thursday and friday, chris hayes and i are going to be in washington with the presidential candidates talking about climate. thank you for watching "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins right now. hi, everyone it's 4:00 in washington, d.c., where a few miles from here, the president's first campaign manager is on capitol hill preening for an audience of one. corey lewandowski in front of the house judiciary committee, its investigation into whether the president should be impeached. lewandowski may as well have been cutting ads for what's largely believed to be an imminent run for senate and the president likely saw from lewandowski live tweeting his former aide's appearance lewandowski is a witness, though, to some of the most flagrant acts of obstruction of justice. detailed in the mueller report including trump's effort to enlist then-attorney general sessions and corrupting the investigation into russian interference mueller writes this in his report, "trump dictated a message for lewandowski to deliver to sessions. the message said that sessions

should pub licly announce the investigation was, quote, very unfair to the president, that the president had done nothing wrong. and sessions planned to meet with the special counsel and let him move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." lewandowski said he understood what the president wanted sessions to do that was all according to lewandowski's testimony to robert mueller lewandowski wouldn't answer questions about that, or much of anything else that mattered in his testimony today. instead, for much of the last three hours he's been repeating this refrain >> i'm trying to adhere to the white house's request. i answer questions that are provided in the mueller report only so i'm trying to reference that report direct ly about your question, congressman. >> the white house directed not to disclose -- >> did he ever discuss with you any concerns that he may have committed a criminal offense >> the white house has directed not to disclose the substance of any discussions with the president or his advisers to

protect executive branch confidentiality. i recognize this is not my privilege. again, congresswoman, i recognize that the privilege is not mine but i've been asked by the white house -- congressman, i'd be happy to answer your question or have the conversation by yourself if you'd like to ask me a question, i'll be happy to answer. >> no, i'm going to continue. >> don't ask me a question if you don't want to hear my answer. >> this is a house judiciary, not a house party. >> hmm lewandowski's wasn't the only circus in town another one of the president's men was also on stage, albeit a very different one the man who once stood at the press secretary's podium to speak on behalf of the united states of america and the white house made his debut on "dancing with the stars." because, of course, he did this was sean spicer's turn on the reality dance contest last night. so there you have it two loyal aides, two very public faces of the trump white house, two undeniable examples of forever changing our views of exactly what conduct becoming of the office now looks like. and that iswhere we start toda with cosome favorite reporters n

friends. jake sherman, senior writer for politico ron klain, former chief of staff to vice presidents joe biden and al gore. adviser now to the biden campaign nbc news correspondent heidi przybyla, plus former chief spokesman for the justice department matt miller and joyce vance is here, a former u.s. attorney, has been monitoring the hearings all afternoon for us if you could answer this for me, what claim -- why -- why was corey lewandowski able to get away with not answering any of those questions? >> because two things, one, the white house made a very, you know, very aggressive privilege claim, and there is, you know, at least some basis in law for this privilege claim that, you know, people who have served in the white house, circuit court held that, at least alluded to it during the clinton administration it's one an administration has never made before and never really been tested in practice i think the second reason, you know, the judiciary committee

hasn't held him to account one of the things i think the chairman could have done today is when he came in and gave this kind of obnoxious, childish performance, asking people, will you tell me what's in the report, what's the page number, refusing to answer questions, not just the questions where the white house asserted privilege but questions where there were no privilege the chairman could have shut down the committee immediately and said you know what, mr. lewandowski, either answer this question or i'm going to hold you in contempt. the justice department right now might not prosecute you, bill barr won't be the attorney general forever, you might want to reconsider answers my questions. >> do you agree with that? >> i do. look, i do think that, you know, i've been a lawyer for 30 years, and what i can tell you is there's no such thing as a president hatchet match basicald before the house judiciary committee today. the committee is going to have to decide if it goes down this path of holding these hearings if it's going to break down the

stone wall trump is building or let it happened. today was the first foray. what happens next is very important, do they go to court and get an order to compel lewandowski to try to testifying do they threaten to hold witnesses in contempt as matt suggested? do they up the ante? you know, having said that, though, nicolle, it is worth noting essentially through the stone wall, corey lewandowski basically acknowledged that the president of the united states asked him to do something that was obstructing justice. that should be the headline here that's a pretty significant revelation not news, but nonetheless, out of his mouth a revelation. that's a big deal. >> who's to say that wouldn't be the headline i mean, i think that we are so insulated in this washington bubble, we have probably all by 4:00 today heard some of the instant feedback that he created a circus, obviously, that was our take on it if that is the substantive takeaway, does this strengthen the path to impeachment? >> i think it does or i think at least, you know, again, kind of in some ways redoubles the pressure on the house democrats to decide what they are doing

