hi, everyone. it's 9:00 in the east. 8:00 p.m. in tulsa oklahoma where at this hour a aefn attemo play to donald trump's vanity just might be falling flat. at donald trump's first maga rally since coronavirus began, crowds falling far short of the 100,000 supporters and counting that the trump campaign predicted earlier this week. this video from the moments before donald trump entered to arena shows seats empty in the upper deck. the campaign canceled an overflow rally earlier today when there was not enough

overflow. not enough people showed up. a potential confidence blow to a president who stakes his political fortunes and bragging rights on the size of his crowds. even a smaller than expected crowd without masks standing should to shoulder is worrying at the height of oklahoma's coronavirus outbreak. none of the social distancing measures recommended by donald trump's cdc are being enforced there tonight, despite warnings from trump's only health advisers that the event, if carried out this way, would put the lives of his own supporter at risk. that's the spectacle playing out publicly at this hour on what has become another split screen day of breaking news in the trump presidency, as his supporters were gathering at their own risk throughout the day and night, behind the scenes, a standoff was brewing at the justice department that today culminated in the firing without explanation of geoffrey berman.

berman is the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york whose office, as "the new york times" writes, quotes, purr pseudoone case after another that has wrankled the president and his allies, putting his former personal lawyer in prison and investigating his current one. we'll get to that ongoing saga, the conflicting versions of events from trump and his justice department and questions surrounding what on earth would have precipitated such an extraordinary 24 hours of maneuveri maneuvering. we'll start in tulsa with the breaking news today. nbc news learned that six members of trump's team who worked on the preparations for tonight's maga rally tested positive for coronavirus. at least two are members of the united states secret service. the trump campaign saying that quarantine procedures were immediately implemented and a source familiar with the matter telling nbc news that contact tracing has already begun. the source adds that the advance team has been on the ground in tulsa for about a week, that

most of them haven't been wearing masks and that they were going out in restaurants and engaging with the tulsa community that many comes as oklahoma reports its highest single day spike in cases since coronavirus began. as new hot spots across the country continue to worry the world's leading public health expert, already the united states has surpassed 2.2 million cases and counting. the death toll today crossing another sad milestone -- 120,000. let's turn now to some of our favorite reporters and friends -- oh, we're going to start with cal perry, though. cal perry is on the ground for us in a safe social distance way, but we are also going to be joined for most of the hour by friends including claire mccaskill. cal, are you there? your shot is coming up take us inside, what it is like at this hour in tulsa, in and out of the arena.

all right, you're seeing our behind the scenes machinations here. we have lost cal perry's mike. i'm going to start with jonathan. cal, are ycan you hear us? all right, we're going to get that fixed. we're going to start with jonathan who just posted a story with this headline -- trump comeback rally features empty seats, comma staff infections. take us through what you're reporting. >> reporter: as you know, the president has forged forward and ignored the health warnings of his own experts and state officials and local officials in oklahoma by having this rally tonight. he and his campaign deemed it their comeback rally. it's the first one in more than three months. they wanted this to be a political show of force.

they wanted his supporters to turn out, turn out not in a social distance matter. though masks were handed out at the rally entrances. my colleague inside the building says barely anybody was wearing them. this was supposed to be a reassuring signal to republicans who watched the president slip in the race against joe biden, who republicans are worried about their ability to control the senate. the president and his team did not get what they expected tonight. brad parscale said as the week went on they received 800,000, over 1 million ticket requests. the president said, we won't have an open seat in oklahoma. they had quite a few tonight. that arena about two-thirds full according to my colleague who's inside. more than that, they scheduled an overflow space outside where they expected tens of thousands more to show up. no one did. there was only a few dozen people there. the president's campaign

canceled it. the vice president and the president were scheduled to speak there. neither did. the president is on stage now. he is still speaking. we are hearing him blame the media, blame protests outside for the lack of a crowd inside, but there aren't many protests out there tonight. the crowds are small and they have been peaceful. instead, the president is now facing real questions about whether he can still draw the crowds he's accustomed do in the middle of a pandemic. >> look, let's leave all the president's bluster aside for a minute. how did this campaign end up with projections that are -- i mean, this isn't just, jonathan, a third of the people who thought five days ago when they requested tickets that they'd feel like going, decided not to. there are no day-of variables. as you reported the protests outside are peaceful. trip proceeding for days.

