when i say i'm up, we're up. so if you could, please -- >> we love you, mr. president! >> up by massive numbers on enthusiasm. our voters are saying, i'm very angry about this. i'll go to the poll directly and vote. but their voters are saying i don't care if biden gets in. he doesn't have any enthusiasm. when you go to ohio, when you go to wisconsin, when you go to north carolina, when you go they have the trump/pence sign on their lawns. indiana, too. indiana's great. bobby knight, we love bobby knight. they love us and we love them. indiana is great. thank you. if they don't enthusiasm, you say, are you going to vote? i'm not getting up to vote. okay. i want to watch television. all right. but here's a ballot. he opens it, here is a ballot.

what am i going to do with this thing? and they have somebody knocking on your door, and they're harvesting. hey, have you gotten your ballot? yeah, i have my ballot. are you going to sign it? if you want, i'll sign it. here it is, get out of here. that's the most honest way of doing it. and that's unfair. that's unfair because now they're taking all of that enthusiasm that our party has, and we have tremendous enthusiasm. i think we have record enthusiasm. we have a base -- [ cheers and applause ] we have a base the likes of which nobody has seen including these people. "the wall street journal" did a fantastic story this weekend, a fantastic cover story on this base, an incredible base. everybody here is going to vote. we have a tremendous base. they don't. they have no enthusiasm for their candidate because, frankly, bernie sanders, they have much more enthusiasm for him but bernie sanders, excuse me, again, he's the greatest

loser i've ever seen. this guy can lose and be so happy. hillary clinton, i want to use nice language, starts with the word s-c -- i don't want to use it because they'll say he used foul language while in north carolina. i won't do that. bernie sanders got taken advantage of. is that okay? by hillary clinton. worse, by the democrats this time. because of pocahontapocahontas,h warren, got out of the campaign one day prior to the super tuesday vote. bernie sanders would have won every single state because biden won by a little bit, and she took -- she didn't do well but she took thousands and thousands of votes away. if you add just a percentage of those votes back, that means that bernie would have won easily the nomination. and i'm glad he didn't because he had much more enthusiasm, and he would have had a base -- a much smaller base than ours but

equally, i have to say this, equally as enthusiastic. this base doesn't like joe biden. they don't like joe biden. i think we're going to get a lot of votes. we did last time. people were surprised, primarily because of trade. i know how other countries take advantage of us and i understand that, and that's something that bernie sanders' people really feel -- because i understand trade. i've done usmca now, i got rid of nafta. [ cheers and applause ] china tariffs. china has had the worst year in 67 years prior to the plague, the worst year in decades and decades. we've had the best year we've ever had, but we took in billions in china. we never took in 10 cents from china, never took in 10 cents. china, for 25 years, not only obama, for 25 years china was taking in anywhere between $200 billion, with a "b," and $550

billion from the united states. i give them all the credit. number one for being smart and outfoxing all of the people that stood here and their representatives, but china, we helped build. we gave them $300 billion, $400 billion, $500 billion a year because before that and before the world trade organization and them getting into it china was flat lined. it was after that happened and then they took advantage of us because we didn't have people smart enough to see and, by the way, biden would be the worst of all of them, because his son took out $1.5 billion and gets fees on $1.5 billion, millions of dollars a year. give me a break. china will own our country if this guy gets elected. we can't let it happen. >> that's right. stop that. >> so we have a big one coming. and just to finish enthusiasm,

so they take the enthusiasm now out of the equation because they're going to knock on everybody's door. here, would you sign this? yeah, i'll sign it. nobody knows who the hell is signing it and they want to have it where the signature doesn't have to be verified. no, that's right. the signature doesn't have to be verified. and then they're going to play the game we're not patriotic. what they're doing is using covid to steal an election. they're using covid to defraud the american people, all of our people, of a fair and free election. we can't do that. [ applause ] don't let them give you the post office stuff. the postal service, they do a great job, lose a lot of money. i've said if they charged amazon and these companies doing that a couple dollars more a package, that amazon has to pay not the customer, you know what would happen? the post office would start

