than anyone except for beto o'rourke last week. beto of course in his hometown of el paso. so this is a sign of how the conversation online can differ from conversation out on the trail. >> and you get a sense that the trump administration is going to be using that as ammunition as the election -- >> we have seen the president talk about not playing with a full deck. >> thanks, mike. we'll be reading axios a.m. in a bit and you can sign up by going to signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us on a tuesday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe" starts right now. back in iowa kamala harris debuted a new campaign bus with her name on the side. look at this thing. whoa. bill de blasio is riding in something similar but across the side it says greyhound.

>> that's jimmy fallon taking a gratuitous shot at his hometown mayor. with willie and me we have katty kay. and contributor mike barnicle. nationals affair analyst for msnbc and nbc, john heilemann. political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele. also with us, pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. and willie of course, the top story this morning, still a lot of people talking about jeffrey epstein and as we said on the show yesterday, this is -- the outrage actually is a bipartisan outrage. it is red state outrage and it is blue state outrage with a question being how in the world was this guy left alone in his cell? as the attorney general said yesterday it's shocking the

number of procedures that weren't followed for a guy that had to be considered, right, the most valuable prisoner in america. >> it becomes more jaw dropping the more details we hear about how it happened. the attorney general as you mentioned, william barr calling a failure at the federal jail where sex offender jeffrey epstein was able to hang himself inside his cell. one official briefed on the case tells nbc news that epstein was not checked every 30 minutes as required though it's unclear how long he went without being monitored. three prison officials with knowledge of the case told "the new york times" that one of the two people guarding epstein the night he took his life was not an official corrections officer. yesterday, the attorney general technically the chief of federal prisons addressed irregularities at the federal jail and pledged a thorough investigation. meanwhile the case is shifting from epstein to anyone who may have helped him prey on young girls. here is attorney general barr. >> let me assure you that this case will continue on against

anyone who was complicit with epstein. any co-conspirators should not rest easy. the victims deserve justice and they will get it. >> here's some of the details i was referring to. "the new york times" reports that only one of the two people guarding the special housing unit where epstein was housed normally worked as a correctional officer. while officials did not tell the paper what kind of job the other employee usually work, "the times" points to this detailing the practice under which they're so strapped for correctional officers that they regularly compel teachers, nurses, secretaries and other support staff members to step in as correctional officers. the report in "the times" continues many of the staff members only receive a few weeks training in correctional work and while required by contract to serve as substitutes are

often uncomfortable in the roles. even workers who previously held correctional positions have said the practice was unsettling because fewer colleagues were on hand to provide backup if things turned ugly. the paper notes that the practice has grown as the trump administration has curtailed the hiring of correctional officers. let's bring in nbc news investigations reporter tom winter who has been on this story from the beginning. tom, people hear these details, they can't believe their ears this is happening in any prison. but in particular at the special housing unit where as joe said perhaps the most closely watched, high profile inmate in the entire prison system is sitting. >> when you look at the details and the reporting of my colleague jonathan dienst said that the staffing was appropriate that night and we know it is being looked into whether or not to your point about the "the times" reporting about that the people were working that night were full fledged correctional officers

and if not what were their prior roles and what were they doing there? our reporting indicates that jeffrey epstein was not checked upon within 30 minutes as is required by policy that's not 30 minutes the top and bottom of every hour. they don't want the people that they're guarding to know exactly when they're coming around. but it should have been within 30 minutes. it may be -- it may have been several hours based on the reporting of pete williams that it would have been before he was checked on. so when you look at that and you think that it was perhaps several hours before anybody checked in on epstein that's more than enough time to do what apparently he did in this case. >> i understand, tom, about the hiring freezes over the last couple of years. the union that covers correctional officers was outspoken about that yesterday. they raised the red flags for some time now. but that's not enough. i mean, just doesn't add up that a person like again jeffrey epstein who the eyes of the world are upon and who should be taking care of -- so he can face his victims so that he can face prosecution is left completely

unwatched for hours on end. >> there are different inmates in the federal prison system, that's just the reality of it, willie, to your point. what doesn't make sense in this case you know you have somebody who is trying to injure himself before and even if they're not on suicide watch they should be checked in on. to your point this is somebody who is very high profile. in terms of media coverage the most high profile defendant in the entire judicial system awaiting a trial at this point. you know, just as far as the headlines and the headlines that you're showing. so when we look at this it's a clear failure that somebody didn't think to check in on him multiple times over the course of the night. to your point, look, there are shorting and staffing challenges at a all of the federal prisons. everybody has to work a tremendous amount of extra overtime and the union is upset about this. this is something that's new over the last several years but still to your point it doesn't

excuse what happened saturday morning. >> "the new york times" is reporting that one of the guards in the unit where epstein died and had been working overtime for five straight days and the other had been forced to work overtime that same day that epstein died. i get all that. i get the hiring freeze. but my god it's jeffrey epstein. how do you take eyes off of him? >> yeah. it makes no sense at all. and mike barnicle, i know the attorney general was criticizing the bureau of prisons and the way they handled this. at the same time, this is such a critical -- this was such a critical issue, to deep this man alive especially since he had been on suicide watch before. especially since he was -- we knew there was a complete miscarriage of justice before when a sweetheart plea deal was done. this is a guy who had escaped justice for years and it was of paramount importance that his accusers had a chance to confront him in a trial.

and also, confront other very rich and powerful people that were associated with epstein that may have raped young girls. so what was -- so you would think this would have gone to the top of the attorney general's list to make sure that the justice department handled this correctly from top to bottom. >> joe, you're right. and the attorney general's comments yesterday in new orleans came off as a little too late, too little and too predictable, actually. he's greatly upset at what happened, well, he should have been greatly upset prior to this and someone should have knowledge of all the other regimented almost rules that have been avoided here. jeffrey epstein died without a cell mate present. that's a critical component in these -- in the security cells, in this wing of the prison. someone else ought to have been in the cell. we don't know how long he was without someone else sharing the

cell. and gene, this whole thing just gives vent to those who want to come up with conspiracy theories. and the fact that we're living in a rigged system, things like that. >> you know, of course it does. you know, this is -- there's a long history of conspiracy theories playing a role in our political life in this country. it goes way back and so now again we have the theories. now, you know, we have president trump who retweeted a conspiracy theory about epstein's death. we have william barr who expressed his anger and outrage that this happened. we ought to reflect on the fact that jeffrey epstein was at the time of his death in the custody of donald trump and william barr. he was in federal custody and so it really is their ultimate responsibility and their ultimate failure. one thing this reminds me is that this is an administration

that down the line just can't be bothered to fully staff the federal bureaucracy with competent people who can identify problems like those that we're starting to learn about at the metropolitan corrections center. and do something about it. and that didn't happen here. i believe there's an acting director of the federal bureau of prisons, i believe there's no number two. it's just -- you know, it's a tragic example of the kind of rot we are seeing in a lot of places in the government. >> we'll continue to talk about this throughout the three hours. "the miami herald" reporter who broke so much of the epstein story that moved things forward is going to be with us in about 20 minutes. stick around for that. but willie, some important news overseas. there's been unrest over the past several days in russia and also in china.

in hong kong especially. the situation is getting tense there to say the least. >> yeah, these pictures are breath taking. thousands of protesters back inside this morning. hong kong's international airport, officials have now canceled all remaining flights for a second straight day. mass protests yesterday forced 150 flights to be canceled and they described it as terrorism and began amassing a paramilitary force in the nearby city. meanwhile as china feels new pressure so does russia. the "wall street journal" reported that 50,000 demonstrators gathered to protest the economic stagnation, the lack of political choice. it's seen as a challenge in the decade to vladimir putin's rule. let's start in hong kong. what are we seeing there? >> so you have had protests for

the last nine weeks and every weekend they have come out. in the last few days they seem to have got more determined, more defiant and they yesterday stormed the airport. you can see the pictures there. canceling all of the flights, bringing the airport to a stand still and you have a standoff now basically between beijing and the future of hong kong. does hong kong manage when hong kong was handed over to chinese by the brits the idea that it would be democratic and i think what you're seeing right now in hong kong over the course of the days with the protests is how far that premise can still be tested because you have the chinese government in the last 24 hours invoking this word emerging terrorism. burgeoning terrorism they're calling it. that's the word that's sending a chill through hong kong because it could give the chinese the excuse to move in with force and these protesters who are basically demanding greater autonomy, greater rule of law, independence in hong kong, they're going to find themselves

slammed up against the will of beijing to impose the heavy hand of beijing on that island and we'll see who wins. >> what you have there, katty, is a free and open society it was under british rule until 1997 and is coming up against a regime in china that's not free and open and wants to impose its way of life and its autocratic tendencies on hong kong. >> it started with a new bill that would allow china to extradite people who had been accused of crimes in hong kong to main land china. for many hong kongese that was the beginning of something they couldn't tolerate. it gave the chinese too much power over their legislature and you have the incredibly brave young hong kong people though in their 20s and 30s these demonstrators who are going out night after night, weekend after weekend and bringing the airport to the stand still. that's getting the attention of the rest of the world because this is a huge transport hub.

millions of people travel from the airport and now the second day in a row it's shut down. let's see if the chinese send in heavy forces. that could be the end of the democratic experiment in hong kong. >> well, of course, john heilemann it was 30 years ago that tiananmen square happened. so a lot of people protests weren't alive during that fateful summer. but you look at the news over the past few days and how fascinating that the narrative over the past two or three years has been about democracy. western style democracy on the run and autocrats running wild across the world. we have two of the highest profile autocrats right now, autocratic governments on their heels. >> yeah, joe, look, the chinese and hong kong situation is particularly in a way kind of poignant. i know you know at the time i recall -- i spent a lot of time in hong kong and back at this

time katty was spending time in asia pack in the 1990s, there was so much optimism about hong kong's future when it became independent, when it shed itself from british rule but there were doom sayers then who said who said we'd be on a collision point with beijing, this experiment will be tested because the chinese government because it was opening itself up to capitalism it still had the autocratic tendencies and you'd hear people in the bright moments of optimism would say we'll have that moment in hong kong. it has taken longer than people thought it would but we're here now and we'll see what happens over the course of the next couple of days. hopefully it doesn't end in a bloody mess. but this conflict has seemed in some sense preordained since the moment that hong kong got free. >> michael steele, had to that the -- add to that the economy.