here i mean, lewandowski's testimony, alone, states that the president asked him to do something that is quite arguably impeachable offense and the mueller report has others so i think, you know, today was step one, but it keeps on begging the question, well, what is step two? what is step three what comes next? >> you know, joyce, let me bring you in on this i mean, donald trump has been found to have committed felony finance crimes by the southern district of new york donald trump has been found, committed ten acts of criminal obstruction of justice by robert mueller and his investigators. and i think what ron was just sort of pulling the curtain back on is his suspicion that that may not be the headline, that corey lewandowski today confirmed at least two of those instances of criminal obstruction of justice >> you know, this hearing got off to a rocky start there's no doubt about that. with corey lewandowski really pulling and sort of plotzing himself along with claims he

hadn't read the report and couldn't answer questions. by the time we hit representative hank johnson from georgia, lewandowski was answering questions and i think ron is right here, there's no president hatchet man privilege. and lewandowski essentially conceded that the president asked him to communicate to jeff sessions that the mueller investigation needed to be stopped in its tracks. that's not news to us. you're right but it may be a stunning headline for millions of americans who haven't read the report yet. >> well, listen, since you all have shamed me into having a substantive conversation about the substance of all this, let me read little bit from the mueller report about exactly the substance to which lewandowski has been asked to testify today. "lewandowski wanted to pass this message to sessions in person rather than over the phone he did not want to meet at the department of justice because he did not want a public log of his visit and did not want sessions to have an advantage over him by meeting --" what kind of men are these that they're worried about who has the upper hand in a meeting about how the president obstructs justice?

jesus. "lewandowski described a sessions turf. lewandowski called sessions and arranged a meeting for the following evening at lewandowski's office but sessions had to cancel due to a ra last-minute conflict lewandowski left d.c. without having had an opportunity to meet with him to convey the president's message. i remember talking to sources close to the president around this time, president reaching out to lewandowski to help not just with the investigation but personnel changes at the highest levels of the justice department calling lewandowski about switching out people running the department because he didn't like that sessions hadn't -- he was enraged that sessions had recused and he didn't like what he was seeing from rosenstein, he'd already fired comey i mean, this does seem to bring the story back if we let it to the central claims of what mueller found trump to have done which is to obstruct justice. >> you're right. he didn't answer the question how many times he spoke to the president over that period of time lewandowski, excuse me, dodged that but if what you're saying is true, which is that lewandowski

shone light on this fact that the president asked him to stop the investigation, why was that not the focus of every single democrats' question at this hearing to bring that to light if that is your takeaway, at the oe end of the day democrats have to leave the hearing, what did we establish today? did it bring us closer to "x?" they don't know what "x" is. i've been texting with members and i was just up there, they feel like trump has changed the rules so much that he's impervious to all this he's not afraid of impeachment he's not afraid of legal action because the justice department's going to back him up. >> yeah. >> so they're just kind of coasting along and doing their thing and democrats are -- by the way, according to democrats, not according to me, playing into that. and that's what -- and pelosi has not moved a centimeter she still does not want to impeach the president. even more so, jerry nadler went on new york radio yesterday, i believe, and said, i want to impeach, and we have the

information we need to impeach nancy pelosi has said the exact opposite -- >> yeah. >> -- of both of those things. i've covered congress for ten years. i've not seen divides like this on such a big issue even in these last ten years >> i want to question -- i want to bring you in to this part of the question the word that i heard from sources today was hapless. that the democrats -- two observati observations, one, that nancy pelosi has effectively thrown a wet rag over any smoldering flame that could have emerged from today by taking impeachment off the table. and that there was a -- there was a haplessness to some of that early questioning that joyce alluded to what are you picking up from your sources >> i'm just remembering, nicolle, the very beginning of all this, the skepticism from myself and other reporters like jake that this made-for-tv version of the mueller rors was going to work and said, no, no, no, this is why it's going to work, we're going bring the witnesses in and make them read from their sections of the report and it will be compelling

because it will be their testimony in their own words and why is this happening that all of these lawmakers are standing up on the dais and barking at the witnesses instead of doing exactly that, scripting this out, having the stagecraft of this, of the witnesses, themselves, in their own words, giving these soundbites so these will be the headlines. maybe you're right, maybe this will be the headline coming out, but it's not guaranteed because it was so disjointed with all of the theatrics and corey came in there, you know, he came in there for a fight. looking for a fight. >> it was all theatrics -- >> a very hostile witness. >> let me let you respond to that i saw you wanted to get in. >> look, all true, but this is still a democracy and i think it's incumbent on all of us to look at that and say, here's what happened. someone came into a hearing today and essentially admitted that the president of the united states told him to obstruct justice. one of america's two major political parties sat there and