what is the president's explanation for -- i mean, this is an arena that holds 19,000. if it's two-thirds full -- i'm terrible at math, but that's no more than 12,000 people inside. how did they come up with the math for 100,000 people to come up? >> they have been receiving ticket requests. that came with a waiver of liability thaw couldn't -- a lot of pranks am a lot of people on instagram, and snapchat and tiktoks suggesting some of them may have been tiktoks or young people looking to mess with the trump campaign. that remains to be seen. what we know is this -- this president does have a good data -- these rallies are important. not just because they dominate the media messages in a certain market for a few days before and

after, but also they're a great tool to harvest voter information. that's one of the reasons why they were so eager to get back out there. they wanted to exploit that advantage they have over the biden team. but they didn't get anywhere near where they expected. they're going to have to face sharp questions from the team about the lack of crowd here. he has been fired up for this event. he pushed his staff to hold it despite concerns among some of his top advisers it was too soon to be back in a rally setting like this. what's left here is sort of an embarrassing spectacle. there's still over 10,000 people, i would say, inside that arena. that's a good crowd. but it's not the crowd at all that the president's campaign billed that would be there. let's remember, this was meant to be the first of many comeback rallies for this president. his show of force politically but also a sign that the nation wuss re-opening after the pandemic, that its economy was restarting that people weren't afraid to gather anymore, and now all of those assumptions

have been cast into doubt. >> well, it is a great point, and i think dr. patel, you're probably breathing maybe a sigh of relief that there aren't 500,000 people here. all politics aside, that amount of people gathered for any purpose -- i think there are 19,000 seats in that rally. there was a lawsuit in the oklahoma supreme court to try to make this event safer. it failed. so i guess short of being able to force people to wear masks -- and you look at all those videos from inside, there are not a lot of mask wearers inside. i was told that donald trump personally didn't want to look out and see faces with masks on them. so i don't know that we have reporting they were not required to wear masks but i know his press secretary took to the podium of the white house briefing room and announced to the world that she would not be wearing a mask.

certainly all of the signals are that masks are not something that the president likes to wear or see. what do you see, though, from a medical and a public health perspective, dr. patel, when you look at the president's event? >> you're absolutely correct that not only is there a sigh of relief, but starting with the news of the day of six of the advance team, two of whom us a mention ready secret service and put their own lives at risk every day protecting the president -- but this was pretty unnecessary so i was relieved this wasn't packed to the gills. but we still have thousands of people in a stadium, and an advanced team that came from d.c. and other places. and presumably even though they're in quarantine, that scenario is exactly what the cdc and its own publication described as a superspreader event that happened in a church in march some ironically, we're just seeing this president kind of for his own ego and politics

playing out what we already know to be a setup for unnecessary infection -- death so it's still concerning that it's the first of what looks like many rallies, but i'm relieved it's underattended and hope that the virus, the seriousness is actually penetrating the american public. for t >> dr. patel, unless we have some sort of problem with your audio i'd like to play you some of the president's remarks about testing and ask you to respond on the other side. let's listen. >> testing is a double-edged sword. here's the bad part. when you do testing to that extent you're going find more people, you're going find more cases. so i said to my people, slow the testing down, please! they test and they test.