actually the economy oh both countries. it is fascinating of all the things that are causing vladimir putin -- some of his biggest problems one is raising the retirement age. >> right. >> and cutting back retirement benefits. that sounds so mundane and may i say so american. it's fascinating. but also another fascinating part of this economic story, economic unrest goes to hong kong. yes, a lot of it has to do with freedoms there, but there's a general unrest in china right now. jon huntsman when he was the ambassador, i said what is the communist party, china's goal? gdp has to stay above 9% because when it goes under 9% things start to unravel in china. well, obviously the gdp has taken a hit over the past

several years and the trade war that donald trump has continued and will continue until he decides it's politically expedient for him to stop the trade war during the election here that trade war is actually putting a hurt on the chinese economy. it is probably hurting the chinese more than it is hurting most americans. >> yeah. i think in the larger picture that's exactly right. and the chinese are beginning to reconcile that. yes, they probably want to wait donald trump out on the upcoming presidential election but the pressures that they're beginning to see in places like hong kong re-emphasize the reality that their economy is a little bit on the bubble. it is not sustaining the level of growth and then you -- when you look at what hong kong means in many respects they like the idea of the benefits of

capitalism to the communist system. in other words, a lot of cash, a lot of tourism. a lot of money coming in the door but with that comes a different reality and truth. people like the freedom that comes with this capitalism. the freedom the -- to fully participate in the economy as well as the society as a whole. so now it's kind of up to john heilemann's point, here we are some 20 years later, that reality has come home to roost with the next generation that's not going to be as compliant. so you have the social pressures combined with the economic pressures particularly stimulated by the trade war that president trump has put on the table. and the chinese are a little bit back on their heels here. so the question i think rightly asked is do they begin to overreach and push back, to have that authoritarian side of their nature come out? to clamp down on this uprising,

if you will, to see the folks as terrorists and to act accordingly. that i think will have a larger impact on them economically than what they see right now. >> and willie, with china's economy on less than solid ground right now, you would think the last thing that the chinese government could afford to do is launch a massive crackdown in hong kong. that obviously would scare investors across the world for good reason. >> yeah, without question. and the white house obviously is more concerned about the economy and the trade deal. so far the position donald trump two thursdays about said that's between hong kong and that's between china because hong kong is a part of china. they'll have to deal with that themselves. they don't need advice. that was from the president about ten days ago. let's take a look at the other stories making headlines this morning. we'll start with a separate development out of russia and president trump is reacting to the deadly nuclear accident there saying it is quote, not good.

reports indicate that a mysterious explosion that released radiation off the coast of northern russia last thursday is believed to have stemmed from the test of the new type of nuclear propelled missile. this is one of the worst nuclear accidents since chernobyl. at least seven people have died in the explosion. yesterday, the president tweeted the united states is learning much from the failed missile explosion in russia. we have more advanced technology. the russian sky fall explosion has people worried about the air around the facility and far beyond, not good. there is new information connected to the funman who massacred nine people in dayton. according to a long time friend of the shooter, he said that the gunman came to his apartment to assemble the weapon used in the shooting. ethan cawley said he bought body armor and that he stored the accessories in his own home so the parents would not find them.

he is accused of lying on federal forms and the officials do not believe that cawley knew about the shooter's plan. and global markets are yet again under pressure as hopes for the u.s. and china striking a deal on trade appear to be fading. here in the u.s. the stocks kicked off in the red with all three indexes falling more than 1%. the dow shed another 389 points closing below the 26,000 mark. the ongoing trade tension between washington and beijing coupled with falling bond yields have sparked renewed concerns of a global recession, joe. >> yeah. well, still ahead on "morning joe," tom steyer is going to with us. he is making a new announcement this morning. plus, one of the president's most outspoken critics in the senate is going to be with us as well. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪

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the trump administration has unveiled a new rule in the ongoing reshaping of the country's immigration system. the rule targets hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants who are looking to remain in the united states and receive food stamps or other forms of taxpayer funded assistance. the move would require those applying for a change in their immigration status or seeking to enter the u.s. legally to prove they are unlikely to ever need the government's assistance. this would also allow officials to bar immigrants, favoring the wealthier applicants. the administration was pressed on whether it targets the lower income immigrants looking to come into the country. >> we certainly expect anyone of any income to stand on their own two feet, are if people are not

able to be self-sufficient then this negative factor will bear heavily against them in a decision about whether they'll become a legal permanent resident and a poor person can be prepared to be self-sufficient. many have been through the history of this country. so let's not look at that as the be all and end all. it's not the deciding factor by is why we continue to use the totality of circumstances test. >> so joe, a lot of the policies we have seen in the trump administration have been targeting illegal immigration, to deter people to come here from illegally. this is deterring people to come here legally. >> right. and gene robinson, this is what all of my law professors would always talk about as a slippery slope. >> yeah. >> you know, i'm fairly conservative and i have always been conservative when it comes to illegal immigration. i don't think the first thing you should do when you come to

america is an illegal act and i have always said that. but yet -- i think a lot of americans feel that way. but the trump administration which claimed to be fighting quote illegal immigration, well, they're going after refugees which of course constitutionally those refugees have a right to come to america and seek asylum and now here they're going after quote legal immigrants. so this slippery slope suddenly seems to be moving towards any type of immigrant. >> yeah. moving exactly to where people like stephen miller, the white house adviser, want it to go. you know, they're anti-immigration, period. and this will affect a lot of people who came here legally. perhaps under the concept of family unification, a lot of latino immigrants who came here

legally or trying to establish themselves an get permanent status and eventually get citizenship. and this is -- you know, this is potentially a really big deal for those people because, look, if i had a dollar for everybody who -- you know, every prominent person who's told me about their -- how their great grandfather came from italy or from ireland with 13 cents in his pocket and look where they are today, well, that's the process that's replicating itself and it has replicated itself throughout american history and replicating itself now and that they won't stop basically. that by applying what is essentially a means test to people. you know, back in the day the society was different.

unskilled jobs paid a living wage, they don't today, so a lot of people will come in at that sort of entry level, do need some form of assistance. that's the way our society works these days. and people are going to be penalized for that. >> michael steele -- >> well, they'll be penalized for that and mike barnicle they'll be penalized for that and also, you don't have to go back generations to see how immigrants live. i can talk about how my family lived in the early 1970s. my mom and dad living the american dream. the first generation of their families to go to college. my dad worked hard, got a great job at lockheed. he was -- you know, the favorite job he ever had, in the 1970's a's there was a recession and he got laid off from lockheed and he looked for a job for a year and a half and it was the safety net that kept my mom -- my mom went back to church. and you know, got paid $4,000 a year as a church organist. but my dad for a year and a half

while he was driving across the southeast looking for a job that would support his family of five, he was on -- he got government assistance. and he got food stamps and he got unemployment checks. of course he got back up on his feet, scratched and clawed and became a very successful entrepreneur in his own right. by his own standards. you know, we were middle class, but at the same time, he fought his way out of that. but that safety net is what allowed him to succeed through the toughest of times and it's just -- i'm fascinated that the trump administration, maybe it's because trump's dad gave him $400 million and today -- in today's money to get started and he doesn't understand this. but to penalize people because they're on government assistance for a period of time is short

sighted i think. and unfair. >> well, joe, you really have to go out of your way -- well out of your way to concoct a policy so filled with ignorance and malevolence as this policy is, and guess what, the trump administration did go out of its way to do this. and the interesting aspect of it is if you read between the lines, it sounds like something you're going to hear on right wing radio, talk radio. you know, the food stamps thing, people ahead of you in the supermarket with food stamps, buying prime sirloin and it feeds a narrative that the trump campaign wants to feed. it's them, it's the other. but the interesting aspect of this is in terms of, you know, we have to stop the handouts to newcomers to this country is that in june this administration threw $16 billion to american

farmers to help compensate for the incompetence of their trade war with china. $16 billion, michael steele. $16 billion and they're going after potential food stamp recipients. >> yeah. it's part of that ongoing narrative that the president's team likes to engage in and that is setting up one side against another. or seemingly preferring one side to another. in what this case, farmers who have been hurt by a trade policy that pretty much everyone inside and outside of the economic world thinks is a little bit nutty against those who have come to the country legally but need assistance. i think the other side of the question though that the way that some of the folks are looking at this is not just in terms of the people who are here, who then go on public assistance, but folks who come in applying for legal entry into

the country who need assistance and that's going to be an interesting line i think to really watch in terms of how the administration really wants to enforce this. not so much if you're here to joe's scenario who have come in legally, who fall on hard times and then is caught by the safety net. versus those who come in to the system legally and immediately need assistance. that seems to be where the administration wants to draw a particularly fine line. >> you know though -- you know, it's very interesting, john heilemann, that mike barnicle brings up the $16 billion corporate welfare bill for the biggest agricultural companies in america. so you have donald trump doing what a lot of politicians in washington do. he's preaching capitalism and

free enterprise to single moms and immigrants, but he's practicing corporate welfare to the largest corporations and the largest businesses in america. i just don't see how this continued journey down this singular anti-immigrant path is going to pay off for him in 2020. >> yeah. well, joe, i would say that that particular contradiction is one that's been a problem in your former party for a long time. the hypocrisy related to corporate welfare, but i would say that gavin new some has said what america is going through is what california went through in the 1990s when pete wilson became synonymous with anti-immigrant policies. it became the party -- the party became synonymous with being

hostile towards immigrants of all kinds in the party. you had the wilson administration, he was governor. he had gotten elected but his administration became synonymous with anti-immigrant sentiment and policies that were extraordinarily harsh. and what happened was the republican party -- that was the end for the republican party. pete wilson was voted out and the republican party has been on the ash heap in california ever since then and newsom's argument is that's what's happening with america and with the anti-immigrant sentiments, used to be well, we're against illegal immigration and we're for legal immigration. now it looks like under donald trump the republican party is hostile towards all immigrants. that i think is headed towards a disaster for the republican party because immigration is transforming the country and there's nothing that will stop that. if you want to see the future of the republican party nationally

look at what's happened to the republican party in the last 20 years in california. it's an exact parallel. >> katty kay, this is in line with what the trump administration have told us that they want in this country, he said it to dick durbin in 2018. he doesn't want -- we have more people from countries like norway. >> i don't think this is about money and how much this costs in terms of the programs. this is about race and where you come from and what this country -- that this administration, stephen miller from the beginning of his time in the white house he has been consistent on this, has been wanting to start chipping away at legal immigration to the extent it brings people into the country they don't feel are the kind of people in the country, that means white, wealthier europeans. the interesting thing about the republican party and immigration, they were the champions of legal immigration. that's eroded over the years.

whether that's because of automation and they can get a computer chip to take the jobs but there's no more the lobby that made the republican party pro immigration. that just has evaporated under donald trump. it may come back after donald trump and stephen miller leave the white house, but not there at the moment. >> a big step in that direction. >> willie, what's so fascinating, katty brings up a good point. when i was in the republican party the leaders of the republican party were far more for -- i won't say open borders. but had very liberal views on immigration. the "wall street journal" editorial page had what i consider to be very liberal views on immigration. and the belief was republicans wanted as many immigrants as possible in the united states so they could have a less expensive workforce. >> right. >> and democrats wanted more

immigrants in the united states because they believed that it benefitted them politically. i mean, that's the more cynical view of both parties but willie, time and time again when i got up there in '94, '95, whether it was newt gingrich or whether it was trent lott, whether it was all these so called conservatives, they had a view of immigration that was more in line with ronald reagan's view of immigration, which of course we have all talked about ronald reagan's farewell speech to america. it was a republican party who believed that america's success depended on getting more immigrants into the united states and continuing that 200-year tradition. >> and that continued up through george w. bush, john mccain. but that's long gone now. coming up, the reporter who first broke the story on the jeffrey epstein scandal.

