joining me, tiffany kroft and marina inohosa, e.j.dionne and jennifer rubin.se to me in a lot of ways, tiffany, because he was the ride or die best friend of john mccain who has become the reid or die best friend of donald trump. they have to protect the reputation of kavanaugh first. >> which is so ridiculous. with that kvapil is the victim commentary. listen, when thousands of people in pennsylvania came out and said that they were abused by the catholic church, nobody said, why didn't you say anything? we don't want to hear your comments. why is it acceptable to impugn this woman's character as a 17-year-old -- >> 15. >> 15 which sounds ridiculous. he should be embarrassed. i think he's somewhat of a masochist. donald trump has been so incredibly disrespectful of him. i wonder what does he get by following this guy and riding his coattails particularly in the face of this me too era. i'm embarrassed for him. >> he's a jag officer in the military. he sort of understands the legal process at least in the military sense. he's weighing in, including the conduct

i am joined by jennifer rubin. and sam seeder. >> your thoughts. >> i agree with richard clarke in terms of this op-ed. it is incredibly self-serving. if we find out who wrote this, there is going to be a half a dozen people who say they had a hand in this. distancing themselves from trump and distancing themselves from the conservative movements from trump. the only thing that is remotely interesting about this piece is it indicates that people think this is the time to do it. >> timing is as fascinating as anything about it. why not? >> only because there is a sense that the ship is taking on water and they want to make sure they get one of the dingies. >> the other part of this, when you saw it yesterday, you knew, it would drive him insane. his tweeting suggests it. and we know this is how he operates. politico, it will make him crazy, anonymous anti creed backfires. >> it is hard to figure out. the motive is murky at best. i look upon this as someone who is trying to soothe their own conscience. they have been

let's bring in jennifer rubin and sam seder, and danielle moody mills. jennifer, let me start with you. i will say the people that i know that know judge kavanaugh, having clerked on the circuit court attest very highly to him. he has a good reputation. it is also the case that "a" this allegation is extremely serious, but "b" you can't kind of buy the ticket and not take the ride. you accept donald trump's nomination, you work with bill shine in the white house, like, that's kind of on you, reputationally. >> yeah, listen, i think these guys have trouble imagining their good buddy, brett kavanaugh, such a great guy, a good conservative, could have done something like this. but people like this who are respectable, who are lawyers, who are doctors, abuse women, that's a fact. so their faith in him is boast misplaced and indicative of the problem here. which is whenever someone steps forward, no matter how credible her story, no matter how specific she is immediately tagged adds irrational, forgetful, has him confused with somebody else, is making this up

assistant attorney pierre williams, jonathan capehart from "america on the line" on opinion writer jennifer rubinifer, i'll start with you. vanity fair has a piece out by gabriel sherman reporting that trump believes there is a coup taking place against him and triggered by the new york times op-ed and sees enemies everywhere and here is an interesting line. besides family, according to the piece, one of the only people trump continues to trust is steven miller. the op-ed is validated miller's view, which is also steve bannon's view there is an administrative state out to get trump. a republican close to the white house said there is a coup and not a slow rolling or concealed coup told the writer which is gabriel sherman. it is interesting they see an administrative state coup when the people turning on him are his people. his lawyer. his campaign manager. his people. not the administrative state. >> right. i think there are two things going on simultaneously. one is, as you say, joy, everybody is turning on him. aside from his children, there is no one left in the inner circle. imagine for examp

msnbc contributor jennifer rubin, conservative columnist of "the washington post" and associate professortina beltran. jennifer, i will show that the president just in the last few minutes, i guess, like tweeted a lou dobbs segment defending his utterly odious comments on puerto rico. and i got to say okay, the president says horrible things and people sort of -- they hate it. but this felt to me like the kind of thing you should resign over or announce yourself as the anonymous op-ed writer there are 3,000 people that died and you're saying they didn't die. that's about as disgusting as it gets. >> it is. it's an insult to them, to their families, to the rescue workers. imagine if george bush said what 3,000 people that died on 9/11? the country would be in open revolt, and we should be over this as well. i think the realization is about to hit home for republicans that this is a loser for them. donald trump dominates the news with these crazy pants theory and statements, and they are tied at the hip with him. no wonder their polls are dropping like a stone. no wonder there they're doubl

from the from the the washington post by a woman a woman named jennifer rubin the human rights community lost a champion. who is she talking about oh there's a picture of john mccain your thoughts a picture of john mccain standing next to all of china bach the neo nazi leader of you who form the social nationalist party and then went on to form some abode i don't want as one of the three big leaders that mccain who even the ones who are in mainstream media grudgingly admit ok it's a neo nazi alex jump and a picture is worth a thousand words and i think. it's ridiculous to see everyone left and right from hillary clinton to lewis to bernie sanders. cause you know cortez raising job mccain as as a peacemaker as a man of peace. i do people have people for god in libya syria ukraine iraq bob bomb iran i mean it's it's comical at this point you know it's you know the demon is you know john mccain was an exemplar of of american foreign interventions military interventions around the world and the interesting thing is that just about every single intervention john mccain supported and it up in