doing very well, thank you. amazon dumps all the packages. why should we deliver it? we'll let the post office do it, lose a fortune. if they charged amazon -- of course he owns "the washington post" so i get bad stories in "the washington post." i wonder why. i just tell it like it is, right? i tell it like it is. >> we love you! >> we've accomplished more -- we've accomplished more during the first 3 1/2 years of this administration than any president in the history of our country, and i'm not even getting pushback. i've been saying this for two years, for three years. i used to say two years, for three years, but we've done more -- let's say just about -- this way they can't say, well, you know, somebody won a war or something, right? no, no. we've accomplished more than just about any administration in the history of our country. we've secured our borders. [ applause ]

we've built our wall, which will be finished very shortly. we brought back manufacturing jobs. we've defeated the entire -- defeated the caliphate and killed baghdadi. we also killed the greatest, biggest terrorist maybe of them all, and al baghdadi. we appointed 300 new judges by the end of the first term we will have appointed 300 -- it's an unheard of -- unheard of number. that's because president obama was very nice and gave me 142 openings. historically you get no openings -- when you become president, the first question, how many judges? none, sir. because the other previous president, they want to -- it's a very important thing. federal judges. so i've appointed -- we will

have appointed 300 -- it could be even more than that by the end of the first term. and i sat down and i said the first day, how many judges do i get to appoint? they said, sir, 142. i said -- because, you know what? he thought hillary was going to win. right? and the republicans did not make it easy, let's say. if you have enough time there's not much anybody can do with it. we ended up with 142 judges and added many. we'll end up with 300 and two great supreme court justices. and, remember this, i'm saying that i'm -- i'm demanding, actually, a list. let biden put up a list of the judges he's going to appoint, like i did. i had 25 and we'll take it out of that list. we're going to be announcing a list over the next couple of weeks with the judges that we had plus we might add a few more so we know exactly where we stand. he can't do it because he would appoint -- it's not him.

he has no choice. the radical left will demand that he appoints super radical left wild, crazy justices. going into the supreme court. your american dream will be dead if that happens. it'll be dead. and the next -- and, by the way, the next president -- so i've had two. some presidents have had none. i've had two in a relatively short period of time. but i will tell you that the next one could have two, three, four, and even five, the next president this is so important this is so -- whether you're talking about life, whether you're talking about second amendment, whether you're talking about military. this is so important. we have to do this. we have to win this election. but we brought back manufacturing. we rebuilt our military. we wiped out isis. think of it. when i came, isis was all over, the prime minister of iraq was

in last week and he said i want to thank you for defeating isis. i said are you talking about me or the united states? you. they were all over iraq and syria. tell that to the media. he said, i will. let's see if he does. we passed the biggest tax cuts in the history of country. we replaced nafta with a great usmca deal that will keep our companies here and it's going to be treating us very nicely. they said you'll never be able to replace nafta and i got it. i got it through congress. we fixed a horrible deal that was made.

with south korea. hillary clinton said this will produce 250 million jobs and she was right except, unfortunately, the jobs went to south korea. don't forget when i made that the wasn't dry before the china virus poured into our country. it's done very well. last week the largest order of corn, the largest order of soybeans. a lot of people would say we're not going to order and they're doing the opposite. sonny perdue is here. there he is.

is that right? it was the largest order of corn in the history of our country twice. running a country, they would say we're not going to do business with them. he's not saying nice things. china is very smart. they've ordered more corn than we ever thought was possible. and now i have people calling me up we love china. don't be too tough on them. makes it very difficult, right? we do too good a job sometimes. we've achieved american energy independence. we're now number one in the world by far. they want to go to wind.

they don't know if they want to go to wind. i think they want to close up our country. they want to do something. there is no such thing. solar can't do it. i love solar. heavily expensive. very expensive. they want to go to other forms of alternate -- alternative energy. i think that's okay except we don't have them. it's not going to power these massive factories. and hydro i love. it's one of my all-time favorites. hydro i love, i have to tell you. it's the great dams. you don't see that too much. the environmentalists say you can't build a dam there. now we can. we've done things that nobody thought were possible like, example, the keystone pipeline. we got that approved. the dakota access pipeline. they were all bogged down, right? right? i got it approved. we have things they said you couldn't get done.

we're energy independent and they said we want to ban fracking. no fracking. how do you think they'll do in texas, oklahoma -- >> louisiana. >> louisiana is going to love it. there's no fracking. basically they want no fossil fuel whatsoever. no gas, no oil, no coal, no nothing. so they don't want anything. now they're getting killed because a poll just came out in texas -- texas wasn't happy. they want no guns, no oil and gas, and they want no god. no god. it's no religion, no guns, no oil and gas. i don't think you're going to do too good in texas. george washington could come back from the dead and he could choose vp candidate the late great abraham lincoln and you're not going to win the state of texas if you have no oil, no guns, and no religion.