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a bipartisan push to get to the bottom of how jeffrey epstein was able to take his own life in prison. the chairman and ranking member of the house judiciary committee have sent a letter to the federal bureau of prisons demanding answers and french officials are calling for it since he maintained a residence in paris and senior law enforcement officials tell nbc news the fbi is searching epstein's home on his private island in the u.s. virgin islands. joining us now, the investigative reporter covering the epstein case for "the miami herald," julie brown and also with us is jennifer taub, the author of "other people's houses" and a professor at vermont law school. julie, you're the reason this story is sitting in front of us, because of your singular reporting. what's your reaction to the death of jeffrey epstein and that the prosecution continues that we saw the fbi sort of swarm on his private island

yesterday down in the virgin islands. >> well, you know, there's a lot of shock, just like everybody else. we wondered, you know, from the start how could somebody who allegedly tried to harm himself before be able to commit suicide. you would have thought given his high profile status with the bureau of prisons that they would have been really keeping an eye on him. so it was really a shock that something like this would have happened. >> you have been talking to the victims for years. getting some of them to go on the record and tell their painful stories. have you spoken to them since epstein died? >> yeah, they were the first people i called and they were very distraught. it has been an emotional roller coaster for them, for over a decade, you know? you know, the fact that they hid this agreement from him to start with. and then, you know, as the years went on fighting so long for justice and finally coming on the precipice of that with his arrest. so now to hear that he committed

suicide is sort of a feeling that once again they have been betrayed by the criminal justice system. >> are they encouraged at all by prosecutors saying this case not over for us, we'll continue to fight for the victims? >> yeah, they are. they fully realize there's other people that were involved in this. he had a whole staff of people who helped him lure girls and young women into this enterprise that he was running. >> jennifer, one of the terrible aspects of this is that once this news popped out, jeffrey epstein commits suicide, the lack of accountability, the lack of explanation in this era of social media which is so powerful and so prevalent, it lends otherwise normal people to immediately go to conspiracy theories and they're terribly destructive and i'm wondering what your thoughts are on the level of destruction within our culture that is already suffering. >> it's really tragic and what's

important right now are the victims here. we owe it to those victims to depoliticize this investigation and i think the reason why people are turning to conspiracy theories are two reasons. first they're seeing it from the top as you know. the president is peddling these conspiracies through the twitter feed and also because there is now a lack of trust in quite frankly attorney general barr. it really is important, you know, for the victims and to restore trust in a criminal justice system that he recuse himself from this investigation and let it be handled in a way that will restore confidence and do justice for these victims. >> julie, picking up on that point, you know, the attorney general was initially recused and then unrecused even though his father hired jeffrey epstein at dalton here in new york city. we have a -- it looks to me like he's pointing a finger, saying

i'm not responsible for the bureau of prisons. these are systemic problems in this prison. people have forgotten already that the republican party blamed hillary clinton for benghazi for years. the person who runs the bureau is responsible. so i ask the question whether from the standpoint of the victims and from others whether you look at this and say, do people trust the attorney general who are involved in this case to be thorough about investigating it, to be responsible and do the things that he says he's committed to doing? >> i don't think they trust anybody really involved in the criminal justice system. i think they're hoping that u.s. attorney berman will take up this case and he's made a promise to continue to pursue it. but i do think they more than most people realize how broken our system is. and attorney general barr really needs to understand that. and i do agree that maybe he should step aside and let

someone else handle it, given the politicalization of what's happening right now with the case. >> you have been following this for ages. one person i'm interested in is where is ghislaine maxwell, prosecutors say they can't find her. is she someone to focus their attention on? >> i don't know that's true, i heard they know where she is. and i have heard she's in london. i thought all along, i don't think she -- i think they should have paid attention to where she was going. so i think they know exactly -- >> they can go after her? >> yes. they should because of all the evidence that's come out especially in the release of documents a couple of days ago. and there's a lot of damning evidence in there from collaborating witnesses and people who have seen her do what she did to help mr. epstein. >> jennifer, from your standpoint as a lawyer where would you be looking next? >> i agree with julie. i would be looking at the co-conspirators and i would be very interested in following the

money here as well. where did his money come from, was this part of a larger extortion type crime? >> julie, your thoughts on the bureau of prisons. almost an unaccountable agency. they ship the inmates around, they don't notify the families. the bureau of prisons. >> you know, our prison system is very broken in our country. i covered prisons for four years before i undertook this story and, you know, they're incredibly understaffed. they're incredibly dangerous because they're understaffed. and also when you're understaffed like that and you're working so many hours, you just can't pay attention to everybody and you also tend to seep in corruption because you're tired. it's easier to look the other way. so i think that we really -- if anything, this could be a learning moment for the country to learn about, you know, how

easy is it for corruption to seep in. >> thank you, thank you julie and always putting the victims first. coming up next "the washington post" has been keeping the murder of jamal khashoggi in the headlines and now it's drawing attention to the plight of another journalist. that story is next on "morning joe." next on "morning joe. let me ask you something. can the past help you write the future?

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"the washington post" is drawing attention to the dangers posed to journalists worldwide including the plight of american reporter austin tice. he has been detained in syria now for seven years. "the washington post" publisher and ceo fred ryan is releasing this statement today, quote, austin tice has been missing for seven long years. we are calls on u.s. officials to do all that can be done to end this tragic nightmare and bring him home.

we stand in support of the tice family and hope to welcome austin back very soon. and gene robinson, this is obviously something not only in the mind of fred ryan, but also in the mind of you. tell us about it. >> well, you know, "the post" wrote an editorial to that effect, about the plight of austin tice. he's been held for these seven years. i believe there are indications that he's still alive. but we need to get him home and i will just say that i'm proud of the newspaper for raising this case and the case of journalists around the world who are -- who were under assault. who were being persecuted, whose lives are being put in danger. i think this is a really important thing for all journalists to think about and to bring to public attention. and particularly organizations

like "the washington post" and "the new york times" and others that have -- that have the reach and the authority and the power to bring it to the attention of powerful people. but we need to do something about this. we can't just let it go on and on and on. he needs to be brought home and we need to focus our attention and the attention of the u.s. government and other governments on his plight. >> and he's been in captivity since 2012 and the family believes and the u.s. government believes he is in the hands of the syrian government or factions close to the syrian government. gene, obviously, the russians could have a big impact in helping bringing austin tice home. >> they could. and so this is something that president trump for example could raise with vladimir putin. of course, they could help, because they have all that influence over assad. but he needs to be brought home.

there have been private efforts to try to get him home over the years. i know about a couple of them but they haven't succeeded. we need that sort of leverage that maybe the russians or others could provide. >> all right. well, we'll be following it in "the washington post." thank you so much. coming up, there's new information overnight on the failures of the federal jail that allowed jeffrey epstein to kill himself inside his cell, even though he had tried to commit suicide two weeks earlier. we're going to have the very latest. plus, a roundup from the 2020 campaign trail. presidential candidate tom steyer is our guest. "morning joe" will be right back. back when i was diagnosed with breast cancer, i went straight to ctca. after my mastectomy, i felt like part of my identity was being taken away. my team made me feel whole again. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. most people think a button is just a button. ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." tuesday, august 13. we have washington anchor from pbc world news america, katty kay, and mike barnicle. and national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, john heilemann. msnbc's political and former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele. pulitzer prize winning columnist and political analyst, eugene robinson. let's bring in the host of "kasie d.c.," kasie hunt and from tulane university, walter

isaacson. willie, this is like night of the thousand stars -- except it's the morning. who don't we have here? let me say off the top, you know, you feel free any time for the remainder of this summer and into the fall to rub mike and and my noses over how poorly the red sox are. i know you're the little engine that could. you're like the macgyvers of baseball, give me a rubber band. >> we don't have a big payroll like the red sox or the dodgers. we have proven it this year. i thought about it when i came in this morning, but i was going to say something to mike.

but they're 17 1/2 games behind them. >> i know, that's charitable to you. >> the yankees are playing some ball. it helps when you play the orioles every day. i have to say. got -- >> a tremendous job with that team. they have suffered enormous injuries, they had an enormous injury list and the replacement players are equal to who they're replacing. and in some cases might be better. >> right. >> you're not being rude about baltimore, are you? >> no. just the team -- >> it's sad. >> katty, let me just say not only are we not being mean about baltimore, we're not even thinking about the orioles right now. it's so bad there. you wonder how long, willie, they can continue to sit in the cellar without some major changes either coming to ownership or other parts of that organization. it's terrible. but talking about the yankees, we could have a yankees/dodgers

series if the yankees can get past -- well, i was going to say the houston astros. of course t.j. in my ear is talking about the new york mets who have been on a heck of a run too. but i mean, the astros just have an incredible team and watch out for the indians. they are hot. >> yeah. they moved into first place last night. yeah, the mets i'll give you that. the mets are on fire. i said even as a yankee fan it's so much more fun in this town when both teams are in town. >> can i raise a baseball and jason story? alex rodriguez, his car was broken into and $500,000 stolen from it. stolen from his rental car. >> in property. >> in property -- >> what? >> apparently cash. >> wow. >> cash and other goods that were in his car. >> that -- >> his camera, laptop, jewelry and a bag, according to this. 500 grand. >> man. >> i'm wondering how many people at this table in a rental car

had ever had $500,000 stuff with them. >> how many actually have $500,000 worth of stuff hanging around? >> other than joe. >> i mean -- >> i was going to say, willie, that's walter isaacson money. >> that is. >> that is mr. isaacson money. >> all right. let's talk politics, walter. mark sanford will travel to new hampshire today as he continues to mull a potential 2020 challenge to president trump. in an interview with the post courier he'll be getting honest feedback about an honest path forward. he won't be holding public events but he warned of the quote financial storm coming our way of something -- if something doesn't change in washington. meanwhile, over on the democratic side, tulsi gabbard is taking two weeks off of

campaigning to fulfill her duty in the national guard. she temporarily stepped away from the trail yesterday to participate in joint training exercises in indonesia. while her run is on pause, former vice president joe biden picked up another endorsement. former new hampshire congressman and ambassador to denmark richard sweat backed him yesterday saying he has the quote, long standing experience and dedication of a lifetime. joe? >> and so michael steele, you see what scaramucci -- anthony scaramucci said over if weekend. he has been talking about the desperate need for republicans running against trump. mark sanford obviously is an interesting choice. i got into congress with him in 1994. and mark was obsessed with deficits and debt even then and that has been the focus throughout his political career. boy, this is -- this would be a

good time for somebody like mark to just if nothing else to educate the republican party on how bad things have become over three years, historically when it comes to the national debt and deficits. whether he picks up a delegate or not, i think it's a badly needed conversation of my former party. >> i would agree with that. let's set aside for a quick moment the realities of running a primary against an incumbent president regardless of party and in this case with donald trump. i think to the broader discussion about the direction of the party, particularly in the traditional spaces like the economy and debt and deficits, you know, the -- mark sanford can bring a very interesting note to that. it can force some people to rethink whether or not the plan and the track that the party is on, where we're looking at a trillion dollars in deficit, in running a deficit of $1 trillion that is astounding.