cheered him on like trained seals. that's not the democrats on the committee. that's the republicans and i think ultimately this is going to come down to a question whether or not the public decides to hold them accountable for that yes, in the interim the democrats are in a box, yes, they have to figure out this impeachment thing, yes, they have to reconcile all this the big picture here is we're seeing a breakdown in law, in the rule of law, and legal adherence, and one of the two political parties is just clapping for that as loudly as they can that, to me, is important. >> i'm -- i'm with you i've never heard you so quiet. >> i don't know if that's a compliment or not. >> it's a question >> look, i think ron's right i mean, i feel like sometimes we're doing a little bit of victim shaming, criticizing the democrats when they're the ones at least trying to uphold the rule of law, trying to get at what happened here i think there are two substantive takeaways here one is the one ron mentioned the facts from the mueller report that the president of the united states did commit a crime in office and obstructed justice. there's another takeaway, which is that the president is actively trying to obstruct a

congressional investigation. he's ordered someone who never worked for him at the white house to go in and not answer questions about his interactions with the president you know, remember, that was one of the articles of impeachment against richard nixon. obstructing a congressional investigation. i think that's where jerry nadler's going the problem when you get to the enof this, where does it end up? that gets back to this fundamental question someone asked me today how do you grade how the democrats are doing? and it's impossible to give an answer because they have two different goals. jerry nadler wants to impeach the president. nancy pelosi doesn't >> matt -- >> i don't know how you grade that. >> wants to get this done, file articles of impeachment by the end of the year. how long does the court process take to take people like corey lewandowski to court, to compel them to have to answer those questions? >> that's one of the issues that can take months and months and months this scenario i raised at the beginning, if the chairman instrumented the hearing and said i'm going to hold you in contempt, go to court to try to enforce this, well, when they subpoenaed don mcgahn they didn't go to court for over three months to force it that's not nadler's call

he doesn't control the house council. it goes to court there's internal politics in the house that makes this very difficult. >> what's happening behind closed doors are people like jerry nadler, do they feel like the defeatism that we've all alluded to, in terms of this entire endeavor, does the blame for that lie at nancy pelosi's feet and does nancy pelosi feel like if trump's re-elected,if there's this feeling -- i mean, i think your analysis is right the lawlessness. the debasement of these once great institutions the presidency and the congress. is now so normalized among trump's voters i don't -- they don't care that corey lewandowski is up on capitol hill basically giving a middle finger to the role of congressional oversight. that sean spicer's boogying in a seinfeld sihirt it's all a joke. it's all laughable we laugh because crying on tv is so ugly if you're a girl and you wear makeup. but, you know, is there any exasperation with house leadership >> yes, there is yes, there's a lot to be honest with you. and you see that because half of

the caucus is out in favor of impeachment. i don't think that tells the full story i know for a fact a lot of members who have come out for impeachment have done so because it's the easy thing to do and it's demanded in their district and they believe, also, that it's not the best politics for them but pelosi has made clear she believes the politics are bad for democrats and she's not, again, moved an inch off of that and she refuses to talk about it i mean, at her press conference last week, she was pressed about this what are you thinking, if it's not impeachment, what should we be calling it, how should we be thinking about it? she says i'm done answering these questions. i'm not talking about this anymore. and that tells you all you need to know, frankly, about how she feels about this and if what you said is true, matt, i accept that lewandowski today did testify that the president did ask him to intervene here, so, like, that should be the end of it under -- according to what you're saying, right? i mean, if that is the truth, if he did testify to that, i'm not a lawyer, you are, and if that is against the law, then, i mean, that would appear to be all the information democrats

would need to move toward impeachment. instead, they're stuck in this mushy middle and people are getting frustrated and nadler has a committee full of progressives, full of eager prosecutors and former lawyers, who want to do this. and the question is, here's the other thing, the president's not being punished at all politically for this democrats are still doing business with him. they're going to fund the government they're going to give him his money to bail out farmers in the midwest. i mean, he's not suffering politically at all he's still able to operate the government maybe he's suffering with the electorate i don't doubt that but in the daily machinations of government, democrats are still doing business with him. still talking to him about usmca, going to deliver him a huge victory on trade. talking about drug pricing i mean, if democrats were serious about this, they'd be doing two things they'd go to the floor every day and offer articles of impeachment. they could do that, get an immediate vote within 48 hours and they'd also say we're not doing business with you if you're going to keep interrupting our oversight this is a constitutional responsibility, not a hobby. and they're doing neither. so what is the political cost