i don't think so. you're not going to win too many places. we eliminated obamacare's unfair individual mandate which knocked out obamacare. we've protected your second amendment. we've cut drug prices the first time in 51 years. we have drug prices down. now i did a favored nations clause. we pay the same price as the lowest country that has the best deal. the companies are going crazy, taking ads on me. i went to mark, they're killing me. they have nothing but cash. okay. big pharma they call it for a reason. nobody who gives the politicians more money. not even close f. you're not

going to negotiate a fair deal we're going to do a favored nation's clause. no, don't do the favored nations stuff. we have countries out there that are paying a tiny fraction of what our people are expected to pay. by the way, the uk, all of europe, canada pays 50%. 5-0, 50% less. people leave our country, go to canada, pick up their drugs and they come back home. can you believe it? this is the kind of difference. no, i want a favored nation's clause and a rebate clause. they get more money, frankly, than the drug companies. at least the drug companies make a product. i instituted a favored nation's clause. you have that in deals.

we're the biggest purchaser. so whatever the low eest price that other countries pay. so if you have a country paying 10 cents for a pill and we're paying $2.50 and it's not such an exaggeration, believe me, then we get it for 10. they'll go up a little bit. we'll come way, way down. i said favored nations, i want to pay what the lowest price is anywhere in the world 689 we're the biggest purchaser. we want a favored nations. they had a heart attack, and then i signed it. they didn't believe it. and now thatter what doing they have ads, millions and millions of dollars worth of ads that i've been horrible to the people because of drugs and i believe in socialism. you know why, because some of the socialistic countries get the lowest price. so the only thing i have with socialism i want to get their price.

other than that is our country will never be a socialist country. >> hallelujah! [ cheers and applause ] >> so we cut drug prices -- >> usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! >> you could get cuts, as much as 50%, 60%, 70%. maybe even more than that on prescription drug prices. and wouldn't it be a kick -- i'll use this, wouldn't it be a kick in the ass if i lost and sleepy joe as president and this thing kicks in right about soon, right, in 30, 40 days. people wake up after the election, boy, biden has done a great job. my drug prices went down by 70%. what a great president he's been. he's great.

and sleepy joe would say i thought about that, but nobody ever -- everybody knew about favored nations, but nobody had the guts to do it. and i'll tell you, i was called by many politicians, please don't do it, sir. please. i said why? they don't want to tell me why. i know why. because they're politicians and they've been helped out, and i guess we have to understand that, too. but the fact is that we signed a favored nation's clause and a rebate clause and your numbers are going to come down 60%, 70%. i hope you remember that on november 3rd because nobody but me would ever do it. [ cheers and applause ] the other thing i've done aside from very strongly protecting your second amendment, which was not easy -- that was not easy. and, by the way, they will take your guns away as sure as you are sitting or standing there. they will take your guns away. either that or obliterate the second amendment, the right to bear arms. you have the right to bear arms especially when you look at a portland and you see how weak

those democrats are, the governor, the mayor, how pathetic letting them riot every night. let us come in and solve your problem. we will solve it for you in one hour just like in minneapolis, minnesota. five nights, six nights, they have to ask us in. let us come in. we'll solve your problem. they're almost used to it. this is the way our whole country would be if you ever let a thing like this happen. our whole country would be. so we protected your pre-existing conditions, very strongly protected pre-existing conditions. you don't hear that but we protected your pre-existing conditions. we got rid of the horrible individual mandate which cost everybody a fortune and we strongly protected every republican is sworn to protecting your pre-existing conditions. it's very important. you won't hear that. you won't hear that from the fake news. we passed right to try. we passed v.a. accountability

and v.a. choice. we mobilized the largest response since the second world war. we are doing an incredible job on the china virus. i will talk to you about that thursday night. will anybody be listening on thursday? [ applause ] and just very quickly, in the second term, among many other things, we'll continue with our military. we built the strongest military by far. it was depleted. a nice marine back there. it was depleted like you wouldn't believe. we have the best jets and rockets and equipment of any kind, tanks. tanks made in ohio. tanks made in ohio. so we're going to create 10 million jobs i think very easily in the first ten months. they want to raise your taxes. all my life i've heard as a politician you like to lower taxes, right? this is the only election somebody said we're going to raise your taxes. they're going to quadruple your taxes. they're going to add on to the