egot people don't go what's going on. we got another one here. >> did he just confess to slowing down report something we have reporting there was a serious problem rolling out tests to to the country. was he suggests that was a strategy there? he said, quote, i said slow the testing down, end quote. >> that's not just something the president said. that's been reverberated through health and human services and other agencies that perhaps we don't need as much testing. we're doing about 500,000 tests a day. and maybe that's good enough. just a little bit of statistics and something to explain to people. just doing more tests does not mean you're going to find, quote, unnecessary infections and you should slow it down. in fact, what we're seeing in the united states and the opposite of other countries that do way more testing and they've found fewer percentage of cases

overall. we in fact, unfortunately, especially in oklahoma, florida, and half of the country, we're doing probably the same number of tests and we're still fining a higher degree of cases. so the math doesn't work, and unfortunately this is just another example of failure at the top and leadership all the way through. >> claire, i am dieing to hear your thoughts on all of that so you're -- i hope you're in a comfy chair away adult beverage. we're going to keep you here as long as you'll stay. but what -- what is the campaign thinking? it's like from city council on up, you lower expectations for crowd size so you can same or similar circumstance -- say, we didn't have enough seats in the arena. to put more -- it's a public health crime, but he hthese areo

political crimes being committed. i won't be surprised if there are political jobs on the line when trump walks off tonight. >> i'm not going to be shock in the brad parscale loses his job tonight. it is campaign 101 -- underpr underpromise and overperform. how many calls have we been on? is the room too big? you want to room to look smaller. the visuals matter and this president, of all presidents, it's all that matters to him. >> right! >> when he sees how much time is on tv with his big giant stage that was constructed outside, with the bunting and the giant speakers -- i mean it look like a rock band was coming right? and of course the hysterical thing is once nobody showed up, they sent a crew out to try to dismantle it quickly as if it wasn't captured on video and nobody was going to notice that

they had this degree of incompetence in the campaign. i don't know who requested these tickets but they should have kept their mouth shut about it. they should have, you know, booked a smaller venue. we now know why they didn't want to have it outside. would you imagine how this would have looked in a stadium? it would have been more embarrassing than what it was. >> and let me just say, crowd size is the single metric by which donald trump measures everything. and he sacrificed his first press secretary's reputation and career in the world outside of sort of trumplandia over a ridiculous lie about the size of his own inauguration crowds. it's not an understatement, claire, to say that to this president, this is all that matters. i was reading maggie haberman's twitter feed. she said this is one of the smallest, underfilled stadium venues since trump started

running for president. as you said, this is going to matter very, very, very much to donald trump. >> yeah, and the sad thing is, because we know it matters to him, we're going to cover it like a blanket, right? i will confess to being somewhat gleeful tonight when the crowd size was so small. but let's not lose sight of some of the stuff he was saying. he spent 15 minutes getting cheered for saying he can walk and drink a glass of water. basically as you explained he said we should test less because snow that would magically make the disease go away. i mean, sit really outrageous some of the things he's saying but for him, all he cares about is how it looks. and boy, oh, boy, it looked embarrassing for him tonight. >> donna edwards, split screen day of breaking news in what one

former doj official called an unnecessary friday night massacre, the botched firing of geoff berman. but even in this one event you see the dual crises gripping the country and donald trump's denial of both, still smearing what are peaceful protests in tulsa and still denying that covid represents a threat. now to the six people on his own sfwaf anyone they interacted with in the tulsa community. it's possible they got it there, but based on how the virus seems to work it's possible they brought it there. talk about both. >> well, i mean, even as the president was talking about that is all he had done supposedly to head off coronavirus, he never even acknowledged that more than 120,000 people have died in this country. there was zero acknowledgement of that at all. and then in this stadium, i could imagine if you're a candidate and you're standing up

on that stage and all you see are those blue empty seats up there because that's what's in your line of vision. you could tell that he had a lot of low energy when we came to the stage. but his facts were just wrong. and then i think today on the other side of the screen, with what bill barr tried to do in the southern district of new york, that to do that undercover because all of us are paying attention to whether donald trump was going to have a lot of people spreading coronavirus in an arena. and so it was really kind of staggering to look at and to see all of these people all packed in together. and you know that some of them -- many of them came from outside of oklahoma. they came from other states. they're going to be going back to wherever they came. even if you tried to do contact tracing it really wouldn't work in an environment like that. and so, you know, i think this