for the president continuing to tell his aides not to testify? >> so i have a 7-year-old and the only battle i've dealt with is screen time i put that timer on. i'm holding the line on screen time and if i were to take it off, it would be obvious that it was serious about monitoring screen time so he's 7. and he's internalized that lesson what message does it send to the president when there are no limits when they say, you know, oh, you broke the law, we're going to how old you accountable, we're going to hold you accountable for violating the emoluments clause, hold youaccountable fo running an illegal -- there are never any consequences for him and the screen time analysis holds. he watches tv all day and does whatever he wants. >> i'm absolutely confident your 7-year-old is better behaved on the president. i'll start there, nicolle. >> he has a conscience. >> yeah, but look, you know, i come back to it, i know this sounds like, you know, mr. smith or whatever, but in the end, the consequence is whether or not voters re-elect or vote him out in 2020. and we are a democracy, and if the voters aren't willing to step up and enforce these norms,

if some of the trump voters aren't, in fact, all upset, if people aren't willing to go to the polls and make a change and demand a change, this will be the new normal i mean, this will be what our country will become, whenever trump leaves, someone else will come who will be just as bad, just as awful, maybe a democrat, maybe a republican this will be the new normal unless the voters in the end decide this is not acceptable. >> joyce, are you optimistic watching the substance you've all been good at pointing that out for me and for our viewers are you optimistic that the substance that comes out of today's hearings will be rewarding enough to sort of block out the noise about the political machinations or the circus up there around corey lewandowski and the president's allies or do you think today will serve as a dis inceincenti from continuing with hearings like this? >> you know, optimistic might be too strong of a word given how many times we've thought the rule of law would finally have a resurgence and it's flopped, but

democrats have two cards to play here one they played today, one in the future the card they play today are the new committee rules that will permit it, the end of this hearing, 30 minutes of questioning by house staff for republicans. 30 minutes from the democrats. and if the democrats play their 30 minutes right, they've got talented former prosecutors on staff and they will walk lewandowski line by line into the key admissions that he made into his testimony to mueller and they'll ask him, you said this, is it true, yes or no? and we'll have this series of admissions lewandowski has tried to avoid giving democrats soundbites. that's their chance. and then the card that they can play in the future is that democrats have, and i think it was matt who pointed out they were slow to go, it took a month to go to court to enforce the subpoena for don mcgahn to testify in front of them but i think people expect that there will be a conclusion to those proceedings in court some time before thanksgiving and if the courts as expected

enforce that subpoena, enforce don mcgahn to go back in front of congress and testify and answer questions, then that really means it's unnecessary to go through that same proceeding with these others. that same court ruling should hold for all of these folks, and that will be the first domino to fall and then congress will have the opportunity, as you say, to enforce screen time and get some real testimony >> because it's, at the end of the day, all about enforcing screen time. at least for people with real kids joyce vance, jake sherman, thank you so much for talking us through it we're grateful. after the break, with the president seeming to outsource u.s. foreign policy to saudi arabia, new reporting today on the struggle within the president between his inner bully and his inner dove also ahead, elizabeth warren is working overtime to win her party's nomination we'll show you what that looks like and how her selfie strategy may help her dominate social media. and donald trump is clearly the possessive type. we'll go inside some fantastic new reporting about his favorite pronoun.

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i will never send our finest into battle unless necessary and i mean absolutely necessary. and will only do so if we have a plan for victory with a capital "v." in a trump administration, our actions in the middle east will be tempered by realism the current strategy of toppling regimes with no plan for what to do the day after only produces power vacuums that are filled simply by terrorists

we will stop racing to topple foreign -- and you understand this -- foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with >> that was candidate trump who promised to stop all u.s. interventions in foreign conflicts, but as president, he's now deeply embroiled in a growing conflict between saudi arabia and iran. secretary of state mike pompeo who was quick to point a finger at iran after this weekend's strike on saudi oil facilities is heading there tonight to discuss the u.s. response. former cia director john brennan noted on twitter, it was donald trump's haphazard foreign policy that got us to this point, writing this, "there is no doubt that donald trump precipitated this crisis by reneging on the nuclear deal and declaring economic war on iran we now face a major international and national security challenge because of trump's reckless incompetence. a bipartisan strategic response is essential." now lucky for us, joining our conversation, former cia

director, now an nbc national security analyst, john brennan what is the president's culpability in how we got here, and what is his opportunity for, if any, putting the toothpaste back in the tube >> well, it was clear that donald trump didn't understand the iran nuclear agreement he just wanted to abregate it, tear it up, because it's something his predecessor, president obama, had negotiated. i think quite successfully what this administration should have done was try to build upon it they could have even adjusted some of the terms of it, but to basically just tear it up then to declare this economic war, imposing these very, very onerous sanctions on iran, not just u.s. sanctions, but insisting that third parties, in fact, honor those sanctions. so i think iran has made it very clear over the last several months that the status quo is not acceptable and it's not going to just allow this to continue and so now mr. trump has gotten what i think he was after which was putting iran in this very desperate predicament. and so launching these attacks