regulations. there are all of these projects we have start that had are great projects, they won't be able to get built so they're going to raise your taxes, raise your regulations, make it impossible to build a highway. it used to take 17 years, 18 years, 20 years, 21 years, a long time in some cases, to get approval to build a highway, right? we have it down to two years now. we're going to have it down to one. it may get rejected for environmental or safety reasons but we'll know it very quickly. we're not going to take 17 years -- we could name highways they took forever and cost 100 times more and they're not as good. some of them go in circles to get to a point. they want to miss a certain nest. let's spend $37 million to miss. we have to be smart. we have to win an election. also we're going to create tax credits for companies that bring our jobs back from china and our countries and impose tariffs on countries that take advantage of

the united states, and they've been taking advantage of us for years and years. and i've already done it in certain cases. we have countries that tariff us and we don't tariff them. so they tariff us, it's very simple, it's called reciprocal. they tariff us, they catariff them. we are going to fully fund law enforcement and hire more police. [ cheers and applause ] we're going to go with school choice. we've made a lot of progress on school choice for every student in america. we're going to continue to expand opportunity zones. there's been nothing better -- don't forget it was us -- us -- together that got criminal justice reform done. the greatest thing for the black community, african-american community, they came and they said we can't believe it.

obama didn't even try. and not only that, i got funded the historically black colleges and universities. i got that -- i got them funded. they weren't funded. they were year to year. they didn't know if they were going to be around for another year and they would come in to the white house and after three years why do you keep coming back? well, it's a year-to-year deal. that's not fair. you have to come back every year. we got them long-term financing and long-term funding. nobody has done more for the historically black colleges and universities than donald trump. nobody. nobody's done more for the african-american community. no president has done as much as anybody since. i mean, since abraham lincoln. it's true. it's true. criminal justice reform, opportunity zones with tim scott of south carolina. he's a great senator.

a great gentleman. tim scott is fantastic. opportunity zones. think of it, criminal justice reform, opportunity zones, the colleges and universities. what we've done has been amazing. the most important thing is prior to the virus the greatest job numbers in the history of the african-american community, the hispanic community and the asian, as i said. i just want to thank everybody. we're going to get rid of our sanctuary cities as soon as we can so that they don't protect -- [ applause ] we put nasa back in action. they had grass growing through its runways. it had grass growing through the cracks of its runways. it was closed, essentially, just a disaster. now it's the number one space center anywhere in the world by far. you saw the ships going up. and for some reason a lot of rich people like rockets going up, and so we say let's lease them our beautiful launching areas and let them send all the

rockets. let them pay for it. but we'll be landing on mars. we've gone to the moon, we'll be the first on mafrmrs. if we're here, we'll do it. i just want to again thank -- i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. you're incredible warriors. you have incredible strength. you have unbelievable intelligence. it's a combination of both. i don't know which is greater, the intelligence or the patience. i assume it's the patience. but i have to tell you i think we have the greatest base of support anywhere at any time, any election and people are starting to find that out. they found it out in 2016 and i will be honest, this election, i believe, we have far greater enthusiasm in this election -- >> that's right. >> we had a level that was a

record because they still don't believe what happened. they said where are all these people coming from? people that were great americans that had never voted. because they didn't like who they were watching or looking. people were great. they didn't vote. i'll never forget a congressman from tennessee came up. they do very early voting. tennessee a great state. and they had just started voting and i was in pennsylvania making a speech. he said, sir, i don't know. i can't speak for anybody but i'm from tennessee and i've been doing this for a long time. he said i've never seen anything like it. people are coming from the valleys and the hill tops. they're coming from the cities. they're coming from all over. they're coming out of the rivers. they're coming along the beautiful -- those beautiful war fields that we have. they're coming from everywhere, sir. i've never seen anything like it. if other states are like tennessee you're going to win this election. he was the first one to say it. he was the first one. they came from the mountains. they came from everywhere.