jennifer rubin. robert, tell me about this book. and you are a trump whisperer, you know this guy. what did you make of what woodward was able to get about trump. this idea of a nervous breakdown? >> working with my colleague, we went page by page throughout this book and you see so many advisors around this president pulling him back on different decisions on trade, national security, foreign policy, expressing alarm to each other if not publicly, but privately on how they think the president is going in the wrong direction. >> crazy stuff. the common sense notion that a seven second warning rather than a 15-minute warning, the idea that we want to know immediately. this guy not seeming to understand the acute importance of time. >> there are jarring scenes in the beginning of the book where the president is arguing against the south korea trade agreements and then paging later, secretary of defense mattis warning if you disrupt the relationship, you could risk world war iii. if you try to unwrap some of those alliances that have been pre served for so long. you see mattis, gary c

jennifer rubin, and major garrett, a hell of a book. thank you so much to both of you. >>> one supporter is calling what's happening to her bullies. that's next. >>> alright, i brought in new max protein ...to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. i'll take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. new ensure max protein. in two great flavors. new ensure max protein. essential for the cactus, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol level

jennifer rubin, who do you think? nifer palmeri said i'm pretty familiar with the sourcing rules for the new york times and it could be someone one level one. there was one phrase in there, free markets, free ideas, that's a russell kirk quote. that's an undersecretary type. i think either in the state department or perhaps working with dan coats. it is not the guy at the top of the food chain. and it is someone who would have had a lot of contact with trump, maybe made over seas trips with him, maybe been in the room with cabinet to initials, but that to me makes a lot more sense. as you point out, that language doesn't sound like dan coats who is a kind of by the book kind of guy. the problem is, of course, even when their name is on an op sed, these people don't necessarily write their own material. they have speech writers and staffers. i don't think someone will trust another person to write it. so i'm going with state department or national security deputy kind of person who's one level down. >> i think every mem

but i couldn't help but notice that jennifer rubin, the conservative columnist at "washington post" talkedwas a spineless representative of a president whom he claims sent him to do this duty but i think there was no one in the room at that gathering who believe that president trump intended to honor mccain. >> that's interesting. you know, it has been a brutal summer for this president. here we are it's labor day weekend. you think about all that has transpired in the past couple months and just in the cast pum of weeks between the guilty pleas and the russia probe backlash that we saw early over his summit in helsinki, the stalled talks in north korea. are you seeing signs that this president is increasingly isolated in the white house right now? >> well, i think he must be feeling isolated when you consider that so many members of his cabinet are gone, so many people that were entrusted to manage things in the white house have been replaced. he clearly is imposing his will on everyone there now with no real filters and there's no one who i think can advice him in an effective way. and w

adding to our panel coverage, i have howard fineman and jennifer rubin. jennifer, your view of the import of what dr. ford will say tomorrow and how that will also exist in an environment where new accusers have come forward. >> i thought the statement was very skillfully drawn, in part because at one point towards the end she says i hope that you men up there will allow me to engage with you directly, which is quite the slam at sitting behind and hiding behind a woman prosecutor that is brought in. that was a very clever statement. more than that, she is going to come across, i believe, as completely heartfelt, as completely, i think, lacking in any kind of guile, any kind of political motive, and that's going to be very hard, i think, for some of those senators to listen to that and then wipe her out of their memory. they also, of course, now have multiple problems. they have multiple claimants. they have multiple witnesses. they have a witness, mark judge, who was put in the room in the allegations that dr. ford set forth. so how do they have any sembla

jennifer rubin, you pointed out this column to me last night in "the washington post," a conservative columnist in "the washington post." let me read you what she said. once more, all eyes turn to collins, murkowski, and perhaps another brave republican or two. will they act like responsible members of an equal branch of government? this is the job of congress. you check the other branches. what happens? >> when we look at it, collins and murkowski have been two key voteses already. they wavered on whether they would support kavanaugh. one would hope we were looking to more than just two senators. i also think they do have a lot of power right now. they could say we will vote no unless we hear from this woman. not allowing ford to testify sends a very clear message to women in america that their voice doesn't matter. and i think that is something that republicans should at this point in time really avoid at all costs, especially looking ahead to the midterms and just from a treating women and alleged victims fairly. >> if there was any doubt about how brett kavanaugh was going to resp