against saudi arabia is iran's demonstration that it can -- it can lash back and it can hurt not just saudi arabia, which has been its nemesis for quite some time, but also the international oil market and also potentially the u.s. economy so i know that donald trump does not want to get into a war with iran, but unless he wants to repair the damage with iran, meaning he wants to, you know, reinstitute the iran nuclear agreement, he doesn't have a lot of good options, but he cannot leave this unaddressed it is unacceptable for iran to carry out these strikes. but what does he do now? because, again, this has been of his making >> this is a part of the world you know a lot about from the iranian perspective, how much of this is -- i mean, they're extremely sophisticated. they play three-dimensional chess, as i understand how much of this is sort of their understanding of how weak politically this president is and that if they take away from him the strength of the economy by throwing the global oil

economy into turmoil, if they take away from him all the tape we just showed, which was part of his basis attachment to him, this promise to be a noninterventionalist, how aware of our dedomestomestic politicse iranians >> they have some fairly sophisticated diplomats. foreign minister zarif who was engaged with us for many, many years and rouhani is adept at understanding how the international scene works and the u.s. role in it. i think also, though, the hardliners inside the iranian government are pushing for a much more aggressive posture, and i think also they may be calling donald trump's bluff here >> uh-huh. >> you know, you say that you are, you know, you tout this great u.s. military, but i think it's been clearly evident that he doesn't want to get involved and embroiled in another middle eastern war. the iranians are a formidable power in terms of military, and i think it's also demonstrated just how vulnerable saudi arabia and the gulf oil installations are, so i think they're very

clever in terms of how they have done this. they know there's not a ready response the u.s. has that's not potentially going to lead to anesqa esculatory spiral nobody wants. >> how much of this is american adversaries watching the president veer back and forth either with north korea, we separate these things out in our media. we cover the u.s. relationship with north korea separate from the u.s. crisis with iran. separate from the u.s. relationship with russia but how do -- how do they look at all of these interactions as one, and how do they assess donald trump >> i think they assess him as still very much of a novice on the international stage and that he doesn't understand the complexities of these issues and he's basically been engaged in ad hocery as far as u.s. foreign policy is concerned. so as you said, i think the iranians can play three-dimensional chess and have a lot of options inside the middle east. not just drones or missiles. they also have the ability to manipulate, exploit, a lot of the shia communities in the gulf

states and even in saudi arabia to further agitate on the political stability front. so i think they look at donald trump as somebody who doesn't understand exactly the history of the region as well as what some of his actions are going to beget. think it's very clear because he's gotten down this cul-de-sac where he doesn't have a lot of good options and i think they and a lot of other people now are watching how washington is going to react >> it was pointed out to me that without john bolton, whatever you thought of his politics, there are now very few consumers for the american intelligence product. there are very few people inside this white house who would even know what they're looking at it's been reported by multiple news organizations that donald trump doesn't look at his pdp. i believe it's also been reported that jared kushner doesn't have the adequate security clearance to be briefed on that. who's the intelligence community talking to is it really just one man, mike pompeo >> i think mike pompeo is the certainly the person who has trump's ear and is the one who's able to not just intake the intelligence but also then shape it in a way that he wants because he is very much a

hardline hawk on iran. now, he's not the same type of military interventionist that john bolton was, but make no mistake, over the last 16 months under john bolton, there wasn't an interagency process and at times like this which is basically a brewing crisis, previous national security advisers would have went out and convened the principals and the deputies and come up with a series of options and recommendations to the president about how he could respond to the iranian attack you don't have that process now and you don't have somebody, i think, that's going to play that fair and objective, you know, person that is going to be able to present honestly to donald trump, mr. trump, you have these options here, but let me warn you off of these and you need to consider this. and i think having a multilateral response in engagements as well as engaging with the congressional leadership now is critically important. >> have we given too much control to saudi arabia over u.s. foreign policy? >> oh, well, i think over the past, you know, several years, there's been a lot of i think

inappropriate consultation with the saudis on a number of things whether it's dealing with the u.s. sort of domestic scene, quite frankly, as well as u.s. foreign policy decisions what's going on in the west bank in israel. but it's appropriate, at this time, for the united states to consult with saudi arabia. they are the aggrieved party and they are also the ones that are out there, potentially vulnerable to follow-on iranian attacks. so, you know, previous administrations would have done the same thing would have engaged in high-level consultations. secretary of state would have went out there, talked with his counterpart as well as the crown prince and the king, then ultimately the united states has to make a decision based on our national security interests, not on saudi arabia's interests and there's been, i think, confusion in this white house about what our national security interests are. >> yeah, i saw reporters who cover the region on twitter said make no mistake, this was an act of war, someone put out, yes, on saudi arabia i want to ask you one last question about this. what keeps you up at night and i ask that question because other former intelligence officials have said to me that