president just tonight demonstrated yet again his complete incompetence and incapacity to really deliver for the american people. in some ways every time he takes to a stage or microphone he says even more loudly to his 30%, i got you, but -- [ inaudible ] >> donna, we lost you at the end. we're going to get that fixed before we come back to you. i'm going turn to cal perry. the president saying in his speech tonight that the protesters kept people away. what's the ground truth there? >> reporter: yeah, that didn't happen. you have a small contingent of black lives matter protester ♪ you see them here and they're completely outnumbered by trump supporter ♪ around 4:30 local time they

shut one of the entrances to just move the crowd back. that was the only thing that happened. again, if you wanted to get in and had a ticket, the police were actually filtering you have out of the crowd. but what you're seeing now is a total and complete powder keg. sooner or later this is going to go south. you have people verbally facing off. and around the outer perimeter you have well armed individuals, people carrying rifles. there they are right there. and so it is a microcosm of what we have in america, where serve splintering into groups. and in a place like oklahoma where there are guns everywhere, sooner or later all the elements come together in these street corners and intersections and what starts as a verbal argument isn't going to end that way. that has to be the concern of the 250 national guard who are around the corner standing by to come into this situation. >> cal perry, you can't just

drop that on me. show me that shot. i've never seen a person on the street -- i mean, that person is arm in the a way that i've only seen people in a war zone armed. just tell me a little bit more about what is right behind you. >> reporter: okay, so if we show that individual who has the rifle before -- and it's going to be tough for mark, and i apologize. he had a hawaiian shirt on. this indicates the boogaloo boys. they're preparing for violence or some of their members say they'll initiate violence. we have seen these groups moving around for quite some time. we have seen them moving around the black lives matter movement for quite some time. in states like florida and kentucky, which i've visitsed recently, there is a constitutional right to carry. you do not have to have a permit to carry a long guntulsa, so weg

that happen. that moment the gate shut for 15 minutes the police made an announcement the police made the street a federal protective zone. they said, if you have a weapon you need to leave now. i'm not exaggerating. half of the crowd left. now the folks are starting to filter back in. my fear and the fear of law enforcement, is as the rally ends they're going run into a small but dedicated group of black lives matter protesters. that's the powder keg situation. we saw some of this four years ago but it wasn't in a pandemic, the numbers weren't the same and there was not a national movement against police violence like you have now. all of this is a recipe for disaster, especially at not only trump supporters but black lives matter protesters getting more and more frustrated. both groups increasing in frustration and people are starting to come well armed to these events, nicole. >> okay. i'm going tell you three things.

this is another hen in me. you stay safe. i hope all the protesters stay safe. and i i would love to hear what's on the minds -- i know lawmaker has a lot of other things to do than talk to the media, but you work your magic. i'd love to hear how law enforcement are feeling about this. shoot me a text, wave your arms. we'll come back to you at any time. cal perry, we'll be talking to you early and often. when we come back, the president's war on justice and attorney general william barr's botched and dishonest announcement that the powerful u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york had resigned. he hadn't. now he's been fired. plus, the trump white house and race. vice president pence unable to even speak the words "black lives matter" the reverend al sharpton joins us. and a judge refuses to block the release of john bolton's

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welcome back. after a contentious standoff, attorney general bill barr says today that he enlisted the president to fire the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, geoffrey berman. for 2 1/2 years, berman's office has led probes into numerous trump associates, including a reported criminal investigation into trump's personal fixer, rudy giuliani. barr first attempted to oust berman through a press release late last night, announcing

that, quote, berman is stepping down. but that came as news to berman, who made clear he had not resigned, saying this -- quote, i have not resigned and i have no intention of resigning. so then berman vowed to continue his investigations until the senate confirmed a successor. well, that didn't sit well at all with the attorney general, who accused berman of choosing public spectacle over public service. huh. barr said that. then he added, quote, i've asked the president to remove you as of today, and he has done so. yet despite barr's assertion, the president today denied any involvement at all in firing berman. >> why did you fire geoffrey berman, mr. president? why did you fire him? >> that's all up to the attorney general. attorney general barr is working on that. that's his department, not my department. but we have a very capable attorney general, so that's really up to him. i'm not involved. >> barr meet bus. his effort to fire berman is the

latest evidence he's using his position to protect the president's interests and friends. it comes as he pushes to drop the government's charges against mike flynn, and it follows his attempt in february to recommend a lighter sentence for roger stone. now berman says he'll be leaving effective immediately. for more on this story, i'm joined by former senior member of the mueller probe, andrew weissmann, and washington correspondent for "the new york times" mike schmidt. andrew weissmann, first of all, the incompetence. it's hard to know where to start but this was an incompetently executed firing by the attorney general of the u.s. attorney because it's my understanding an attorney general can't fire a u.s. attorney. is that right? >> in this situation, that is correct. here the u.s. attorney was actually [ inaudible ]