for any republican worth their salt over the last 30 years who haranged against democrats about the value of keeping the nation's fiscal house in order, to be the party that not one, but two republican administrations has increased the size of the nation's debt and its deficits, taken the cap off of spending, to do so -- to have someone like a mark sanford sort of bring that conversation back to say is this really where you want to go and this is really who we are i think could be very interesting. everyone will try to not pay attention to him because oh, it's a republican primary and trump has it. i think there is space particularly if the economy slows in the beginning of next year, the first quarter of next year, to have some reflection point and to have that voice who has a history of being strong on this issue. it could be interesting. >> you know, john heilemann, it

took the united states about 215, 220 years to rack up a $4 trillion debt. so about -- yeah, a couple sen centuries to rack up that debt. donald trump in his four years will rack up a $4 trillion debt. you take deficits -- you know, the reason i got into congress is because of deficits and the national debt. there are still i think some small government conservatives that vote in primaries. you take that, you take the fact that donald trump is a protectionist along the lines f of, you know, liberal democrats over the past 40, 50 years, the fact that he's anti-nato. the fact that he's been against a lot of the alliances that helped us beat the communists, the soviets and helped us beat the nazis, it seems to me that

even if somebody is politically swinging at windmills there will be republicans that will want to go out and actually vote for someone who is conservative. and not just ill liberal. >> well, yeah. i think there is -- it's fair to say that there's some faction who are concerned about the fact that donald trump is destroying the party's reputation currently and into the future by behaving in the ways we have now deemed in a straightforward as being racist and there are a lot of republicans -- scaramucci gave voice to it over the weekend, he gave the notion -- that the way that the president is acting is making some mainstream republicans uncomfortable but i ask you this question because the reality is you know if you think back -- the history of presidential politics to suggest that an incumbent president who is challenged in a primary in any way as -- has a significant effect on their ability to get re-elected. the main thing that the

incumbent tries to do first is make sure they face no primary opposition because it gives them the freedom to amass a war chest and while the other party is dealing with the intraparty fight and now you have bill weld who is in the race and now the possibility of mark sanford, it seems like small challenges no doubt that donald trump will beat them both i would say, but is it enough the two of them potentially kind of picking at donald trump in a couple of key early states? making him be distracted. making him spend money. do you think that that has the potential on trump's capacity to get re-elected? >> i don't know. but the question is did bill weld encourage mark sanford to jump into the race, will sanford encourage somebody else to get into the race? you and i and everybody around the tables knows what happened in 1968. nobody expected gene mccarthy to do as well as he did, he drove lbj from the race.

1992, pat buchanan wasn't taken seriously. the bush family still blames pat buchanan along with ross perot for george h.w. bush losing the second term. there's no doubt right now the trump campaign is focusing on the democrats and their eyes are out on the horizon looking into the spring of 2020. the summer of 2020, getting ready for the general election run. a strong republican obviously running would be an impact and mark sanford, you know, sanford's interesting. obviously he was a successful south carolina congressman. kasie hunt, he ran head first into the big scandal and then did something that was remarkable. he ran again after the scandal and just went door to door, diner to diner, talked from one voter to another voter and

republicans in the state of south carolina forgave him for that. they couldn't forgive him for voting with donald trump only 90 to 95% of the time which remains one of the more bizarre narratives in modern republican politics. >> well, it seems to me that they were punishing him for what he was willing to say in speaking out against donald trump and, you know, i mean republican voters have shown a willingness with this president to forgive any personal behavior. i mean, the president has described that as, you know, he said he could go out on fifth avenue and shoot people and his supporters would still be with him. i mean, that's how he view them. you know, frankly mark sanford is but one example of republicans who have stepped out into, you know, that void and found that there was nothing underneath them because justin amash, jeff flake, those who criticized the president. that's my real question for this

kind of a primary. i mean, there's just -- i see very little evidence that there are republicans like you, joe, and others, you know, that the people who typically had voted -- like susan collins in maine are willing to hang on to the old definition of what it meant to be a republican and to be in the republican party. i mean, i just -- i struggle to see how there are enough of those people to lift a candidate like a sanford or a weld in the republican primary. >> and i agree with you, but walter, we always have to go back to 2016. and more specifically in june of 2015. nobody -- nobody thought and no political professional in washington or media professional thought that donald trump was going to win the presidency. and not a whole lot of people

believed that barack obama in early 2007 was -- had a chance at defeating secretary of state hillary clinton. so you never know what's going to happen and right now, tell you what i see when i see these polls that say 90% of republicans support donald trump. i see 90% of republicans refusing to side with the mainstream media who they have seen as being liberal for the past 50 years. who refused to decide with elizabeth warren or kamala harris or bernie sanders. they refuse to be counted being on the side -- i mean, it is us against them. it is so tribal that right now, i think that 90% is a false positive. i think a strong conservative -- i don't know if a strong conservative will run, but a strong conservative who believes things like me, you know, actually in balanced budgets and

a restrained national defense, paying down the debt and entitlement reform, strong ties with nato, free trade, human immigration policy that looks to the future and leaders that aren't scared of the future but actually are ready to go head first into the future and dare the world to get into the united states way economically, i think that 90% number drops considerably if you have that type of conservative jump into the race. it's why i think the 90% is a false positive. >> yeah, i think you have that number drop especially if the economy starts to taper off and you're seeing strong signs that the economy is in trouble. you see it in the bond market. you see it in soybean farmers, people from new orleans where i'm from where trade is starting to go down. you see it in a trillion dollar debt which is something that can't be propped up. do the thought experiment, where would conservatives like yourself be if barack obama had

run up a trillion dollars in debt? especially in a time when the economy didn't need stimulus. now we're about to go into the economy that does need stimulus and we can't afford to do things like that. so it comes down to the question at this table -- this table has asked so many times before, who are we? we say who are we as a nation, but were you get to that you need to talk about the primaries or republicans will have to say to themselves early one morning, they have to look in the mirror and drink some coffee and say, is this who we are? who are we? >> michael steele, i want to put some numbers to what you and joe and walter have been talking about here. just yesterday the treasury department came out with the numbers through the first ten months of this year. $866.8 billion, that's up 27% from the same period last year. and has already surpassed the deficit for all of last year. which is $779 billion which is

at the time was the biggest deficit since 2012. it goes to your point, for all of the talk of fiscal hawkishness if that's a word and all the people who are so worried about the budget when rand paul doesn't want to fund the 9/11 first responders health care, because he's worried about the bottom line and people are waiting for the tax cuts to pay for themselves as promised. >> that was the big trigger, there was no underlying resource to pay for all of the cuts. the idea that corporate america benefit would be seen in middle america was just a lie. in fact, what corporate america did was they put those dollars back into their own stock. and stock buy backs. they didn't invest in capital, they didn't invest in the kinds of things that a small business owner which is the lifeblood of any economic engine within the community would rely on. so you have this problem, willie, that to walter's point

the signs are beginning to show a wear and tear on the economy. and the first quarter beginning the second quarter next year are going to be a tell for how this thing is going to play out in the general election. and right now the republicans are on the tip of that sphere because middle america is going to feel it if things go south and go south fast. >> well, mike barnicle, again you have a party that at least when i was a member of the party -- you know, called themselves small government conservatives. we balanced the budget for the first time in the generation in the '90s. we balanced it four years in a row for the only time in a century. that's what we did, but now despite the fact that you have the big government republicans running around tweeting about socialism, they just passed -- trump republicans just passed the largest budget ever. speaking of rand paul even rand paul called it the most fiscally

reckless thing the federal government has ever done. they have got the biggest -- these trump republicans have run up the largest federal debt in the history of this republic. these trump republicans have run up the largest deficit in the history of this republic during economic expansion and you brought up -- you brought up something that is particularly galling. because of donald trump's liberal trade policies where he's become a protectionist -- actually along the lines of herbert hoover. he then put in a $16 billion socialist scheme where he claimed to be trying to help farmers who were hurt by his protectionism. his liberal protectionism. but actually, we find out later that he wasn't helping small farms. for the most part, most of those

benefits went to huge agricultural subsidiaries. huge agricultural companies so you talk about socialism. that's about as big of an income redistribution plan as you can get. but to clean up another mistake that -- screwed up on protectionism and his tariffs, how does he fix it? a $16 billion socialist scheme that ends up become nothing more than corporate welfare. >> you are correct, sir. you are quite correct. but i would respectfully submit, joe, that when you ran for congress and mark sanford ran for congress and you both won in 1994 and bill weld was governor of massachusetts in 1994, that party that you belonged to, the republican party, is history. it is dead. and if you today go out into what used to be a huge

optimistic open field for republicans, go out into the suburbs today and talk to basically suburban women you will find out what the republican party has done to itself and largely to the country. it's injected the element of fear into the country before you used to talk about debts and deficits and now you hear people talking about how they're afraid. kasie, if you talk to numerous people who live in certain sections of this country, suburbs especially women, they're afraid of the language and the tone and the tenor and the behavior of the president of the united states. >> it is a fundamental shifting of the political landscape that there are many smart republicans here in washington who are watching that unfold and are getting really, really concerned about it. it explains a host of things not least the change in language from the majority leader, mitch mcconnell, around the potential for gun related legislation.

looking at what is happening in the suburbs and saying we can't be caught not doing anything about this problem again. that is just one of the issues that i think touches on this entire broader conversation and, you know, a number of republicans that i worked with closely before the 2018 midterm election, many of whom either retired or lost their seats, i mean, they can see those signs in the local communities day in and day out. it's small things so far, school board, superintendent, you know, local races that have been republican forever then all of a sudden people are saying they're paying attention to the national climate and that's what's dictating how they're making these decisions at this hyper local level. but this is going to play out in states like texas, georgia, places that republicans have relied on to sustain, you know, majorities in the senate and to, you know, underscore their electoral college, you know, plays going into these

presidential elections. and that's going to be incredibly unpredictable and i think, you know, to mike's point about the republican party as we knew it, essentially being dead -- i mean, this is one of the consequences of that and i think we -- there's no way to fully understand how that's going to play out until we see what happens here in 2020. >> the timing couldn't be force. i talked about how george w. bush and karl rove came to washington, d.c. separately and warned the members of congress about the need to get right with hispanic voters. that we were on the wrong side of too many issues and that was in 1999. here we are 20 years later, and boy, you talk about being on the wrong side of the issues for so many hispanics. and what's so fascinating to me, this debate is so disconnected from reality. donald trump runs around 2016 talking about building a wall,

talking about killers, murderers and an invasion. i'll say it again and if you don't believe me check donald trump's own administration and their records. illegal border crossings, at the end of barack obama's presidency, at the lowest levels in 50 years. it was the opposite of an invasion. and illegal mexican border crossings plummeted to record lows. and yet, he was making an argument that was not only based in fact. he was creating an alternative universe and even now the trump administration is not cutting the number of immigrants coming to the united states. it's still set at 11 million just like barack obama and so it's fascinating. michael steele, really quickly, we focused on republicans an awful lot. let's focus on some troubling things coming out of the democratic race right now.