he said i've never seen anything like it and people would be having trump/pence and the hats, these are people that never were political people. they never wore a pin in their life having to do with politics. it's been an incredible experience for me. it's been an incredible experience for everyone and i'll tell you what, next year will be an incredible, a great, great year, a year of tremendous success. we're fighting off this horrible thing that was delivered by china and it was by china and we're never going to forget it and i let them know. we'll never let them forget what they did. we're going to do better economically than we did last year. but we can never forget the 175,000 people, which will go up -- remember this, though, we saved millions because if we didn't move, and if i didn't put the ban on highly heavily infected people coming to our

nation from china, that everybody told me not to do, months later they were saying we shouldn't and then they all either apologized or admitted it was right. and europe. i did europe, too, very early. if we didn't do that our numbers would be at a level like you wouldn't believe. so i just want to thank everybody for this incredible support. be very, very careful. this is going to be -- and i really believe this -- the most important election in the history of our country. don't let them take it away from you. don't let them take it away. north carolina, we love you. that's why i'm here. thank you very much. very special people. thank you. god bless you all. well, welcome to monday. it is "meet the press daily" a truncated version.

we've been watching president trump address delegates in charlotte after being formally renominated at the opening session of the 2020 republican convention. that roll call vote is now going to formally wrap up. we were told this convention would be upbeat and optimistic. well, what we have just heard from the president was a grievance filled informal acceptance speech filled with so many made-up problems about mail-in voting if we were to air the truthful parts we could probably only air maybe a sentence if that much. so until the president has kicked off his unconventional convention, and we have to kick off with a massive fact check with it. we're going to get to that in a second. clearly this convention will look a lot different from what we saw last week from the democrats. the president currently trails biden in the polls by a sizable margin. he's seemingly been looking for ways to disrupt the votes and sow doubts about its result than to catch up the clean way. he opened his address to the rnc with a warning about those

results and then went on a tirade about how this election is going to be rigged unless he wins. as the president opens this convention, the postmaster general is being grilled on capitol hill right now amid concerns the administration has tried to disrupt the mail and have an impact on the balloting itself. we'll have the latest from that hearing in a moment. but, folks, the first few hours of the gop convention speaks volumes about where we are just 71 days from the election and where we're headed. republicans have affirmed the party for all intents and purposes has no principles anymore. they don't have a platform other than to enthusiastically support one person, donald j. trump. the party will adjourn this convention without adopting a formal platform of ideas and principles. we're not making this up. it's an acknowledge it doesn't see itself as a party of ideas per se, as a party of one man, pure and simple.

as i promise we'll go through the fact checks before i bring in our correspondents. so zero evidence obviously that the election is being rigged. democrats tried to steal the election with mail-in voting, so the president claims, just nine states have mail-in voting. five have done it before the coronavirus, colorado, hawaii, oregon, utah and washington. it looks like instances of fraud in colorado, oregon and washington are 0.0025% over two election cycles. the new states that are doing mail-in voting. nevada has a republican secretary of state, mind you. so this is not some one party business. montana, north dakota, nebraska all allow individual counties to decide whether to mail all ballots to all registered voters. two of the three governed by republicans there. obama did not appoint judges because he thought clinton would win is not true. if you will recall there has been a republican senate since 2014. mitch mcconnell made that his goal for the last year is to

keep as many judicial nominees -- to keep president obama from filling those judicial appointments. and then, of course, made the claim about the republican party strongly supporting pre-existing conditions when there is an active lawsuit to get rid of the aca which would get rid of the law that would force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. so that's just a few of what we heard there. it's going to be a long week for fact checkers. joining me now from charlotte, north carolina, the site of the rnc's first day of official business is our own monica alba, kristen welker at the white house, and that will be the rnc venue later today in a break with tradition. and also with us is a former adviser to mitt romney. monica alba, let me start down there. paint us a picture of the scene down there. charlotte went from four days to four hours after convention. how did it go? >> reporter: exactly, chuck, and, boy, if that was any

preview for the rest of the week we are in store for a lot of headlines. the president clearly wanting to make himself not just the traditional centerpiece of this week but saying don't pay attention almost to anything else. this show really is about me. that's what he just exhibited with this 50-minute-long speech filled with so many complaints and grievances that it was like a campaign rally. of course those massive events have essentially been shelved because of the coronavirus pandemic but he is still finding a way to deliver them this is a crowd, of course, that loves him, these 336 delegates that traveled here, were invited, officially renominated him, were part of the roll call. it's an audience he was feeding off of in a way i have to note he hasn't had a lot of in the last five months. you could tell that made him want to continue making these false claims certainly. but, yes, the charlotte part of the convention essentially ends in the next hour or so once the roll call is officially finished and all of the action then moves to washington. i want to point out a couple of things here. just before the president took