we have jennifer rubin a.the president of the united states, is he grabbing this as a power play tomorrow night, 5:00, which gets you on the edge of the news, right up to your deadlines, peter. i think he wants to front page headline, trump says, trump will, trump demands going into thursday morning. what's his game? >> well, i think you're right. i think he's trying to frame the two big events we're talking about for thursday, the kavanaugh hearing and the rosenstein meeting. he's trying to set the stage in effect for it on his own terms rather than wait until after they've played out to see how they go. and i think that, you know, they've decided to be more aggressive about the nomination of brett kavanaugh. you heard the president today go after debra ramirez in a personal wade. said she was all messed up at the time she had this encounter with judge kavanaugh, this alleged encounter, and he went after the democrats for a con game. tougher words. i think he tried to frame it going into thursday. >> well, yo

about what is more going on here, i'm joined by the assistant professor of public policy and jennifer rubin columnist for "washington post." there is a lot of people you can make a call to the pen and start them warming up right now. amy coney barrett who is very conservative, was just confirmed last year. she is a woman. so the optics of it would be quite different and would probably be more right wing than brett kavanaugh. so what is this about? >> i think there is a practical reason and a ideological reason. the practical reason is they're afraid they won't have time to get someone through if they lose the senate. and that's perhaps realistic. the other is they love to fight when they can create an enemy, and now the enis my the left wing conspiracy. now the enemy is you and me. now the enemy is these dastardly women. so that's what they think their base likes. that's what they serve up. and just the fight then, they think will help them survive the midterms. i think that's wrong, but that's what they're banking on. >> you know, what do you think of that, leah? >> i do agree. i think the

then i want to read some jennifer rubin. >> the thing is people -- look at over the last 40 years people'sst in government has been growing even before donald trump. people don't know what government does. this is one of those instances where people can see what government does. and this is another instance which is not always the case where government and the press work hand in hand. you have -- our correspondents are out there risking their lives to help people save their lives. this is when the government and the fifth estate actually work together. and yet people entities and do is damaging it even more. in future hurricanes or future natural disasters, people don't trust the government. they feel the government is deceiving them and the press is deceiving them. donald trump is part of the reason for that. >> and i believe in past hurricane seasons famous conservatives like rush limbaugh in the path of storms doubted some of the forecasts and if that's stretched out to a point where lives are in question -- >> they doubt the moon landing. why wouldn't they -- >> i don't have any inform

jason johnson, jennifer rubin and cristina beltran, thank you for being with me. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. thanks, my friend. much appreciated. happy to have you here. this is one of those nights when there are more major news stories going on simultaneously than it is possible to process all at once. and so we just take them one at a time. you know of course this very large hurricane is bearing down on the carolina coast tonight. we are expecting an overnight landfall by hurricane florence. evacuation of the most dangerous areas should have already occurred because this is what the wind is like on shore already. but there are fears that this is a life threatening event for a wide swath of the american coast, and even well inland in north and south carolina. we've got the very latest live forecast and track and the latest news on the impact thus far coming up in just a moment from meteorologist bill karins. he is going to be with us live in just a moment. we're also g

for more i'm joined by jennifer rubin opinion writer for the washington post, and yamiche alcindor for pbs news hour. it's one thing could cover up something you're embarrassed by, you try to forget or successfully forgot. it didn't happen. that's always a possibility. but for a president to stick by a nomination that he now believes may well be true a problem that may be true, serious problem, a serious problem with this nomination, how do you explain trump sticking with this thing if he does, knowing now that this woman is going to testify under oath, she's already passed a lie detector, she told her husband six years ago, she told people in family therapy six years ago. why would she ever make up a story like that if it wasn't true? your thoughts. jennifer, and if it's true why would trump stick with this nomination. >> trump always denies it, he always discredits women. this is a guy already an unindicted coconspirator thanks to michael cohen's testimony in open court. he has always disparaged women. he stuck by rob porter, said he was a fine guy. almost exactly the same term. why

host: jennifer rubin has a column in today's washington post about the back and forth yesterday overod rosenstein job status, calling it a roller saying thea day crazy roller coaster of a day was a function of three related phenomena. we have a president unconcerned with the rule of law, the office of the presidency, or political stability. republican members of congress failed to check his behavior and in some cases abetted his attempts to derail the investigation. third, the sense of confusion is compounded by the 24/7 twitter led media circus in which gossip and rumor are fed to the media in an endless cycle. several hours yesterday there were question marks over rod rosenstein had been resigned or -- had resigned or been fired and he ended up at the justice department yesterday as deputy attorney general, although he had the meeting with president thursday and the question remains whether he will keep his job. kelly, you think you should be fired in orlando, florida. why? caller: absolutely. all these men doing this attack on our president that we voted for because the democrats