they believe this image of donald trump is someone who is very wary of military interventions but also have seen so many examples of his incompetence and erratic nature on display that they're still concerned we could stumble into something inadvertently. >> the spectacle i was watching on capitol hill today worries me the most, disfunctionality at this time because of the lawlessness that manifested in this white house i am concerned about the u.s. reputation, not just reputation on the world stage but also how we have for many, many years basically led western democracies and the leader of the free world who do what is right. if donald trump, i hope he is not going to be re-elected, does the next administration just undo everything of the trump administration then the world says, well, look at this, you know, from one administration to the next, the united states is whipsawing its policy and whipsawing the rest of the world and what message does that send? what is our credibility? and how can people put any sense

of confidence in what it is that we say that's going to be enduring and i for many years when i worked for over three decades, i thought there was an enduring sense of values and principles that really led the united states on the international stage. i think a lot of countries did, too. and a lot of our adversaries did. that's why i think they had to be very careful about what they did. i think we have shot that to pieces now in the last 2 1/2 years and really worry the longer-term impacts of mr. trump's presidency long after he's left office. >> oh, i think we all do director brennan, thank you for sp spending time with us. after the break, while it's still too early to make predictions about the 2020 democratic primary contest, elizabeth warren certainly seems to be surging at least when it comes to enthusiasm. we'll show you one of the secrets to her success on the campaign trail, next it's going ok? great. now i'm spending more time with the kids. i'm introducing them to crab. crab!? they love it.

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what has this corrupt business as usual gotten us?

the extinction of one species after another as the earth heats up children slaughtered by assault weapons. the highest levels of inequality in a century wages that barely budge. crippling student loan debt. shrinking opportunity for the next generation and the one after that and the one after that the american people get it, and they are sick of it. >> we are always on the lookout for moments on the 2020 campaign trail, those times when a candidate transcends the horse race, commands the attention of the public elizabeth warren might have had one of those moments last night. her speech in new york city was all about corruption she actually called donald trump corruption in the flesh, but many people noticed it was really more than a single-issue speech it was more of an urgent appeal on one of her most definitive general election pitches to date and it's hard to ignore the size of her crowd 20,000 people there.

more than about half a dozen major league baseball teams average in attendance per game all inside of manhattan's washington square park and just for good measure, she still finished her selfie line got through the whole thing. this is the video of the very last selfie of the night four hours after the event ended. 20 minutes before the park closed for the evening joining our table, white house reporter for the "washington post" and msnbc contributor, ashley parker. so, donald trump who's been obsessed with joe biden since before joe biden was running for president, and maybe even before that, is now turning some of his attention and fire to elizabeth warren he had round one, the pocahontas round, we'll call it, that seemed to have ended in a draw but he's back at it. and he certainly notices things like crowd size. >> absolutely. crowd size is the key thing that president trump understands, and frankly, inserted into the discussion he had sean spicer, his press secretary at the time, come out

and lie about his inaugural crowd size his first full day as president. and that's a discussion he's sort of been having with himself at least ever since and now what you're seeing is the warren campaign, they say they don't care about crowd size. they're not paying attention what we saw last night was sort of the most physical, tangible, response to that signaling to voters who have now sort of learned crowd size actually does matter it is potentially a meaningful metric that she, too, can draw large, adoring, crowds >> i'm going to -- you and i have both spent time on campaigns, crowd sizes do not determine the outcome of elections. i worked for sarah palin her crowds were very large but they do signal something, as ashley said, intangible, excitement. >> sure. >> and -- >> look, i'm for biden but i acknowledge that was a great event last night, great speech by senator warren. she's a great candidate. at the same time, a poll came out today and showed joe biden is beating her in new york state. >> let me stay on warren for a

minute with you. you're one of the smartest and most credible voices and i think -- i appreciate that you disclosed your candidate, but would joe biden stay for four hours on a selfie line would he have a four-hour-long selfie line? >> he does a lot of selfies on the campaign trail, in ice cream stores and all kinds of places you know, i wouldn't want to count up who's done more selfies. they've both done a lot of selfies. i think it's great i think it's not just a sign of enthusiasm but a smart social media strategy that a lot of the democrats are using including biden and warren it's a way to connect with voters it's kind of the 21st century way to connect with voters so, look, as i said, i think it was a great speech last night, a great event last night i think the real challenge in this race is can you build a broad coalition across the entirety of the democratic party? not just the kind of people in washington square in new york but people who are upstate in new york and people who are people of color and all kinds of other voters i think right now, look, this could change warren is a strong candidate right now, joe biden is the one candidate who's putting together