the stage vice president mike pence gave a much shorter teleprompter speech effectively delivering very much an on message response to the democrats, and that was something we were told by the trump campaign was going to happen. then the president comes out and delivers something that really, really undercuts what they promised this week was going to be which is some optimistic picture for the future. it's really hard. we've seen this so many times in the trump era where you have officials trying to say here is what we're doing and the president comes out and undermines them entirely with his own actions. a couple of other things, chuck, north carolina is a state the president won last time. it's a state that would be crucial to his re-election. a lot of people felt he had abandoned the state when he was upset with the governor for saying you can't have a convention here with 19,000 people. the president touched on that saying you still mean a lot to me. it's an important state. i thought it was notable because he tried to blame this sort of on the pandemic and politicize the fact you can't have these massive gatherings, but we should note these many hundreds of people together in the

convention center behind mean is the largest event they've had here in charlotte all summer long. they've tried to follow the protocols, have mostly masks. that was essentially a mini rally here delivered in the early hours of the convention, chuck, and that means we haven't gotten to prime time. we haven't discussed what that will be like and the president will be a part of each night going forward. we're not expecting a full-on speech like we saw every night. thursday will be the president's marquee speech and may be more like a state of the union speech. it will be different tonally. on monday he was railing against universal mail-in voting. on thursday he may appear more presidential. i think that's the contrast we may see later in the week. charlotte almost a wrap from here. >> we'll see, monica. we'll see if he can keep the discipline on remarks throughout the week. that will be something to watch for there. monica alba in the four-hour convention city of charlotte.

to the white house where the convention will be moving in the next couple of hours. kristen welker is there. and, kristen, the big decision by this white house -- it is, again, you sometimes think this is a parody not to have a platform. admitting the party is not a party of ideas. it is a party of an individual. we know this is what donald trump wants, but it feels a very difficult sell really for the rest of the convention and the rest of party and it's a tough image to defend, i have to think. >> reporter: it's a tough image to defend, and i think it makes it difficult for republicans to put that optimistic spin on this convention this week because, of course, you have president trump, who has laid out this grievance, as you say, grievance filled speech, chuck, which sounded a lot like a campaign speech, but not necessarily the type of speech that his aides have been signaling he's going to give today or even on

thursday. so, again, it just makes the substance of this the meat very difficult to access when you don't have that party platform. in terms of what we are anticipating what we saw today, chuck, i think does underscore what we're expecting from this convention which is one that will be aimed at energizing the base. you see that in the speakers who have been chosen. a number of them from the president's family, a number of gop lawmakers and yet not speakers who are from a range of ideological spectrum which we saw during the democratic convention, for example, during the convention we heard from john kasich, from colin powell, largely we're going to hear from speakers who energize the base including the mccloskeys, of course, the missouri couple who is touting guns at the black lives matter protesters, facing charges. the president has defended them. and, again, they are the type of symbolism the president wants to

be touting throughout this convention. it's a risky strategy, chuck. he is trailing in the polls to joe biden, and the question is does he need to bring in a broader group of voters and does he need to try to reach out to some of those voters who might be on the fence. we know if you look deep into the polls some of the folks who voted for him in 2016 aren't so sure particularly those suburban women. and when he tweets things out like suburban housewives, that doesn't necessarily help. i want to make one point about the backdrop at the white house based on my conversations with a number of republicans over the weekend, they're not comfortable with the backdrop being at the white house. even given these extraordinary circumstances it does not justify holding the convention here at the white house. it's not a violation because the president is exempt from that but, still, they believe the optics are problematic. >> kristen, they are not the

arbiter and the amount of violations in this convention, yes, the president himself is not violating it but what they're doing with mike pompeo -- i mean, they are violating this in so many different ways. they're almost daring it and, unfortunately, i think without nibbling to enforce it, they've blown right through it. you wonder why they bothered passing it. it is beyond stunning. kristen welker with the report from the white house. kristen, thanks very much. let me bring in a republican not at this convention, somebody who always tries to work with the other side of the aisle to the point he has started a caucus inside of congress called the problem solvers caucus and you can only be a member if you're willing to be a member of somebody from the opposite party. congressman tom reid joins me