>> yeah. >> so elizabeth warren and kamala harris tweeted out about ferguson, talking about the anniversary of michael brown's murder. and they did this despite the fact that eric holder and the obama justice department both said that unlike eric garner, unlike trayvon, that michael brown was not murdered. and they had dna evidence and it was eric holder himself who came to the conclusion along with the justice department that while there was systemic racism in ferguson that in that case the hands up don't shoot narrative was a lie. i'm surprised that kamala harris and elizabeth warren despite all that were still talking about the quote, murder, of michael brown. >> yeah. it's kind of playing into that narrative that's on the street right now, particularly when

you're doing the combination of a baltimore situation where there's intense racism coming from the federal level and the white house and how people are feeling about policing if their communities. for kamala, there's sort of getting ahead of what's a narrative around her tenure as the lead prosecutor in the state of california where there's still some tensions there and trying to reframe this conversation in front of that potentially as her star rises in the polls. the democrats tend to be -- you know, they want to have it both ways. they want to call these things out when it works politically for them. and that's i think is a very dangerous thing when you have as you noted, joe, the attorney general at the time look at the facts, look at the situation, and not claim the very same thing that they're claiming now. so it's a little bit of a

political dicey game for them to play. and they need to be very careful about it because the sensitivities are very raw in many cases and you don't want to flame the passions and relitigate something that's been litigated by the attorney general. >> and that eric holder said again was not true. >> that's right. >> very reckless. and they should -- they should pull back on those statements. gene robinson, the front-runner, let's talk really quickly about joe biden. a lot of focus being paid certainly in the conservative media on his continued slips of the tongue. he said recently that he was president during the parkland shooting and there's another -- there was a long list of these. but they're being fair to joe biden, it has nothing to do with age. joe biden was doing this when he was in his 40s. >> yeah, this is the joe biden we have all known for decades.

he's always been kind of marble mouthed at times and he will continue being joe biden and so, you know, so far, this has been a big deal on twitter. it's been a big deal among the sort of political rati. it's not a big deal among the democrats at this point. but we'll see. the key question is whether people decide there's something age related going on with joe biden. so far, people think he's just fine. >> all right. coming up on next on "morning joe," senator mazie hirono has been standing by patiently. she'll weigh in on a big policy move by the administration yesterday. we just talked about that reshapes the american immigration system. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ht back. johnson & johnson is a baby company.

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the words at the base of the statue of liberty read give us your tired, your poor, you're implementing a -- is that still operative in the united states or should those words come down, should the plaque come down on the statue of liberty? >> i'm not prepared to take anything down off the statue of liberty. we have a long history of being one of the most welcoming nations in the world on a lot of bases. whether you be an aside lee, coming here to join your family and i don't think we're ready to take anything off the statue of liberty. >> that was the acting director of the citizenship and immigration services yesterday, announcing the trump administration's latest steps to reshape the immigration system and thank god promising for now not to take the plaque off the statue of liberty. joining us now a member of the judiciary and armed services committee, democratic senator

mazie hirono of hawaii. great to have you in new york with us. >> great to be here. >> just your reaction to the regulation, again, we're talking about legal immigrants having basically a wealth standard as to whether or not you can enter the country. >> this is yet another assault on immigration and immigrants and now with the new rules it will be harder for people to stay in our country and harder for them to come into our country. all this talk about we're not taking anything off of the statue of liberty, please. please, bs. that's all i can say. >> so as a united states senator, this is a regulation coming. what can you do about this, thwarting this if you believe it ought to be done? >> well, we knew this was being contemplated, so many of us wrote to the administration saying don't do it. they had almost 300,000 comments on this proposal -- proposed legislation that will make it harder for immigrants in our country. so pretty much it fell on deaf

ears because this administration, this president, is so anti-immigrant that they're doing everything they can to make life as hard as possible for people who are already here illegally and people who want to come here. anybody who is under 18, over 61 there's going to count against you and of course the public charge has been expanded to such a degree that people who want to stay here longer will have a harder time qualifying for that. >> so what's your understanding of how this would work? so our viewers can understand it. an immigrant goes through all of the legal steps, do it the right way, what stands in his or her way, what steps would that immigrant have to take that he or she didn't have to take before? >> so they -- there's a lot of discretion left to the immigration officer who is going to review these applications. as i said, if you're under 18 or over 61 that's going to count against you. if you don't know english very well they'll count against you. they look at the totality of the circumstances which means a wide discretion to the officer

reviewing these applications. so if they think that somehow or other you're not going to be able to work, then you'll possibly be deemed someone who is going to end up being a public charge. then think of all the people who are here illegally, that might want to change their status and get a green card, they have a really hard time if they have ever accessed any kind of government programs. >> which meant -- i applied for a green card, i have been in the country for ten years already. then i applied for a green card that's how most people apply for the green cards, they come here legally and they want to change their status. it's quite possible that at some point during those ten years you're out of work. i was out of work for about two or three years when i was raising my kids. i may have needed some kind of financial assistance. i would then be in the category where i couldn't get it, but you want think, senator, it's a way to discriminate against who comes into the country and who doesn't. stephen miller said it's race based they'd like white norwegianens to come into the

country. he's used the term norway before. i don't think it's about money so much but about where you come from. >> i completely agree. it's clear who the president doesn't want in our country and basically, you know, all the countries that he's called s-hole countries, brown people and black people who are already here. yellow people from asia. i mean, some of the longest lines for legal visas are people waiting in line in the philippines and asian countries so it's all about keeping a whole bunch of people out of the country, even as we need these workers, by the way. hello, look at the raid that went on in mississippi. who were the people working in the meat packing plants that the u.s. citizens don't want to work at? so our economy is very much based on -- >> why weren't the plant owners arrested? >> a great question. but yet again, it's kind of what

i would call uneven enforcement. you get the people who are the most vulnerable to these kind of attacks i would call it. and that's who you go after. not the people who are making money off of basically of cheap labor they don't have to pay benefits or do anything for. this is an all out assault on immigration and i'm an immigrant myself and when you make it really hard for immigrants to have their families with them, in my case i always grew up in a three generation household where everybody worked. my grandparents came here, they had green cards. they were not u.s. citizens. they paid their taxes for years and this is really the foundation of our country. it makes me basically -- it hurts my heart and makes my sick when i hear my colleagues especially during the massive immigration reform bill that we did in 2013 that, you know, they come to the floor and talk about how their parents or their grandparents were immigrants and then they go and vote against a bill that would have enabled 11

million people on a path to citizenship. so the kind of hypocrisy that i see is rampant, but it falls on deaf ears. >> kasie hunt has a question for you. >> good to see you. i'd like to ask you about the unfolding debate about guns. mitch mcconnell was on the radio last week saying that the senate can't possibly do nothing and saying that there will be a debate come the fall. first, i'm wondering do you believe him, that that actually is going to be the debate, but also do you trust anything that mitch mcconnell would be willing to put on the floor around gun reforms? >> it would be news to me if mitch mcconnell actually allowed any kind of real debate on gun safety. you know, we have had the house passed bill sitting in the senate for months now. and so we have been here before.

i think the nra still holds a great deal of sway with both mitch mcconnell as well as the president. so we shall see. but, you know, the whole emphasis on red flag laws, you know, the evidence is that such laws will enable people to probably -- it will decrease the number of suicides, for example. but those kinds of laws -- i do support them because if we can save someone from committing suicide that's great. but it doesn't get to all of the assault weapons that are awash in our country. it doesn't get to the huge loopholes that we have in background checks. >> senator, i'm going to go -- katty kay made a point and i want to pursue. it's not just about immigration because we have had for 10, 15, 20 years a discussion on how to do immigration right. you were part of the 2013 reform big. i think condi rice said that was one of the greatest disappointments that that administration couldn't do it. what's intersected right now it

seems to me is the politics of immigration and racism. and that this time it's different because with the people pursuing it keep saying racist things. do you feel that that's the problem now? >> i think there are so many things that are the problem, but i think to the extent that so much talking about what do we stand for as a country, what are our values? we have a president who lies every single day and we have a president attacking immigrants, not just immigrants by anybody who doesn't agree with him every single day. there are racist components to this of course. a huge immigrant initiative on the part of the administration and the lies every single day and i feel like it is an assault on our democracy and our democratic institutions. >> senator mazie hirono, democrat of hawaii, great to see you.

ben rhodes was at president obama's side and he joins us next to talk about the trade war with china, and the tinder box that is hong kong right now. plus, new reporting in politico suggests some evangelicals are losing patience with president trump but not for the reason you might imagine. we'll talk to the author of the new book "the immoral majority." that's next on "morning joe." fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely.

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i said, you know, you don't like me and i don't like you. i never have liked you and you never have liked me. but you're going to support me because you're a rich guy and if you don't support me you're going to be so [ bleep ] poor you won't believe it. it's true. and we're not just going to hit them from the temporary base in syria. we'll hit him from iraq and from places they didn't know existed, sir. they'll be hit so [ bleep ] hard. >> that was president trump at a rally in greenville, north carolina, and the president has received backlash for that speech from some christian evangelicals for quote, using the lord's name in vain.

joining us now writer, podcaster, ben howe, the author of the new book "the immoral majority." with you're conservative, you're a believer. >> yes, i am. >> you have a great term that you use which is called moral flexibility which is what some evangelicals have shown to president trump and how does that manifest itself? >> well, christians will find a way to do in their self-interests and make it seem as though they're doing something on behalf of god. like larger ends at stake and this gives them the flexibility to allow things to pass, as long as it's for the higher purpose so they'll cite abortion and religious freedom and so on. then if trump's -- he does some things they don't like, that's okay because there's a larger thing at stake. >> so you wrote a book about this. we were talking about this, the fact that president trump separates children from their families at the border or has an

affair with a porn star gets a pass because what? >> well, what's interesting is they -- the people who support him are in a lot of ways adopting his behaviors. they see a winner, they see somebody who is finally fighting. that's what they're talking about so they adopt his behaviors. whatever he does they will emulate because they think that's a winning strategy. no matter how bad it gets because as long as the election goes the way they want, they get the policy victories they need but mostly the policy victories when they discuss these higher reasons, abortion, religious liberty, things of that nature, that's not the number one concerns and it's really the economy, the terrorism. their fears and their wants and not the larger religious things. >> so it trumps the word of the bible. if you look at matthew you won't have families separated but you'll help and clothe the poor and all those things. we talked about this in the

break a lot of evangelicals said we didn't elect a saint we elected a president. we don't like the things he does, but he's going to protect us. >> so many of the evangelical leaders today were still around in the 1990s and they cited the good economy, the fact that it was a time of peace. and they said those are no excuses for supporting somebody of low character and the moment that that low character was a republican, it was we're not electing a saint. it spoke to me if they were right about bill clinton to say that character matters more, that's not why they were saying it. that became clear once donald trump was the nominee. >> michael steele has one for you. >> oh, ben, i love this book. thank you so -- it's so long overdue. i have just been fed up with the hypocrisy from these guys. i'm sitting here in this political article looking at a quote from the liberty

university president jerry falwell jr. who says, quote, we all wish he would be a little bit more careful with his language. but it's nothing that is a deal breaker, and it's not something we'll get morally indignant about. as the president stands at these rallies and uses the lord's name in vain as we are reminded we shouldn't do by a lot of these individuals, what's your take -- is it really the political and nower pulse here or something more morally corrupt that's going on inside the evangelical community at this point? >> i think it's both. i mean, the moral corruption is something that frankly took me a while to recognize. i have been an evangelical all my life. my dad was a pastor. he was a southern baptist pastor. he worked with jerry falwell jr.'s father at liberty university and for a long time i think i was willing to look past certain things as well. but i would look at the

swaggarts and the bakers and so on with all the pentecostal scandals and i would see the congregations that we were so willing to look past things and i think they were rubes and falwell jr. blamed the 9/11 on gaves and lesbians, and we give passes to the people that we think are doing what we want. and we don't hold them accountable. trump in a lot of ways exemplifies the exact type of caricature when you think of the 1980s evangelicals. you know, the white guy with the shiny teeth telling them the promised land is coming. but they keep saying taking the lord's name in vain. they're referring to, you know, saying gd, but they're using the lord's name in vain every day when they claim that he is a biblical president. when they claim that god is