>> andrew weissmann, we are going to work on your audio, so hold all of those thoughts. we're going to come back with the same question and have you make all those points again. mike schmidt, can you just take everyone through? it has been a while since the southern district of new york has sort of been at the center of the trump story. can you just take us back to everything that is still, as far as we know, under investigation by that office? >> well, the big thing that that office was looking at were the connections between rudy giuliani, these two gentlemen that were working for him, and the efforts to pressure the ukrainian government around these investigations that the president wanted. if you remember, there were these arrests that occurred. i guess it was maybe 6 months to

12 months ago -- in which these associates were wrapped up, the ones that were working for giuliani, were wrapped up in regards to this lobbying campaign in ukraine. and what that was for the president was yet another example of how that office was, in his eyes, going after him. the original sin for the president here is the michael cohen investigation, the investigation that went on in 2018 into the president's lawyer and fixer, who had made these payments, arranged these payments before the election in order to silence a woman who was making claims about a sexual relationship with the president. now, that investigation led to cohen going to prison for three years. it led to embarrassing disclosures coming out about the president. the president was never charged in that investigation, but it was a major headache, and at the time, many people thought

something that could really actually sink his presidency. it did not. cohen went to prison. trump never charged. but something that the president has complained about routinely, publicly and privately, about the u.s. attorney there, geoff berman, for the fact that berman allowed this investigation to go forward. and it sort of -- look, donald trump fails to surprise me, but he does a lot of things that are unpredictable, and he has in recent weeks, dating back to the end of the winter, fired different people, whether they were inspector generals -- or in this case a u.s. attorney -- who he believed were not loyal to him. so this fits into that pattern. >> it fits into that pattern, andrew weissmann, but before we lost you, we were talking about how this was a botched firing. i mean, the president said he had nothing to do with it.

the attorney general, it's my understanding, didn't have the authority to do it himself. so it took them two days to get rid of someone who, as mike schmidt was just recounting, has investigated and we believe to still be investigating some of the people closest to the president. >> absolutely. and that's totally right. the key here is that the goal was to get rid of berman quickly and to immediately appoint an acting u.s. attorney from new jersey. but instead, because of both the lying by attorney general barr and the inhelp and the ineptitude, instead you're getting a career chief assistant in the southern district, audrey strauss, who is now going to be acting. and you don't get any better than her. so what they are getting is they're going from a trump nominee to somebody who is a career person, who i think is actually going to be their worst nightmare.

if they were looking for a lackey, that's not what they're going to get. >> andrew weissmann, it is a familiar pattern. trump's sort of attempts at corruption and corrupting different branches of government and his incompetence collide spectacularly, and we've become accustomed to that. but barr has participated in an incredibly incompetent attempt at corrupting allies. speak to barr's last four big moves, suing the bolton book and losing in court. trying to fire berman and screwing that up and getting thrown under the bus in the tape we just showed. trying to meddle in the sentencing of mike flynn and now being before that judge, who said, no, mike flynn confessed to lying in my courtroom. let's have someone else look at it. and the resignation from the department and the resignation from the case for his meddling in the roger stone sentencing. he's not really doing a very