that broad base coalition inside the democratic party and the challenge for everyone else running against him is can they match that >> joe biden has also endured more negative coverage than anyone else running in this primary. and i think -- i think axios had analysis of his coverage and just largely negative and his lead is enduring and it is definitive nationally and i think he's still ahead in most battleground state polls what do you make of sort of this -- it's not a collision but this sort of contrast and what their base of support looks like elizabeth warren with 20,000 enthusiastic supporters in new york city. joe biden still ahead in most polls. >> i think democratic voters, a lot of democratic voters know joe biden better than elizabeth warren he was vice president for eight years, been on the scene a long time, know him and really like him. i think that's why he's going to be a formidable candidate all the way to the end, may be the nominee. elizabeth warren, i thnk the reason she's generating these crowd sizes is because her message.

the message last night, look, if i were, you know, if i were running a presidential campaign, i would make the attack on trump on three fronts. chaos, corruption, and competence and you saw her coming last night directly at corruption and the thing that's so smart about the way she's doing it, she's not just attacking corruption, trump's personal enrichment or the way he kubt conducts himself in office, although that's part of it she's linking it to the corruption throughout the administration, not just cabinet members departing in droves but turning over policymaking to lobbyists and linking that further to her message she's been delivering for years, the corruption of the political system and the corruption of the economic system on behalf of big-money interests. it is a powerful message and it's a powerful message that because it's not just about this president, but about this time in the country and how she would lead us out of it. >> i think she's actually managed to take the threads between bernie sanders and donald trump from 2016 and weave them together into a very powerful message about

corruption, but also about -- she's calling it a new deal. worker protections and actually caring for the little guy and getting rid of the swampy lobbyists in washington. that's something that should, in theory, appeal as well to donald trump's voters, but to ron's point, when you drill down on the polling, you talked about new york state well, i looked at wisconsin, and wisconsin, at this time, biden would beat trump by about nine points and elizabeth warren would be even. then you talk about, you know, newer swingier states like texas and arizona and there's very little indication that elizabeth warren would be able to carry one of those it's going to come down to a raw calculation of whether her message is so inspiring, so much more inspiring to democratic voters who are actually just petrified at the thought of another donald trump presidency, view joe biden as kind of an insurance policy candidate. >> that's actually something the trump people say i was talking to them today,

some of the folks close to the campaign, and they say looking at biden and warren, they're wildcards but in very different ways they understand that in polls biden beats trump on paper but the election is not on paper they think there's a sense looking at some of biden's stumbles he may not actually be able to go head to head and say early internal polling -- >> how do they say that? do they say, like, because biden misspeaks and our guy, what, fill in the blank for me, because donald trump, he says more asinine things in a, like, a rope line than biden says in ten -- how do they -- >> to answer that question, in those conversations, they keep the focus on biden rather than on the president and then on warren, they say that in polling there's a sense that internally, they beat the socialist, so they're using that to refer to warren and sanders on paper, but they think there's a chance that she sort of catches fire and that populist message doesn't come from the place of dark anger and victimization that trump presents it but it's a similar message to what he's offering, big structure changes.

her version of drain the swamp if she catches fire, she gets those crowds, it could potent l potentially cut into some of his supporters. >> and he's completely terrified of losing any -- he knows he cannot be re-elected if any sort of piece of his coalition puzzle falls away he now sees she could take some of that. >> that's the concern. he sees it in terms of crowds. >> right. >> his broader world sees it in terms of messaging, who is his base supporters and who is she potentially speaking to. >> let me show you warren's appeal appeal, it appeared to be for biden supporters let me show you. let you respond. >> there's a lot at stake in this election and i know people are scared, but we can't choose a candidate we don't believe in just because we're too scared to do anything else [ cheers and applause and democrats can't win if we're scared and looking backward.