using him as his vessel. and they do make these claims. that is using the lord's name in vain for the acquisition of power. >> gene? >> ben, this is gene robinson. thinking process when evangelicals see kids in cages, when they see desperate, wretched asylum seekers and refugees being treated like dirt, like subhuman. how do they rationalize that against the bible's teachings about our neighbors and the other and the poor? >> well, it is -- i think of it as a fundamental misunderstanding of what god asks of his people, because all of these other things you're talking about are true, but the core problem is that we have people who are focused on the ends that they believe they can achieve, regardless of the means

of what it takes to get there. so they keep their mind on this goal and they convince themselves that everything in pursuit of that must be good because of course god must be on our side because, of course, god is a republican. and they look at situations like this and they think, well, you know, what we want is a more charitable world. sure, we want a world we can all be there for each other but we can't do that if america isn't sovereign and therefore our top priority has to be sovereignty even if it means throwing a kid into a river with crocodiles. honestly i've seen people on twitter speak that way. they're more concerned that american sovereignty stays in place than the lives of anyone else around the world. >> so how does it happen that so many evangelical leaders, franklin graham, go from at some point to cut them some slack, they must have had some belief in god and god's work and god's

teachings and turn themselves publicly over a period of time, very short period of time when you measure it in terms of history into total political hacks? how does that journey happen? >> well, the first thing is i think that they -- i don't think they don't believe in god. i think they do. and i think one of the most important aspects of all this is the self-delusion. lying to yourself. people are really, really good at it when they want something. they will convince themselves of just about anything. jerry falwell jr. learned a lot from his father. we've got 40 years of conservative evangelicals going to washington allegedly to convince the power structure that morality is important. at some point they -- well, not at some point, i would say from the beginning the idea was they were bringing their own righteousness to this. the moral

exclusiona exclusionary. they're saying we're moral and you're not. but that is antithetical to biblical teachings. in terms of the bible, we're all part of the moral majority. they don't seem to approach it that way. >> to what extent is this driven by abortion, and to what extent is this a more cultural issue? >> most people who will reply to me on twitter today will say but abortion. that's going to be my entire twitter feed. >> ignore your twitter feed. seriously. >> honestly, the polling shows from lifeway and pew research, abortion, no matter how often it was the one issue, it ranked below immigration. even religious liberty ranked below immigration. they were at the bottom. when people were given the opportunity to write in what was most important as opposed to choosing, abortion still ranked

below everything else. so i'm not saying they're not pro life, but i think they use that as a moral shield to say forget everything else that's happening, this is about abortion. but i don't think the polling shows that. >> and as a lifelong evangelical yourself -- >> yes. >> -- do you stop to think about the long-term impact of what's happened over the last three or four years? in other words, donald trump will be gone at some point, he'll be voted out or finish his second term and here will stand these evangelicals who excused all this behavior. how does the evangelical movement recover from that? how do you come back and say, well, that was just a moment in time and here we are again. >> well, unfortunately the church has a super long history of continually making mistakes under different banners an denominations. i don't know that there is a recovery in the sense that people will look to evangelicals for any kind of moral leadership again. i think there's a possibility

that we may not start letting go of that name. christian itself needs to be revamped. people need to be able to look at it differently. we need to stop treating the world like something is being taken from us. this culture war idea where we're losing something, we're losing the culture and so on. if you believe that jesus died for you and that what awaits you is something great, it is certainly everybody else that would be losing if the culture was going away from that. so we need to stop acting like we need to protect ourselves and our culture and start trying to be something that is attractive to other people so they'll be interested in what we have to say as opposed to just fighting us. >> quickly, ben, before we go, 81% of evangelicals went for donald trump in 2016. do you see that dipping at all in 2020? >> i don't. it didn't even dip for roy moore. the turnout did but the percentage of evangelicals that went for roy moore is still the

same. >> this is called the immoral majority, why evangelicals chose political power over christian values." ben howe, congrats on the book. new information on the conditions inside the federal jail where jeffrey epstein was able to take his own life, including the practice of having teachers, nurses and secretaries fill in for corrections officers. plus we'll talk to democratic presidential contender tom steyer who by one metric, digital ad spending, is leaving his rivals in the dust. "morning joe" is coming back. when i was diagnosed with breast cancer,

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his hometown mayor. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, august 13th. along with willie and me we have washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay, also mike barnicle, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, john heilemann, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele. also with us pulitzer prize-winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. willie, of course the top story this morning still a lot of people talking about jeffrey epstein. as we said on the show yesterday, this is -- the outrage actually is a bipartisan outrage. it's red state outrage and it's blue state outrage with a question being how in the world was this guy left alone in his cell. as the attorney general said yesterday, it's shocking the

number of procedures that weren't followed for a guy that had to be considered, right, the most valuable prisoner in america. >> and it becomes more jaw dropping the more details we hear about how it happened. the attorney general, as you mentioned, william barr calling a failure at the federal jail where sex offender jeffrey epstein was able to hang himself inside his cell. one official briefed on the case tells nbc news epstein was not checked every 30 minutes as required, though it's unclear how long he went without being monitored. three prison officials with knowledge of the case told "the new york times" that one of the two people guarding epstein the night he took his life was not an official corrections officer. yesterday the attorney general, technically the chief of federal prisons, addressed what he called irregularities at the federal jail and pledged a thorough investigation. meanwhile the case is now shifting from epstein to anyone who may have helped him prey on young girls. here is attorney general barr. >> let me assure you that this

case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with epstein. any co-conspirators should not rest easy. the victims deserve justice and they will get it. >> here's some of those details i was referring to. "the new york times" reports that only one of the two people guarding the special housing unit where epstein was housed normally worked as a correctional officer. while officials did not tell the paper what kind of job the other employee usually worked, "the times" points to an investigation the paper published last year which detailed this practice under which federal prisons are so strapped for correctional officers that they regularly compel teachers, nurses, secretaries and other support staff members to step in as correctional officers. the report in "the times" continues, many of these staff members only receive a few weeks training in correctional work and while required by contract to serve as substitutes are often uncomfortable in the

roles. even workers who previously held correctional positions have said the practice was unsettling because fewer colleagues were on hand to provide backup if things turned ugly. all that from "the new york times." the paper also notes that the practice has grown at some plic prisons as the trump administration has curtailed the hiring of correctional officers. let's bring in tom winter, who's been on this story from the beginning. tom, people hear these details and can't believe their ears that this is happening in any prison, but in particular at the special housing unit where as joe said perhaps the most closely watched, high-profile inmate in the entire prison system is sitting. >> yeah, i think, willie, when you look at these type of details and you get into this and the reporting of my colleague is that the staffing that night was appropriate. but there are questions, and we know that it's being looked into, whether or not to your point about "the times" reporting whether or not the people working that night were full-fledged correctional officers and if not what were their prior roles and what were

they doing there. as you said early are, our reporting indicates that jeffrey epstein was not checked upon within 30 minutes as is required by policy. so that's not 30 minutes the top and bottom of every hour. they don't want the people they're guarding to know exactly when they're coming around but it should have been within 30 minutes. it may have been several hours based on the reporting of pete williams, that it would have been before he was checked on. so when you look at that and you think that it was perhaps several hours before anybody checked in on epstein, that's more than enough time to do what apparently he did in this case. >> and i understand, tom, about the hiring freezes over the last couple of years. >> that's right. >> the union that covers correctional officers was outspoken about that yesterday, that they have raised these red flags for some time now. but that's not enough. it just doesn't add up that a person like, again, jeffrey epstein, who the eyes of the world are upon and who should be taken care of so he can face his victims and face prosecution is left completely unwatched for hours on end.

>> there are different inmates in the federal prison system, that's just the reality of it, willie, to your point. what doesn't make sense in this case is you know that you have somebody who's tried to injure themselves before. even if they're not on suicide watch, they're somebody that should be checked in on. this is somebody who's very high profile. probably in terms of media coverage, the most high-profile defendant in the entire judicial system that's awaiting trial at this point. just as far as the headlines and the headlines that you're showing. so when we look at this, it's a clear failure that somebody didn't think to check in on him multiple times over the course of the night. clearly policy wasn't followed. and, yes, to your point, there are definitely short staffing challenges at all these federal prisons. everybody there is having to work a tremendous amount of extra overtime and the union is upset about this. this is something that is new the last several years but it doesn't excuse what happened here friday into saturday morning.

>> nbc's tom winter, tom, thanks so much. joe, "the new york times" is reporting that one of the guards in the unit where epstein died had been working overtime for five straight days. the other had been forced to work overtime that same day epstein died. i get all that, i get the hiring freeze. my god, it's jeffrey epstein, how do you take eyes off of him? >> it makes no sense at all. mike barnicle, i know the attorney general was criticizing the bureau of prisons and the way they handled this. at the same time, this is such a critical -- this was such a critical issue, to keep this man alive, especially since he had been on suicide watch before, especially since he was -- we knew there was a complete miscarriage of justice before when a sweetheart plea deal was done. this was a guy that had escaped justice for years and it was of paramount importance that his accusers had a chance to confront him in a trial and also

confront other very rich and powerful people that were associated with epstein who may have raped young girls. so what was he -- you would think this would have gone to the top of the attorney general's list to make sure that the justice department handled this correctly from top to bottom. >> joe, you're right. the attorney general's comments yesterday in new orleans came off as a little too late, too little, and too predictable actually. he's greatly upset at what happened. well, he should have been greatly upset prior to this. someone should have had knowledge prior to this of all of the other regimented, almost rules that have been avoided here. jeffrey epstein died without a cellmate present. that's a critical component in these security cells, in this wing of the prison. someone else ought to have been in that cell. we don't know how long he was without someone else sharing the

cell. and, gene, this whole thing just gives vent to those who want to come up with conspiracy theories and the fact that we're living in a rigged system, things like that. >> of course it does. you know, there's a long history of conspiracy theories playing a role in our political life in this country. it goes way back. and so now, again, we have the theories. now, we have president trump, who retweeted a conspiracy theory about epstein's death. we have william barr who expressed his anger and outrage that this happened. we ought to reflect on the fact that jeffrey epstein was at the time of his death in the custody of donald trump and william barr. he was in federal custody. and so it really is their ultimate responsibility and their ultimate failure. one thing this reminds me is

that this is an administration that down the line just can't be bothered to fully staff the federal bureaucracy with competent people who can identify problems like those that we're starting to learn about at the metropolitan correction center and do something about it, and that didn't happen here. i believe there's an acting director of the federal bureau of prisons, i believe there's no number two. and it's -- it's a tragic example of the kind of rot that we're seeing in a lot of places in the government. still ahead on "morning joe" the situation in hong kong escalates once again as officials cancel flights for the second day in a row. we'll be breaking down where the conflict is heading next on "morning joe." at comes next. at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do.