good job at being whatever he's trying to be, donald trump's roy cohn, i guess. >> absolutely. so he's not helped by the president. so, you saw the daca decision that came out this week, and that was a situation where the president actually didn't get his ducks in a row and set forth a legitimate basis in which to get rid of it. and that's what the supreme court held. so that was ineptitude. you have ineptitude with the president saying that john bolton is lying in his book, which to me completely undermines the claim that john bolton is revealing classified information. it can't be both. if he's completely lying, nothing's classified. and you have the attorney general actually submitting -- allowing to be submitted a variety of submissions in the stone case and then reversing it, you know, a few days later. same thing happened in the flynn case. and this situation is exactly the same, where he didn't focus

on the law here, and the result is he both looks inept, he looks like he completely lied about his conversations with geoff berman, and the result is that he's getting an acting u.s. attorney who is going to be just as strong in terms of independence as geoff berman was. >> andrew weissmann, mike schmidt, thank you so much for jumping on and spending some time with us on this other huge and still unfolding story. we've got a lot more to get to in tonight's special coverage. the rev al sharpton joins me next. where will you go first? wherever you make go, lexus will welcome you back with exceptional offers. get zero percent financing and make no payments for up to 90 days on all 2020 lexus models. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. no uh uh, no way

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joining us now, the rev al sharpton, president of the national action network and host and colleague here on msnbc. rev, i want your thoughts on all of it. let's start first with, how is tulsa right now today, tonight? >> well, i was there yesterday as you know and keynoted the juneteenth rally. and there was a large turnout even though it had rained most of the day in an outdoor field, a social distancing practice, and they really were saying that they want to see the black wall street area rebuilt. they want to see that because this was an area that you're dealing in the early 20th century. you're talking about 1920s. 19-teens. they had built black businesses. they are built black wealth. and it was totally destroyed, almost 300 people killed on a racist attack. they are committed there to rebuilding it, redeveloping it,

and they celebrated juneteenth, the day that slavery ended in texas, which ended slavery in the united states in terms of chattel slavery. they celebrated it there with this proclamation they wanted to move forward. they also was dealing with police brutality. you had a case there, terence crutcher, a man killed by a policewoman there in tulsa named betty shelby, who was acquitted but then moved to the next county and became a member of law enforcement again, something the house bill that is being proposed, that many of us are supporting, would address. so there's a lot of hope of rebuilding, but there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system as an example right there in tulsa of several cases. the most well known is the terence crutcher case. and none of this is being addressed by this president.

in fact, the stunning insensitivity of the president tonight, despite his embarrassment that the crowd didn't come, was he actually defended confederate statues as part of american culture. i mean, to say that we are celebrating not only people that advocated slavery and are racist but that committed sedition and were traitors to the united states is amazing. you don't see anywhere in the world where countries celebrate and put up statues to in any way hold in high esteem people that were traitors to their country. one of my guests tonight on "politics nation" earlier said, you don't see statues of hitler in germany. why would we see people who led insurrection against the u.s. government in public spaces

supported by taxpayer dollars -- including black. s -- to maintain those statues? we're going to pay to maintain people that wanted us enslaved, and other americans are going to pay for statues of people that not only were racist but tried to overthrow the united states government. >> you're right. donald trump in his remarks tonight did talk about that dog whistle heritage. i want to ask you, rev, about something that our friend and colleague cal perry reported just a few minutes ago since i came on the air. he is outside of the rally, and he described -- his word was powder keg, and that was his adjective for this scene outside, which is a small group of very peaceful black lives matter protesters, who moved when they were asked to move for the people trying to get into the trump event and have slowly come back to that area outside the trump event. some trump supporters and some folks who are heavily armed.

i told cal to stay safe. i wish for all the protesters no matter their cause to stay safe. but this seems like an injustice to the city of tulsa to have what cal reported was a powder keg created in their city -- one, in the middle of a pandemic, two, in a moment where the nation is trying to heal and make some progress around issues of racial injustice and police brutality. but this rally seems to have brought with it, based on cal's reporting, some potential combustion. >> well, let us not forget just 24 hours ago, nicolle, the president had said that if the anarchists and other words he used, including low life, come, it would not be like new york or seattle or another city he named. i can't remember right now. so he in many ways incited these people to come to stand up and fight back. some of them, i think, were inspired to come well armed despite the fact that the people

that are part of the overall black lives matter movement, this moment of fighting for social justice, were clearly peaceful, clearly not armed, clearly not provocative. so, you have to say that you would suspect some of the people that are dealing with this were . ing. ing. being incited by the president if you just flipped it and someone like me, that was proud of last night and leading on the other side, had said, look, you guys come to this town we're going to deal with you differently than the peaceful ways in other cities or, in ways that other cities had problems they would have been saying i should be kept from coming this is the president of the united states being provocative andbe threatening. and the results is a powder keg that hopefully will not happen. we stressed last night in our rally, we do not want to become like the people we're fighting.