now. congressman, to wake up this morning and find out the republican party is not going to have any platform for ideas, i nknow it's symbolic but this seems to be a symbolic message at a time the party is already having to defend itself as a cult of personality party and this seems to be a rubber stamp on republican party is only united in one individual it supports and all the things they hate. is that what we're down to? >> it reinforced the 2016 platform approved at the convention of 2016. we have reaffirmed that platform at this convention. those are the principles of the republican party and i think it's misleading to say we don't have a platform coming out of the 2020 convention it's the

same we won on in 2016 and the american people have seen the results of over the last four years. >> well, that's one way to interpret it. that's fine. president's remarks, is that what you were hoping to hear? >> obviously you're at a convention. he's speaking to the base today as he got nominated. you're also going to see on thursday night, i hope, a state of the union type of speech. and he's going to offer what he's going to bring for the next four years and you see in the principles released this morning in regards to the innovation we're going to support bringing back jobs from china, holding china accountable, enforcing a trade agenda where you have fair and free trade that for years has been talked about but no action. this president has been the only

one that has enforce d those policies the last four years. >> how would you answer the question of what does it mean to be a republican today? >> i'm a proud republican. it's standing with people and giving the power to the people over government. making sure government knows its limits. there's a role to make sure people have an opportunity to succeed and that you go after the bad actors and you hold accountable those that want to abuse people in their position of power and also to abuse their positions in order to get ahead. at the end of the day it's about empowering people and making sure they have the opportunity to succeed on their own merits. the democratic party obviously has embraced big government and is trying to sell that government is going to take care of you from cradle to grave, and we know, as republicans, that's not realistic and stifles american innovation, entrepreneurialship, and the best in the people of america.

>> now, look, what you described is what i thought the divide between the parties was was on size of government. do you think it's that well or particular late e articulated b party and president trump? it's exploded beyond numbers anybody thought was possible in one term. >> i would agree that is something we have to work on on both sides of the aisle. as republicans we have to get this national debt and spending under control, and that is something as a republican who is committed to that, i will challenge our own side of the aisle to embrace that going forward. but, yeah, government is growing exponentially and it is time for us to get that under control. that is something we, within the republican party, have our own differences obviously, and that is an internal debate. at the end of the day given the crisis we faced with covid-19, i recognize these are unique times and take extraordinary measures

in order for us to get out of this crisis we find ourselves in. >> do you trust mail-in voting? >> i do. i do trust the idea of absentee voting. i am concerned about sending ballots just to every registered voter. some states are embracing that, as you know. there's a difference between absentee ballots and mail-in voting as opposed to just sending out ballots to people who have not requested them so that's the concern that i share with the president, but i do at the end of the day trust the american people, and i believe that the integrity of those that want to use that will win out and we should trust the people in regards to the election process. >> do you think the president is being irresponsible by trying to basically claim if he loses, it's been rigged? >> no, obviously i don't think that's the appropriate message. i think the concern about sending out millions of ballots

without any type of accountability mechanism is a legitimate concern but at the end of the day we are in a crisis. we have a public health emergency out there, and people should be able to get access to the ballot even in these difficult times. i would encourage folks that are concerned about that to work together, to make sure that the message is delivered that if you are going to abuse the system and abuse this crisis for political purposes, for election fraud, you go to jail. you will be held accountable, and you will go to jail if that's the path you choose to take. >> it's actually quite difficult to successfully commit voter fraud. there's quite a few accountability things in place there. congressman tom reed, i heard you have a call there. i will let you go and grab that call. thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective with us. >> i appreciate it. let me bring in lonnie chen,

the direct osh of policy for the 2012 romney campaign. he spent a lot of time at the hoover institute, another place that percolates with ideas. a lot of them sometimes from the right of center. and as a policy guy, how comfortable are you with this platform that the rnc has affirmed today? >> well, chuck, i've worked on two platform committees. i worked on the 2004 platform committee and in 2012. it should be more than a reaffirmation for an incumbent or any individual. it should be a statement of what the party will stand for and what it will do the next four years. i think the republican party this time around would have benefited from even looking at some of the president's stated priorities and trying to do something with that. in 2004 we did it for president bush. we reaffirmed a lot of what was