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willie, some important news

overseas. there's been unrest over the past several days in russia and also in china, in hong kong especially the situation is getting -- getting tense there, to say the least. >> yeah, these pictures are breath taking. thousands of protesters back inside this morning hong kong's international airport. officials have now cancelled all remaining flights for a second straight day. mass protests yesterday forced 150 flights to be canceled. china described the demonstrations as terrorism and began amassing a paramilitary force in a nearby city. meanwhile at china feels new pressure, so too does russia. 50,000 demonstrators gathered a mile away from the kremlin to protest russia's economic stagnation, the lack of political choice and the kremlin's dpchgeopolitical isolation, it's the biggest challenge in nearly a decade to vladimir putin's rule.

katty, what are we witnessing there? >> you've had protests in hong kong for the last nine weeks. every weekend the protesters have come out. in the last few days they have gotten more determined, more defiant and they yesterday stormed the airport. you can see the pictures there, cancelling all the flights, bringing the airport to a standstill. you've got a stand-off now basically between beijing and the future of hong kong. does hong kong manage, when hong kong was handed over to the chinese by the brits in 1997, the idea that hong kong would be democratic. i think what you're seeing right now in hong kong over the course of these days with these protests is how far that premise can still be tested because you have the chinese government in the last 24 hours invoking this word emerging terrorism, burgeoning terrorism they're calling it. and that's the word that's sending a chill through hong kong because it could give the whichchinese the excuse to move with force and these protesters

who are basically demanding greater autonomy, greater rule of law, independence in hong kong, they're going to find themselves slammed up against the will of beijing to impose the heavy hand of beijing on that island. we'll see who wins. >> and what you have there, katty, as you know is a free and open society in hong kong has been been. it was under british rule until 1997 and is now coming up against a regime in china that is not free and open and wants to impose its way of life and its autocratic tendencies on hong kong. >> it all started about ten weeks ago with a new bill in the hong kong parliament that would allow china to extradite people who had been accused of crimes in hong kong to mainland china. for many, that was the beginning of something they just couldn't tolerate. that gave the chinese too much power over their legislature. you've got these incredibly brave hong kong young people there, in their 20s and 30s these demonstrators, going out night after night, weekend after weekend, bringing now the airport to a standstill and

that's what's getting the attention of the rest of the world because this is a huge transport hub and now the second day in a row it's been shut down. let's see if the chinese really send in heavy forces. that could be the end of the democratic experiment in hong kong. >> well, and of course, john heilemann, it was 30 years ago that tienamann square happened. you look at the news over the past few days and the narrative over the past two or three years has been about democracy, western-style democracy on the run and autocrats running wild across the world. we have two of the highest profile autocrats right now, autocratic governments right now actually back on their heels. >> yeah, momentarily, joe. look, the chinese and hong kong situation is particularly in a way kind of poignant. i know at the time i recall i

spent a lot of time in hong kong and back when katty was spending a lot of time back in the 1990s, there was so much optimism about hong kong's future when it became independent, when it shed itself from british rule, but there were doom sayers then who would say we are going to be a collision course at some point with beijing. at some point down the line this experiment is going to be tested because of the fact that the chinese government, although it was opening itself up to capitalism, it still had autocratic tendencies. the reflection of what happened at tienemann was people would say some day we're going to have that moment in hong kong. it's taken a little longer than some thought it would but we'll see what happens over the course of the next couple of days. hopefully it will not end in a bloody mess. but this conflict has seems in some sense ordained since the

moment that hong kong got free. >> michael steele, add to that the economy. actually the economy of both countries. it's fascinating that of all the things causing vladimir putin some of his biggest problems, one raising the retirement age. >> right. >> and cutting back retirement benefits. that sounds so mundane, and may i say so american, it's fascinating. but also another fascinating part of this economic story and economic unrest goes to hong kong. yes, a lot of it has to do with freedoms there, but there's a general unrest in china right now. jon huntsman when he was the ambassador to china, i said what is the communist party's goal? what is china's goal? he said gdp has to stay above 9% because when it goes below 9%, then things start unraveling in

china. well, obviously the gdp has taken a hit over the past several years and the trade war that donald trump has continued and will continue until he decides it's politically expedient for him to stop the trade war during the election year, that trade war is actually putting a hurt on the chinese economy. it is probably hurting the chinese more than it is hurting most americans. >> yeah. i think in the larger picture that's exactly right. and the chinese are beginning to reconcile that. yes, they probably want to wait donald trump out on this upcoming presidential election, but the pressures that they're beginning to see in places like hong kong re-emphasize the reality that their economy is a little bit on the bubble. it is not sustaining the level of growth. and then when you look at what

hong kong means in many respects, they like the idea of the benefits of capitalism to the communist system. in other words, a lot of cash, a lot of tourism, a lot of money coming in the door. but with that comes a different reality in truth. people like the freedom that comes with this capitalism, the freedom to fully participate in the economy as well as the society as a whole. and so now to john heilemann's point, here we are some 20 years later. that reality has come home to roost in a real way with the next generation that is not going to be as compliant. and so you've got the social pressures combined with the economic pressures, particularly stimulated by the trade war that president trump has put on the table. and the chinese are a little bit back on their heels here. and so the question, i think, rightly asked is do they begin to overreach and push back, to have that authoritarian side of

their nature come out to clamp down on this uprising, if you will, to see these folks as terrorists and to act accordingly. that, i think, joe, will have an even larger impact on them economically than what they see right now. coming up on "morning joe" tom steyer has the money to fund a presidential campaign, but does he have the donors and the poll numbers to land a spot on the debate stage? the california democrat is with us next when "morning joe" returns. most people think a button is just a button. ♪ that a speaker is just a speaker. ♪ or - that the journey can't be the destination.

most people haven't driven a lincoln. discover the lincoln approach to craftsmanship at the lincoln summer invitation. right now, get 0% apr on all 2019 lincoln vehicles plus no payments for up to 90 days. only at your lincoln dealer. he borrowed billions donald trump failed as a fobusinessman.ays. and left a trail of bankruptcy and broken promises. he hasn't changed. i started a tiny investment business, and over 27 years, grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars. i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. i'm running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is: a fraud and a failure.

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welcome back to "morning joe." 8:27 here on the east coast. joining our conversation now, democratic presidential candidate, tom steyer. tom, good morning. appreciate you coming on with us, especially early out there on the west coast. i understand you and your campaign have some news to share. >> yes, we do. one of the requirements to be on the debate stage is to have 130,000 individual donations, and people have been asking us if we're going to make it and the answer is we've made it. in fact we have 130,000 individual donations.

>> so you've met the donor threshold. you still have a poll threshold to make. most people believe you will get there and be on the stage for those debates. so what will be your message? this will be an introduction for a lot of the country. you've been on the air a lot in places like iowa but much of the country doesn't know you and what you stand for. what's your message during the debate? >> i have a simple message, and it's this. we have a broken government. there's been a hostile takeover of our government and i'm here to return to government of, by and for the people. i've been an outsider for ten years, organizing coalitions of ordinary american citizens t take on unchecked corporate power. for ten years we've been beating those corporations and winning. and that is my message. that is job one, to take back the government from the corporate -- the corporations who bought it. >> and it's a similar message, as you know, tom, to someone

like senator elizabeth warren or senator bernie sanders who have been railing against corporations and corporate money in politics. how will you be different from them? >> well, i think that the big difference is this, that i'm an outsider. that i have been doing it from the outside successfully for ten years. if you look at the other people who are running for this nomination, they're overwhelmingly insiders. the top four people are all senators or former senators who have more than 70 years combined in the congress and the senate of the united states. so i think there's a big question for all democratic voters. if job one is to take back the government from corporations, do you think it's going to come from someone who's a grassroots activist and who's been doing it from the outside successfully, or do you think an insider, somebody who's been working inside the beltway for years is the person who's actually going to change d.c. >> you can hear, as we sit here speaking, the criticism coming from senator warren or senator sanders that says it's a little

rich for a billionaire, a guy who worked at goldman sachs and started an investment firm that made him a billionaire talking about the interest of corporate power in america. how will you respond to that? >> well, i would say for ten years we've been taking on their right to buy the government. it's not that i don't believe in the private sector, joe. i'm someone who believes that the american economy is powered by the private sector. but what i know is this. i don't want them writing the rules for how they behave at the expense of the american people. and we've taken on oil companies and drug companies and tobacco companies and beat them in the polls. and if you look to see who in the united states has done grassroots work, organizing people to go door-to-door, registering millions of americans, changing the turnout for people under 30 by more than 100%, actually it's me. everything that they're talking

about doing is what i've actually been doing around the country for the last ten years. >> mr. steyer, willie was just suggesting there are a couple of other people in this race already. there are 20 other democrats running, that most of them are polling at 1% or 2%. do you really think you have a chance of getting into that top tier of the top four or five that it would take you to get beyond the september debates? >> i don't think there's any question about it. there is a poll that came out last night of the early primary states that has me tied for fourth. you know, i've only been in this -- i got in very late, as you guys know. i've only been in it for five weeks. but i think there is a huge audience for the message that i'm giving, that americans really are responding to this because everybody knows that these corporations have bought the government. and the question is going to be if you go around and talk to people, which i've done for

years as part of these campaigns we've been running, they all say the corporations have bought it. who's going to stand up to them and that's what i've been doing. >> one of the things you spent a lot of money on recently, i think a quarter billion dollars on politics, one of the things you spent advertising on recently is impeachment. you're in favor of launching impeachment proceedings against the president. as you know, this is something that is very device if in the democratic party, something that nancy pelosi really doesn't want and she argues it could risk the democrats' majority in the house of representatives. do you think it's helpful when they're having their debates for you to be launching ads on television about impeachment, which democrats would argue at the leadership level is what's going to lose them the house of representatives? >> well, let me just say this. it's not divisive within the democratic party about impeachment. it's i think something like 80% of democratic voters agree with me. i started an impeachment petition almost two years ago

because i said it is clear we have the most corrupt president in american history, that he is a threat to the american people's safety and health and the constitution and i tried to get other americans to sign on with me. over 8 million of them have done it. i heard those exact same arguments in 2018, that, oh, my goodness gracious this is going to be divisive and not going to work. and we said, no, this is something that will help turn out democrats. in fact what you can see is our list turned out at an 80% rate and we did the biggest youth voter mobilization in american history. an organization i started, next gen american, turned out more young people than any organization in american history. so i actually don't buy any part of that argument that telling the truth and standing up to a corrupt and wrong-headed president is somehow bad politics. >> tom, walter isaacson has a

question for you. >> hey, tom, i want to talk a little bit about your business background. i was reading a great book about to come out called "transaction man" and he talked about the role of corporations as they were in the '50s, '60s and '70s and in some ways how corporations became a backbone of communities. they had quite a few stakeholders. but then he says what happened was that hedge fund managers, people like yourself who are more interested in financial engineering helped take the american corporation and destroy the way that they related to communities. i know this is a complex issue, but when you talk about taking on corporations, don't you feel that people who have been in the industry you're in, the hedge fund industry, have helped move corporations to be less good for society? >> actually, walter, when you go back through history and look at what changed, i think the transformation you're describing

did happen. and it happened in the courts of the united states. it used to be that people running corporation had different constituencies. they had the communities they're in, they had their employees and they had their stockholders. and if you look in the early 1980s, there were a series of legal decisions in the courts of the united states that said, no, you can only think about your stockholders. and i believe that those decisions were actually substantial mistakes and they took corporations from, as i said, at some level being stewards of important institutions in america to being people who really only were working on the bottom line. and i think the result, their attempt to control the government to make sure that they have the biggest bottom line, it was really those legal decisions that basically put corporate ceos in the position of only answering to shareholders, which i think was a dramatic mistake.

