tragic loss of life. >> joe watkins joining us live from philadelphia. thank you. anna and betsy, i'll ask you to stick around for a couple minutes. >>> an exclusive interview with the vice president talking with the president saying what the president did not. condemning white supremacy. part of that conversation with another talk with the vp just minutes away. that's after the break. where's gary? 'saved money on motorcycle insurance with geico. goin' up the country. later, gary' i have a motorcycle! wonderful. ♪ ♪ i'm goin' up the country, baby don't you wanna go? ♪ ♪ i'm goin' up the country, baby don't you wanna go? ♪ geico motorcycle, great rates for great rides. i am totally blind. and non-24 can make me show up too early... or too late. or make me feel like i'm not really "there." talk to your doctor, and call 844-234-2424. gotcha mom. but now that you're listening... did you know capri sun doesn't have all that artificial stuff you think it has? well, you do now. get those kids some capri sun! >>> we are back now with a live look at air force one that has

. >> let's bring in joe watkins, former white house aide to george hw bush and former director of theprogressive media campaign for the clintons. them under the circumstances first, how do you respond to the secretary? is it an overstatement to say north korean business the as serious as anything we have seen in the past 50 years? >> no, it's not an overstatement. this is serious business. i have friends in guam very, very worried for their safety and the safety of friends and family and others. so this is a very serious threat and americans on the mainland, of course, take it very seriously. i believe as well restraint is best in a situation like this. not to, not to say what you think and to be bellicose, i don't think that's the best way to go, going forward. i understand what president trump is doing. he is certainly staying consistent with his character. by being tough, by talking to you. i like what secretary rex tillerson is doing, i think his words are more restrained. he chooses his words more carefully. i think they got to work hard to use the back channels to calm this whol

me now msnbc political analyst howard feinman and editorial director at the huffington post, and joe watkins, republican strategist and former bush 41 aide and fordham university's christina grier author of "black ethnics," race, immigration and the pursuit of the american dream. thank you all for joining me. joe, i want to start with you. former communications director anthony scaramucci, the mooch, in his first interview since his firing was also critical of trump's response. a guy that could not keep his mouth shut for the 11 days in which he was employed as communications director. he said the president did not go far enough. comment on that. give me your reaction to that. >> he was right. the president didn't go far enough. the president is somebody who is has demonstrated time and again that he's not at all bashful about calling people out, about calling it like he sees it, about saying that he's displeased or that things won't happen under his watch in the strongest possible terms. this was a time for him to do that. this was a time for him to call out the racists and a time to call o

let's bring in joe watkins, rick tyler and am saturday lina maxwell bring welcome to all three of yous the significance of bannon's exit? what does it tell you about where the administration is heading? >> it means the administration is not heading toward at least the alt-right philosophy that bannon was associated with and still is associated with, by the way, as the head of breitbart. i would say the -- don't be the story. the president is supposed to be the story. the president is the one that makes the headlines. the hoemt you start making a headlines as a white house staffer, the moment they start parodying you on saturday night live your days are numbered. >> is that typical of any administration or just this administration, joe? >> that's for any administration, really. the story is always supposed to be the president and you're there to serve the president of the united states and it's best done in the background. you don't want to draw too much attention to yourself, let the president get all the attention because that's why the people elected that person. >> so bannon says h

i think it's okay for them to do that >> joe watkins, thank you. tom fanning is sticking around thank you. >>> when we come back this morning, a deal in the energy space. we happen to have the ceo of one of the companies involved as our guest host this morning. we're going to hear about the tie-up and talk fuel cells right after this break >>> in the next hour we'll be focusing on nafta renegotiations with former deputy trade representy robert holliman stick around, "squawk box" will be right back. >>> welcome back, everybody. southern company announcing a clean energy deal this morning data center company equinex is partnering with southern company and bloom energy to install 12 data centers across the united states the ceo of bloom energy is a cnbc disruptor steve smith is the ceo of equinex and our guest host tom fanning from southern company. tom, why don't you lay out exactly what this does bloom energy uses fuel cells to convert natural gas into electric you've got equinex which is a data center company. >> this is just another example of bre

. >> with me now, joe watkins, white house aide to the first president bush and political analyst joel benneson for hillary clinton's 2016 campaign and nbc white house reporter ali vitali. ali, i was fascinated by your note before, just to give us that friendly gentle reminder of what we all lived through in the primary and general election of the president's inclination to have tweeted or instagrammed or represented, as he said, maybe not intentionally, racist or anti-semitic statements before and this is a statement tonight from him about charlottesville where he did not come down on white supremacist or nazis. >> i think that's exactly right. i think tonight's -- or today's lack of direct condemnation of white supremacist is an established pattern that we've seen from donald trump when the issue comes up. it dogged him throughout the campaign and off the top of my head, we saw this with his initial nondisavow of david duke's endorsement and several times he retweeted white nationalists twitter accounts and that's nothing to say that his son posted instagram with a white nationalist

rachel bra vard and gop strategist joe watkins. it's great to have all of you with me. let me start with you, carlos, about the fact it looked as if after general kelly got his job as chief of staff, he was going to do an evaluation, kind of tighten things up where they needed to be tightened up. is had this more of a general kelly move or is this bannon self imploding. >> i would give it to general kelly. is he certainly saw what happened with with scaramucci. that happened quickly. general kelly clearly seems to be trying to impose some discipline. the president, though, the president the person who won the election continues to tweet uses words like ageage tart or more. two or people to keep your eye on i'm really curious what happens with gary cohn. there's been some pressure on him from friends and former colleagues to leave given some of the things the president said regarding charlottesville. >> some of his former clients gathering up a petition -- >> very powerful. the other person i'm really interested in is general mcmaster who is the national security adviser

bush, sarah fagan, and joe watkins it's a bush reunion, folks thanks for joining us. ron, the president left his golf course and took a mulligan today, right >> i think he did. >> was it good enough? >> i don't think it was good enough look, i think all three of us are veterans of the white house and you understand really the importance of the severity of the words that the president of the united states. as events unfolded in charlottesville, i didn't think the president's reaction was strong enough. it wasn't swift enough and while he said the right things today, strong words need to be backed up by strong deeds. and i think in the hours and days to come will the words match the deeds necessary to ensure that we don't have another incident like in this in our future >> he instigated a civil rights investigation at the justice department that is one deed or step that he has taken. sarah, before all of this broke over the weekend, the president had been quarreling with the senate majority leader in the past he's quarreled with paul ryan and others in congress. what do

no the short answer let's find out why joining us is mark moreal and joe watkins, former white housedent george h.w. busch. george, i'll start with you. what people don't realize about the president, he said he was going to increase jobs across sort of every gender and race. part of their infrastructure plan is to rebuild parts of the inner city obviously nothing has happened with infrastructure. are you concerned that the president and congress are going to fail their promise to the minority community >> they've got to move on this health care has not been very successful yet we're talking about tax reform, infrastructures on the table those things have to happen in order to really show a marked improvement for all-americans especially americans of color. these jobs numbers are good numbers. the fact that unemployment continues to go down is a good thing. it's good for african-americans. our numbers have not been as robust coming down as the numbers for a majority of americans. we're down 7.4 now which is a continued downward there are a lot of african-americans that stopped for wor