we do not believe in violence. we're fighting for a meaningful peace. >> such an important thing to say and to hear. rev, i'm so happy to see you always. thanks for spending some time with us. ahead, for us. a federal judge refuses to block john bolton's blistering book about donald trump. and his white house. we'll ask former cia director, john brennan about it next. irec, john brennan about it next for bs for bs than rheumatoid arthritis. when considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz a pill for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis when methotrexate has not helped enough. xeljanz can reduce pain, swelling, and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections.

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denied president trump's efforts to keep his former national security advisor, john bolton's book, from hitting shelves on tuesday. the book is full of damning revelations about this president's corruption and incompetence. terrorism says it's full of lies and fake stories. but also, apparently, full of totally accurate, classified information. >> obviously, the book was already out. it leaked and everything else. but he leaked classified information, so he's got a big problem. >> joining us now is john brennan, former cia director. now, lucky for us, an msnbc senior national security analyst. director brennan, the bolton portrait of trump is devastating. he depicts a president who's, in his execution of foreign policy, was totally corrupt. and it appears that he recognized that on day one. first, your thoughts on that portrait? >> well, i have disagreed with john bolton, many times, over

the years, from a policy perspective. i've never known him to be dishonest. and the portrait that he paints of donald trump, certainly, is consistent with everything else that has been said about donald trump by those members of his administration and white house staff. who have departed and not always on amicable terms. so i think john bolton is telling us, basically, what we know. he's giving it additional color. he's providing you stories. but this is, certainly, something that should come as no surprise to any american, given what we've had to endure over the last three and a half years. >> john bolton doesn't know it yet. but he is about to travel a path you've been traveling for years, since you told the truth. you have any advice for him? >> well, i, quite frankly, i have no sympathy for john bolton. because, while he was national security advisor, he was one of donald trump's chief apologists and enablers. and moreover, once he left that

position, he denied the country, the congress, the opportunity to hear these charges and these stories, while an impeachment hearing and trial was going on. and he wanted to save it for his book. so, he clearly has crossed swords with donald trump. donald trump is a very, very vindictive individual, who will carry a vendetta around with him. i have experienced such, and others have as well. but this is something that i think john bolton has basically made his bed. he is part of this den of vipers that i think has plagued this country, over the last several years. and so, i think he has come to terms now with having to confront donald trump and the actions that he takes enabled by william barr. between william barr and donald trump, they've had a mutual-manipulation relationship, over the last several years. donald trump does things for his own personal, crass, craven

interests. while, william barr does things for his far-right, ideological agenda. and they both enable each other. and i think john bolton now is running into both of them, and this will play out in the courts. >> william barr has been invoked. william barr's latest move. he tried to fire the u.s. attorney from new york and failed. so, today, got trump to fire the u.s. attorney from new york, who succeeded. geoff berman is leaving but as mike schmidt for "the new york times" reminds us, that office has prosecuted and imprisoned the president's former fixer and personal lawyer, michael cohen. it is, at this hour, investigating donald trump's current lawyer and fixer, rudy giuliani. what do you make of the firing? >> well, good on geoffrey berman for standing firm. and not just capitulating to william barr's and donald

trump's decision to remove him. until his deputy, who is a very well-respected individual, who has been riding along with geoffrey berman on a lot of these cases, will become the acting u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. but i think it demonstrates just how powerful a president of the united states can be, in terms of, at his or her whim, just removing individuals. and the fact that donald trump continues along this very corrupt path should make us all very, very worried about what we're in for in the coming months. and particularly, in this very dangerous period in the fall. during election season and between election day and inauguration day. i think this just demonstrates that donald trump and william barr will stoop to whatever depths they need to, in order to carry out their own personal agendas. >> our friend claire mccaskill's been listening in to this conversation. and, claire, i want to bring you in, specifically on the