>> so, tom, this is mike barnicle. i've been listening to you not only this morning but in the past. there are myriad issues out there that are of import to people. the security of this country, a paycheck-to-paycheck economy, how they live from week to week, things like that, race in this country, immigration in this country and everything that's done to disturb the country, and the conduct and behavior, the moral behavior of the trump administration. so -- but in spite of all of that, are you telling us this morning that your principal goal is to go after corporate america? >> what i'm telling you my principal goal is, is to take back the democracy so it will be of, by and for the people. because when you talk about the kinds of issues like health care, education, living wage, clean air, clean water, we have

a situation where the government is serving the bottom line of corporations instead of trying to do what's right for americans. so in order to deal with every one of those issues in a way that serves the vast bulk of working americans and american families, we need to take out the corporate influence. and that's what i've been proposing to do. if you listen to what i've proposed as specific changes, one would be term limits in congress. i've proposed a national referendum, ability to go directly to the american people in the way that we do in 26 states. if congress won't do the job, go to the american people, which is what i've done for the last ten years. >> all right, tom steyer. the news again this morning, tom steyer has hit the 130,000 individual donor threshold to make the debate stage at next month's debate. he now needs to hit one more polling thresholds and he'll be

there. tom, thanks for your time, we appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> coming up next on "morning joe." >> i was honored to be the first president to welcome her to the white house. i'm proud to visit this spectacular country and i'm very pleased that one of my first stops is to visit with an icon of democracy who's inspired so many people not just in this country but all around the world. >> that's less than seven years ago. president obama praising t-- ou next guest describes her fall from grace. ben rhodes joins us conversation straight ahead on "morning joe." " idle equipment costs you time and money.

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live picture of the white house at 8:42 in the morning in washington. joining us now former deputy national security advisor to president obama, ben rhodes. in his latest piece in "the

atlantic" titled what happened to aung san suu kyi dives into how the leader of myanmar went from being lauded on her work for human rights to implicated in what the united nations says is a, quote, textbook example of ethnic cleansing. ben, good morning, it's good to see you as always. we played the clip a moment ago of your former boss, president obama, in the rose garden praising her. obviously the president traveled to myanmar where he praised her as well. what happened between then and now? >> well, it's been an extraordinary decade. what you've had his after aung san suu kyi spent the better part of two decades largely under house arrest, persecuted, human rights icon, she gradually asends to a position of power in myanmar. she's the state counselor where she's the most high elected official in the country. in 2017, 750,000 rohingya were driven across the border into

bangladesh. she's not responsible for that. the military operates without her control, but she's been silent so there's been an abdication of any moral leadership. she has not spoken out against what's happened to the rohingya and frankly at times she seems to have taken the military's position on this. so somebody who essentially introduced her to the world as a human rights icon has been complicit in her silence. >> so, ben, how do you explain that given who we thought she was, who the president thought she was? what happened here? >> well, i think it was fascinating for me to go back over all my meetings with her over the years. i had many, to talk to everybody who's been close to her for a very long time. what you see is someone who did sincerely write about, talk about, think about human rights, but often her agenda related to democracy involved her getting elected to be the leader of the country. those two things went together. she's the most popular figure in the country. she's the daughter of the founding hero of the country. essential lly what we learned or

time is that her focus seems to be largely about how do i implement democratic reforms so as to get elected. when there was a question whether she would put that at risk to speak out for the rohingya, who were quite unpopular in the country, she chose not to do so. there was a famous quote that fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it. unfortunately that now very much can apply to her. >> ben, i want to ask you about the protests in hong kong. it looks like they're continuing to be at the airport. the demonstrators so far have been very brave and not backed down. but the language coming out of beijing, this use of the word "terrorism" might suggest that beijing has run out of patience with these protests. how do you see this unfolding? and is there anything anyone could do from the outside to step in and try to protect hong kong's democracy? >> well, there's no question that the chinese are trying to intimidate the protesters. they have tried to cast them as rioters and lay a predicate for

what could be a very brutal crackdown, essentially an end to hong kong's de facto autonomy. i think the protesters are doing all they can, which is to say we're going to try to grind the economy to a halt. we're going to show there's going to be a cost to the economy of this financial center if this goes forward. but they're also trying to get the attention of the world and an airport is where you might go if you want the outside world to pay attention. we should be speaking out. frankly, i think a lot of businesses that have operations in hong kong should be questioning whether they can continue to do that if civil liberties are squelched out of hong kong. this is related to my piece on aung san suu kyi. the chinese with their authoritarian model with uighur minorities in concentration camps in china are setting an example that's spreading beyond its borders as well. that's why it's so important for the united states to speak out on behalf of people who are trying to claim human rights and democracy. unfortunately, president trump has been silent and has actually

said that the protesters are rioters. that's a very dangerous message to be sending right now. >> michael steele, there's fear that the chinese government is moving on these protesters as we speak. >> yeah, and i think that's something that's very important to watch for the next few days and weeks, willie, is how the chinese respond. and, ben, to you on that point, and particularly given what we've been talking about in terms of human rights, how do you see the chinese repositioning themselves around this probably very thorny and sensitive issue? you've got the economic pressures that we were talking about a little bit earlier in the show that are clearly driving some of this through the tariff wars with the united states, the uprising in hong kong is as much economic and social as it is anything else. how do you see the chinese responding longer term in terms of resetting this relationship with hong kong? >> well, what the which i been trying to do is essentially

break the promise that they made when hong kong moved back to be a part of china where they said hong kong could have its own set of rules. you could maintain some democracy and civil liberties. they have been steadily encroaching into that. the people of hong kong are now pushing back against that. i think where this may likely go is that the chinese may move in their military. if they move in their military to essentially try to assert direct control over hong kong to get rid of any last vestiges of a greater degree of civil liberties for the people of hong kong, frankly this is a trends we saw everywhere. we saw india do this in kashmir, another hot spot. so the trend around the world is authoritarian leaders not caring about the criticism they're going to get. frankly, it would be helpful if the president of the united states would be a voice on behalf of people who were protesting. >> ben, aung san suu kyi, india,

pakistan, kashmir, hong kong, we know we have a secretary of state. we see his picture in the paper. but there is virtually no state department left. >> that's exactly right. right now you want good diplomats, you want good information, frankly you want an intelligence community that's going to be tracking this closely. and we've seen, again, this creeping authoritarianism around the world now really rearing its head in very violent and potentially destabilizing ways in hong kong, in kashmir. and this idea of is the future of the world and politics in the world going to be dominated by authoritarian systems like china's or is there going to be a place for democracy and human rights. i think we're seeing that contest play out before our eyes. and again the reason that leaders like aung san suu kyi are blowing with the kiwind as they are because they see had trend blowing in the direction of authoritarianism. i had a national security advisor for aung san suu kyi say what we did with the rohingya is

like you guys building the wall. so the moral authority of the united states to inspire people and stand up for certain things is being put in question. and the diplomats who would be trying to mobilize other countries to collectively respond to this and try to figure out what send a life line to those protesters, that diplomacy has been compromised by a hollowed out state department and a president who won't lead. >> thank you very much. the new piece "what happened to aung san suu kyi" is in the latest issue of "the atlantic." up next a philosophical take on digital culture and why our next guest says it has made us into a bunch of know it alls, next on "morning joe."

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from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. ♪ >> the digital age may be turning us into know it alls. in his new book "know-it-all society" the author describes how the internet has contributed to the spread of intellectual arrogance and how people no longer believe in truth. michael joins us now. thanks so much for being here, professor i should call you at u-conn. >> thanks for having me. >> explain a little about the premier i was the book. we probably all agree because we watch it every day online, you watch it in other places in the media. who are we talking about exactly here? >> i think we're talking about all of us at the end of the day, because, you know, one thing in a democracy is we need our

citizens, ourselves, to have convictions. i mean, an apathetic electorate is no electorate at all. we would all agree we need our citizens and ourselves to be able to, you know, think about whether our convictions align with the facts, with the evidence. those old fashioned words we used to put so much stock into. we want, you know, maybe even to listen to other people's convictions. i think right now what we're seeing is a lot of confidence which is a good thing in convictions but that confidence is sort of really being underwritten by something i think a lot darker, kind of arrogance. >> well, you use the word tribe a good bit in the book. there is tribalism, political tribalism, ideological tribalism which is to say regardless of what our side does we have to defend it. sometimes people contort their way into a defense of something they wouldn't otherwise defend in defense of the tribe. you write about that in the book. >> exactly. this arrogance i'm talking about

is really the sense that we've got it all figured out that our side knows what is true. we have the secret of the universe. we can't learn anything. there is nothing we can improve upon. that is a type of, notice i use the word we. that is a tribal arrogance. it underwrites not just the politics of us versus them but politics of us over them. >> in fact, the other side is not just bad but evil so therefore you can dismiss everything you say. >> exactly. of course, what we find is what's changing is the way we communicated with each other. we all know that. social media i think has become something of a, well, an outrage factory. we've seen that this weekend where speculation at the speed of tweet about the epstein scandal has become turned into rock hard conviction. now we know. say some people. we know. we know the truth. at the root of this, you know, this tribal arrogance, is that is both on the left and the right, is a confusion about

truth. a really distortion of the value of truth. and a confusion of our ego with truth. once we start letting mixing up our ego, our own self-interest, our own identity, with the facts, that's a really short ride into something really much darker. >> you know, in your book you say, this is really nothing new. i think you go back to the great catholic political philosopher saying this intellectual arrogance has always been a problem for discourse in society. why is it that social media has made this much worse right now? >> i think what social media has done for us or done to us or we're doing to ourselves is it makes us think often that we're playing a game of reasons and facts and evidence.

we're actually playing a game with very different rules on social media. so, for example, when we share things online, when we share stories from the show or the "new york times," we often tell ourselves, i mean, not us here, but people, all of us actually tell ourselves we're just giving information, exchanging facts. look at the story. but often what we know, what studies have shown is that most people who share things share news items, fake or otherwise online, don't read what they're sharing. what should that tell you? we're not really exchanging information. we're exchanging emotion. >> one of the truly interesting things in the rise of social media, twitter, and everything like that, is the element of human nature. and arrogance. in that 20 years ago you'd hear people down at the end of the bar in a restaurant muttering an opinion and whatever. but now they tweet it out and they have 20 followers and oh.

>> right. >> my theory is now basically we have a nation of 200 million columnists. it is interesting the impact twitter has had on otherwise normal people inserting themselves into this, any argument. >> i think what we need to do is all remember our inner socrates, the one thing we know is we don't know very much and we need to learn to talk to each other and question not only authority but ourselves. >> the quote of the morning. remember your inner socrates. >> everything comes from the republic. figure out how to k socratic. >> grumbling about these new columnists shaking his fist. an important book. called "know-it-all society." thank you so much for being here this morning. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me.

>> that does it for us. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. thanks so much. we start with breaking news out of hong kong where thousands of protesters have packed the main airport forcing officials there to cancel all departing flights for a second straight day and adding to the tensions surrounding months of pro democracy demonstrations. we'll go to the airport. what is going on? >> reporter: well, there are no flights going out. there are very few flights being allowed to land. 200 flights were canceled yesterday. this is one of the world's busiest transport hubs and it has come to a standstill because authorities are telling people to just avoid it. there are thousands of protesters here. we are on the departures deck. they are filling the arrival area as well. the crowds are starting to grow more restless. there's been more chanting in the last few