anybody to cross. cross. >> reporter: the confusion and frustration is evident. people are waiting months in a foreign land with no idea of how long it will take. what number are you, do you know? >> 13,291. >> reporter: 13,291. >> yeah. >> reporter: how long will you wait? >> three months, 15 days. >> reporter: you've been here three months and 15 days. do you know how much longer you have to wait? >> i don't know. >> reporter: you don't know. >> reporter: the city of jaurez, alone, is approaching 900 murders so far this year. people are here from all over the globe, from central america

to africa. this woman fled violence and asked us to keep her identity a secret. a gay woman from uganda, she thought america would welcome her. >> it was one country that was allowing human rights before but i don't know why they're changing everything just all of a sudden. >> reporter: people like dillon from the hope institute provide shelter and food and somehow almost inexplicably a sense of optimism. >> what we are doing at the border is core to who we are as americans. this is a country that has always stood for human rights, for people across the globe, and our border is where we're going to define our identity as a country. >> reporter: 900 murders a year in the city of jaurez. the neighborhoods are dangerous. the locations, we had a man killed just a few days before a visit outside the government center. two people according to folks staying in the church shot outside that location last week.

mika, important to note, you have smugglers that are preying on these locations and know people are frustrated. they know people are now going to wait months, maybe a year. and so they're offering that illegal alternative. pay us and we can try to sneak you across the border. >> all right. cal perry, thank you very much for your reporting. let's bring in reverend bill barber, a national call for moral revival. following a visit to jaurez, mexico yesterday, to meet with individuals with loved ones stuck in migrant detention facilities the reverend is leading a protest march in el paso today. it is in response to the humanitarian conference at the southern border. thank you very much for being back on the show with us. >> thank you so much, reverend, and thank you for bringing hope and the word of god to those little children.

and those families suffering. what did you see there yesterday? what can you tell us about how they're doing? >> well, i'm here also with rabbi rick jacobs who represents 2 million reformed jews and reverend terry horn who represents over 800,000 in the christian church of christ, imam sullivan and fernando garcia have been working here 20 years with the border network for human rights. what we saw, joe and mika, is damnable. it is evil. it is beneath us as a nation. it is less than who we are supposed to be. as people of faith we are to welcome the immigrant as our family. we visited jaurez yesterday and went to the refugee camps. we're not talking about somebody told us but what we have seen with our own eyes. it is worse than most people know. we met a little boy 5 years old who is an american citizen. they wloent his mother come in

the country so he is having to stay in the refugee camp to protect and stay with his mother. she actually prayed for us yesterday. to see those children, last night we had hundreds and hundreds of people mostly white. i twoont say that, people of faiths, all morgantown faith who had this moral witness last night and today we are going in the street, going to the detention center and demand we have a pastoral visit. we understand people are on hunger strikes now inside of the facilities. we heard stories of babies, having to watch them because they're taking shoe strings out of their shoes and thinking about hanging themselves. this is not something somebody told us. we heard from the mouths of people who experience this every day and yet they say we have to fight because this is about who america is. but trump and these policies, it's not just trump but his enablers. they are following the racist playbook of the rising tide of color against white world

supremacy written in 1920, they are following the white southern strategy, lee atwater and kevin phillips to a "t" but there is also something else happening here. there is also something else happening. people are -- by the way, mika and joe, thank you for sending your reporter because the people are begging that the cameras will come here and show america what is really going on, because i cannot believe that if americans really could see this and see what we have seen there would not be all out outrage in the streets, at the ballot box, and even pressure being put on people in washington, d.c. so today is the first not the last. it is the first moral monday that we're having here. >> walter isaacson i'll go to you next with the question. i grew up in the southern baptist church. it's so interesting that even ten, about 15 years ago during hurricane katrina, there were caravans of white evangelicals,

going over. they'd go over with us every day, we'd do our show over there every night for about a month it seemed and there were white evangelicals who got off work who stopped their worlds to help people who were suffering in louisiana and mississippi and i'm glad to hear there is some out right now in el paso, but you do have to wonder what's happened with at least the leaders of the church that seemed to be ignoring the teachings of jesus, the parable of the good samaritan or the sermon on the mount or matthew, you wonder what happened to the red letter evangelicals. >> i want to thank you and all the people who came down during katrina from churches across america as you said in caravans up and down claiborne avenue in

new orleans. every church had tents in the yard of people who had come down to help. this is a tradition in america is religious leaders, people of faith come down and help to say, we're better than this. we are a better nation than this. you had it every time from the civil rights movement to the present being led by people who say we can arise above this. so i wanted to ask the reverend, what can you do to form alliances among religious networks so it is more and more people just coming down to the border and bearing witness? >> well, that's why we were invited here to start moral monday that has a legacy that traces back to north carolina and other places. there's already a lot of organizing going on and the poor people's campaign repairs of the breach, that's what we're doing, hooking together muslims and christians and jewish people of faith. i want to say something about this white evangelicalism, though. and why it is a problem but there's always been another

stream as well. this traces back to slave holder religion. this is not new in america where religion was used to justify slavery, justify segregation. when white evangelicals decided to be white not evangelical. true evangelicalism starts with addressing issues of poverty and injustice both in word and structure. i am an evangelical so i don't understand the theological malpractice where you claim to be evangelical but don't say anything about the poor and structures of poverty and racism. all over the country though people are rising and building. we have red letter christians here, joe, they'll be in the streets with us and they call themselves red letter christians because of the way so-called right wing evangelicals have hijacked the name and the term evangelicalism. this is as deep roots in this country but we also have this other stream of resistance and it is rising in this very moment to take on the words and works of racism and the war of racism

that trump and others are sowing in this country at this time. >> reverend william barber thank you so much for being on the show. most important areally though thank you for your extraordinary work at the border. we have a couple minutes, final thoughts? >> leadership matters. you think about the compassionate conservativism of president bush 43 and his -- the way in which he engaged latino americans, won 30% of them, his commitment to enabling people to have a better life in this country. it is hard to believe it's the same party a few years later and the way in which the president has the ability to shape the public views on these issues. i think there is this direct line between the president's rhetoric and the transformation of americans on these issues. >> it is incredible. you bring up george w. bush, a man obviously who made terrible mistakes with his foreign policy but it was his evangelical faith that inspired him to move against the aids in africa

epidemic and save millions of lives. millions of lives. set up the week for us if you will, jonathan, it's an eventful week. >> we have a pair of democratic debates this week, the second round, it will be in detroit. i'd like to highlight thursday. the president has amplified his racist rhetoric. on thursday is his first rally since the send her back chants and he'll be in ohio thursday night. we should all prepare ourselves for what could come from it. >> the people who could make the most impact right now are republicans on capitol hill. it's on you. are you going to step up? stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. thank you. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. are you ready? there is a lot going on this morning including a defiant president trump unleashing a new attack on a distinguished african-american congressman elijah cummings and the people he represents. is the president spending another weekend attacking a congress person of color and t