>> felt very aggressive. >> you know, look, i thought she gave a great speech last night, but i thought there was a second great speech in the past 48 hours, that was the speech vice president biden gave on the 56th anniversary of the birmingham church bombing in birmingham, alabama, on sunday morning, in church, not a big crowd but a very strong, powerful, emotional, message, and i think as i said before, i think the question is to be the democratic nominee, you need to unite all the elements of the democratic party. and i think vice president biden speaking to all those elements of the democrat party, not about playing it safe, but about winning in 2020 and moving forward on his agenda for health care, environment, whatnot, and i think the other candidates, if they're going to beat him, are going to have to be equally broad in their message. all right. after the break, audacity alert. president build a wall, cage a kid, makes his case to hispanic voters really

and what's in a pronoun? we'll explain both those stories, next. and which ones just taste fresher and more flavorful? only eggland's best. we prefer organic, and which ones have 6 times more vitamin d and 25% less saturated fat? only eggland's best. my family deserves the best, and which egg is the best in so many ways? only eggland's best. better taste, better nutrition, better eggs.

look at my african-american over here, look at him are you the greatest my generals and my military, they have decision-making ability. there may be a little pain for a little while, but ultimately for my farmers, i love my farmers. >> my, my, my. it's a possessive trump has bestowed on many from my african-american to my generals, even to elected politicians. just last week he reportedly called egypt's president my favorite dictator. a new piece by ashley parker in "the washington post" notes that while it sounds endearing to some, it could be also how trump asserts himself. she writes, trump uses the pronoun affectionately, part of a subconscious effort to shine warmth on someone in his orbit who describe the tic as a gesture but it can also seem

belittling and for trump it could be as much about dominance and control as familiarity everyone is back it's an amazing piece. i see both to be fair to trump, i'm sure there are some people that he means to draw close. for some reason they seem to be the people that he knows are farthest away from him, my african-american, my generals. take us inside what you reported out. >> so just about everyone, even his critics, say that trump does mean it affectionately and it's one of his terms as a politician you often have people who expect to be repulsed by him and if they meet him one on one, they come away a little more charmed. your my special person can make people feel like the spotlight is on them but, a, they say it can be problematic. you don't necessarily want to hear our president calling someone my favorite dictator presumably the president should dislike all dictators. when you call someone my african-american, someone whose

name you don't know and you're seen as a race, it's worth noting that the president's african-american has now left the party and is an independent in part because he believes that trump has a white superiority complex. so it can be problematic in those ways and the president, no matter how close you are to him, he can fire you or dismiss you just as quickly in a tweet there is a sense that it's about ownership and dominance and keeping people a little off kilter, even if he doesn't intend that. >> right they should see how he tweeted his secretaries of state, his chiefs of staff. i want to show you the way he singled out one of his hispanic supporters last night. >> he happens to be hispanic, but i've never quite figured it out because he looks more like a wasp than i do so i haven't figured that one out, but i'll tell you what, there is nobody that loves this country more or hispanic more

than steve cortes. who do you like more, the country or hispanics he says the country. i may have to go with the hispanics, to be honest with you. we have a lot of hispanics we love our hispanics. >> i have no words. >> it's so offensive, this idea that there's a choice between hispanics and the country. look, as you know, i grew up in texas where republicans for a long time won 40% of the hispanic vote, your former boss, governor bush, won 40% of the hispanic vote. people think i'm crazy to say this but there was a play for trump to win hispanics there are some that support strong border enforcement. but the way that he has governed bicep rating famili-- by separa, i think we'll have a test in the next election. not only does the margin continue to go down in historic proportions but is this finally

the year hispanics come out and vote and would turn them into a powerful bloc especially in states like texas and arizona which are tipping closer to being political neutral. >> there's a huge uptick in the mitt terms which seems to be indicative that in 2020 we could see a repeat of that what we're seeing here is also generational just like all young people are profoundly affected by this administration, hispanics especially and because of rhetoric not just like what you saw last night, but from the very beginning and the origins of this campaign, where he came down the stairs, down the escalator at trump tower and talked about mess cxis as rapists and made immigration inflammatory rhetoric and building the wall at his campaign rallies kind of the core message of making them the other and drawing that distinction. and so while there may be some older hispanic americans who have been here for a couple of

generations who agree with some of those policies and are not offended by this rhetoric, there will be many, many more who are energized by it and we saw that already showing up in the 2018 midterms. >> one last thing before we go, those of us who have had the coverage of covering politics or getting to talk about politics on tv for our job lost one of the brightest stars in our business cokie roberts set the standard and paved the way for so many of us she was one of the smartest and one of the smoothest, one of the fairest and nicest people on television she also supported and engaged so many women as we climbed the ranks in politics or television and when we stumbled she was a role model and she will be missed we will be right back. oh! oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7 and maintained it. oh! under 7?

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that does it for our hour. my thanks to ashley parker, heidi przybyla, matt miller and ron klain. thank you for watching, "mtp" with my friend, chuck todd, starts now if it's tuesday, we've got brand new nbc news/wall street journal poll numbers of the 2020 democratic race. guess what, it looks like voters are starting to choose a side. we'll tell you who's up, who's way down and who's winning the enthusiasm race. plus, obstruction over obstruction. the democrats first