director's point about what to expect. mike schmidt pointed out that donald trump has spent much of this year firing watchdogs, inspectors general, people that usually don't become household names. this is more brazen than that. firing the u.s. attorney for sdny. attempting, i guess, for a few hours, to put it under the purview of the u.s. attorney for new jersey. as the director was saying, it will be under the direction of a career prosecutor. your thoughts on -- on -- on the now reaching into one of the most important u.s. attorney's offices in the country. >> well, you know, i think it's really important to remember that there should be questions asked of william barr, under oath, in congress. particularly, in the senate judiciary committee. i mean, lindsey graham, come on. i mean, this is pretty stiff stuff to ignore. and here's the deal. you get fired for one reason. that is, you're not doing your job, malfeasance, bad

performance. barr admitted in a letter today that he'd offered him a promotion. that he wanted him to head the civil division at the justice department in washington. so clearly, they were not getting rid of him because they thought he was incompetent or for poor performance. the only reason they wanted to get rid of him was to stop him. to stop him from what he's doing. so he was smart enough to figure out that he could leverage refusing to step down, into getting his deputy into the driver's seat. and she is not a rollover. so, now, barr has another problem. he's got another one he's got to get rid of. and, mean bhiwhile, he's nomina somebody that is not qualified for the job. and he's going to, what, force the republican senators to walk the plank? to appoint a corporate lawyer as the head prosecutor of the southern district of new york? i mean, that's a stretch. so i think bill barr has really

handled this so badly. there's more problems coming. i think there's more problems coming for bolton. but there's, certainly, more problems coming for barr. >> you know, barr is this remarkable figure, claire, who is doing all the things trump always wanted done. and they were refused by people who were as trumpy as he is. but just lack sort of that recklessness. i mean, jeff sessions refused to do these things. matt whittaker, remember him? he was the acting attorney general for about 45 minutes. trump wanted him to meddle with the southern district of new york and, you know, he stared into that abyss and said i'm not going there. so this -- what is barr doing, claire? >> well, i don't -- what i really think he's trying to do, honestly, is placate trump. because he knows the clock is ticking. i -- this is just my hunch. that barr thought, well, we won't get clayton confirmed that quickly. but i can get a safe guy in

there. the guy from new jersey. and all i got to do is offer berman this promotion, and he'll want to do that and quietly save face. well, he underestimated berman, clearly. he didn't realize berman wasn't interested in playing the clock game, and trying to placate trump. so i think jegeoff berman total outfoxed bob barr, and our country is better off for it. >> all right. director brennan, claire mccaskill, two of the smartest and best people that we have in our stable to join us on nights like this. thank you both so much for spending some time with us. much more ahead in the next hour. we'll go back to cal perry on the ground in tulsa, outside donald trump's maga rally. rump'. my name is christine payne, i'm an associate here at amazon. step onto the blue line, sir. this device is giving us an accurate temperature check. you're good to go. i have to take care of my coworkers. that's how i am. i have a son, and he said,

"one day i'm gonna be like you, i'm gonna help people." you're good to go, ma'am. i hope so. this is my passion. if i can take of everyone who is sick out there, i would do it in a heartbeat. if i can take of everyone this virus is testing all of us. and it's testing the people on the front lines of this fight most of all. so abbott is getting new tests into their hands, delivering the critical results they need. and until this fight is over, we...will...never...quit. because they never quit.

we're back with our continuing coverage of a split screen moment in donald trump's presidency. trump, just wrapping up a rally with a crowd of supporters much, much smaller, tinier, he might say, than he and his campaign anticipated. and publicly announced. which he reached to the depths of his usual rhetoric, including some race bating. black live matters protestors has gathered in acknowledgment of this moment of national reckoning on racism playing out across the country. it's all h