going on during his administration, fighting the war on terror, talking about an opportunity and ownership society and we actually had some fights over the platform within the party. different people believing different things. that's an important process to a political party. so this time around it's quite clear they didn't want to have this conversation. it wasn't a discussion they were interested in getting into. and so they decided to say, look, we're going to support the individual and support the platform from last time, but it's a very important process that i think political parties need to go through. >> but you know, lanhee, it were just this current environment you would say, okay, you sort of understand it in the moment. but i couple it with the lineup of convention speakers where pretty much your best chance of becoming a speaker was to have the last name of trump. you throw it in the i alone can fix it mind-set of the president himself. you throw it in with what he, what i guess we're supposed to

describe as his governing style which is seat of the pants, what's in it for him. in some ways this, to me, was a fitting platform. this is what the party has become when you watch it from the outside and i have a feeling that good, upstanding members of the republican party like yourself and tom reed are just struggling to see what a lot of us are looking going, well, yeah, this platform makes sense for the presidency he's been running, does it not? >> yeah, well, no, as a reaffirmation of support for president trump, the platform is an accurate statement i think of where the party is right now and where we're going to see this week i think to a certain extent, chuck, you recognize every convention is about promoting whoever the nominee is. but in this situation what we are seeing is a focus on the president and the personality and the person of the president in the platform, in the conversation you're hearing, even in that speech that you saw the president give. it was very much him and his comfort zone, you could tell.

and so the challenge between the party now is this, which is what is the aspiration of the republican party? the aspiration of the republican party is exactly as the congressman stated, less government, more opportunity, lower taxes, strong national defense. i think everyone understands that. but that into conflict a little bit with what the actual situation is with the party right now, which is about support for president trump. and i think the party is going to continue to face that challenge, that internal challenge as it goes forward over these next several months and perhaps even after the election. >> yeah, i don't know a sing swing state republican senator up for election that wants to center the entire debate around president trump. they want it to be about a lot of things, but donald trump is not what cory gardner wants to be debating right now. lahnee chen, always appreciate your perspective. we'll be back with more of the breaking news you may have missed while the president was speaking. it's now public there's an investigation into president trump and the trump organization

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(fireworks exploding) welcome back. on this opening day of the republican convention, the hits just keep on coming for the president. we have newly released details of an investigation into the president and the trump organization. tom winter has these developments, and so tom, we had been expecting some movement

after the -- after this supreme court finally ruled on what cy vance and the new york investigators could get their hands on. what are we learning today? >> this is actually an entirely different investigation being led by the new york attorney general, letitia james. it's important to note this is a civil investigation, not a criminal investigation. what that means is this is an investigation that at this stage will not lead to anybody being put into handcuffs. she can make criminal referrals to various district attorneys' offices, but she cannot make criminal arrests and charges, at least at this stage of where we're at. specifically, let's get to it, there are a number of trump properties and filings and whether or not loans were properly sought based on accurate financial documents or whether or not property values were depreciated to lower real estate taxes. the properties are the seven springs estate, that's 212-acre property in westchester county, new york, that trump tried to

develop. 40 wall street, which is a large commercial mixed use building in lower manhattan, obviously on wall street. fairly well known building with the trump name on it. trump international hotel and tower in chicago. trump national golf club in los angeles. and specifically, the reason why this is becoming public today, and this is really one of the worst kept secrets in new york investigations, the attorney general's probe into these properties, the reason why this is becoming public today, chuck, is because late on friday, a sealed version and unredacted version of a motion to compel testimony was filed, and now today, a redacted version has been made public, specifically, the attorney general's office said eric trump was supposed to and initially agreed to testify in regards to this investigation and now refuses to do so, and on top of that, they're looking for specific documents tied to one of these land deals. chuck, something that we'll have to watch in the coming weeks and months, but now we have a little more detail as far as what this investigation is about. >> and very quickly, tom, is

this connected to the tax fraud scheme from the trump inheritance? or is this separate from that even? >> this appears to be its own investigation that was teed up by michael cohen's testimony to congress when he said the trump organization would inflate certain financial documents unorder to obtain loans or dial those financial statements back to try to avoid real estate taxes. so it stemmed from that. those are the allegations today, specifically what they found so far, well, that's in the redacted section, so unfortunately, we don't know what has been uncovered in this investigation, chuck. >> all right. the soup of the new york investigations, thank goodness we have you, tom winter, to sort it all out and the different probes involving trump. thank you. and that will do it for us with this truncated edition. msnbc coverage continues with katy tur right after this break. .

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