critical month that can well-define his presidency and we begin with senior washington correspondent phil rucker, co-author of "i alone can fix it" and gerald cena, and eugene robinson. phil, you've watched this president for a long time. this is his happy place. he's with organized labor and this is his space. >> it certainly is, andrea. it's hard to think of a president who has had this deep of a connection to workers and the blue collar working class of this country that joe biden has had and yet you heard there from him a real pitch for his build back better agenda which is very much hanging in the balance on capitol hill just up the road. this is a critical few weeks ahead to try to get not only that infrastructure deal through the house that has already passed the senate, but perhaps more importantly for biden that $3.5 trillion plan and a whole number of domestic agenda items designed to help people and families and very much in limbo because there's not universal support among the democrats and senate. >> jim messina, the future of this rests very much on the senate on senator manchin wh

joining us, phil rucker, senior washington correspondent for "the washington post" and msnbc political and author of "the new york times" best-selling book "i alone can fixes." retired four star u.s. army general barry mccaffrey, former national security member, msnbc military analyst. general mccaffrey, let me start with you. we talked when sort of the first picture being painted by woodward and costa emerged. as the days have gone on it has really -- it has polarized i think this very polarized conversation even more. i wonder your thoughts on what we're learning. >> yeah, look, i have read every one of these books that came out, and phil rucker's book "i alone can fix it" is absolutely fabulous. i'm looking forward to reading "peril." to some extent however they're almost unneeded. all they do is give granularity, context, richness of the obscenities being uttered in the oval office, mostly being acted out in public, was a president trying to overthrow the election of mr. biden and who was on the edge of using the elements of coercive power of the u.s. government to enforce it. acti

. >> so phil rucker, let's go back to politics. we learned today in the many portions of the woodward/costa book, two of your colleagues, that senators lee and graham, ardent trumpers were in charge of vetting some of the false claims and found nothing. there is something different than them saying that and us living with that. do you think that donald trump and the party will ever say so publicly? >> it depends who the people are we are talking to. if they are standing for re-election with trump supporters, the answer will probably be no. it has been no so far. it's remarkable to consider how many republican members of the congress and senate, even state offices around the country, refuse to say that the big lie is what it is, a big lie. refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of joe biden and refuse to correct the presidency of the former president donald trump when he made so many bogus statistics about the election fraud that exists when there is no evidence to support that. those who do not stand for that have been coming forth a

. >> all right, phil rucker, as we digest consequential words there, let's circle back to you and ask the question a different way. what is plan b for the republican party as they are the focus of this discussion how do they come back, and they have all of them constituents back home to explain all of this to, how do they come back from we don't care if the government defaults >> well, brian, they don't actually say that outright they have say they don't want to give the democrats the ability to spend more money and that they're trying to block the biden agenda but effectively, with their vote, they're signaling they don't care if the government shuts down, and they're also signaling that they know if the government shuts down, they're going to use it politically against the democrats in the midterm elections next year. this is a pure political calculation by mcconnell and by the other republican senators. mcconnell has indicated that if democrats were to put forward just the spending measure, the budget measure that would insure the government stays open in decouple it from the debt

. >> who among us hasn't traveled with a real live bear or bear tranquilizers, saying to phil rucker hang with us, if we don't take a break they'll turn the lights out or something. brief break we'll blow out of it if governor starts to speak. special live coverage of election night in california continues after this. n califoian continues after this - i'm norm. - i'm szasz. [norm] and we live in columbia, missouri. we do consulting, but we also write. [szasz] we take care of ourselves constantly; it's important. we walk three to five times a week, a couple miles at a time. - we've both been taking prevagen for a little more than 11 years now. after about 30 days of taking it, we noticed clarity that we didn't notice before. - it's still helping me. i still notice a difference. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. i wonder how the firm's doing without its fearless leader. you sure you want to leave that all behind? yeah. stay restless with the rx. crafted by lexus. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. ♪ ayy, ayy, ayy ♪ ♪ yeah, we fancy like applebee's on a date night ♪ crafted

joining me, ashley parker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post," phil rucker, correspondente washington post." david ignatius, "the washington post" columnist that covers foreign affairs and everything else. phil, president biden speaking with macron today. i know that the white house thought this was making too much of a big deal over something, having been at the u.n., talking to french officials, there are words for how they felt about all this which i can't say on television, even in french, but they're not taking it lightly. >> not at all, andrea. reading the statement from the white house a few minutes ago, it does appear the two presidents patched things up and agreed to meet in october in europe to discuss further, and importantly macron announced according to the statement, macron agreed to send the french ambassador back to washington next week and the ambassador will continue discussions on the u.s. side. there seems to be some sort of commitment from both countries to repair the relationship and an acknowledgment by biden that the communication channels were not

. >> phil rucker, there is amazing new reporting about -- that really recasts mike pence.out mike pence refusing to get in the car and leave the capitol on january 6th. what woodward and costa expand is our understanding of how much he was wrestling with and contemplating doing trump's bidding. he says to dan quayle, uh, i don't know, dan, there's stuff in arizona. quayle says, no, there isn't, i live here, you have no options, shut it down. >> yeah, nicolle. we really -- what this new reporting shows in addition to the previous reporting is that there was an evolution for vice president pence as he started to contemplate what his options were on january 6th in certifying the electoral college vote. he did his own private study with his in-house counsel and some other lawyers to examine the constitution and really test the legal limits of his authority in convening the joint session of congress. he also, as woodward and costa report, reached out to dan quayle, but he ultimately determined he couldn't do what trump wanted him to do. once he realized he had no options, there

phil rucker and i, my colleague, we thought in real-time we were capturing just how dramatic these moments the fall of 2020. a president who, in the middle of the night, rejected the election results of one of the most carefully watched elections. you know, the most secure, careful -- >> one of the most successful elections in which overwhelming turnout on both sides. i mean, incredible. >> correct. correct. and plus, you can't really lose a presidential election if the republican senator just downfield from you won so well. it's kind of hard to say that it was rigged: but be that as it may, extraordinary is exactly the right word. and, you know, on the mental decline issue, we are not psychologists at the -- at "the washington post" reporting desk. but it is clear to me that so many people, including the people closest to the president, some of his most ardent supporters were genuinely fearful about his state of mind. whether, you know, that meant mental decline or whether that meant unhinged or whether that meant willing to do anything, they were fearful of it. and meadows confided as we

while the guy sitting next to you was off talking to phil rucker and talking doing his thing with bob woodward, we were buying into the big lie. the big lie that this was ever going to be successful and we could ever rely on the afghanistan government for anything at all. general milley, you kind of gave up the game earlier when he said he wanted to address elements of your personal conduct that were in question. we are not questioning your personal conduct. we are questioning in your official capacity going and undermining the chain of command which is obviously what you did. you have created this whole -- >> did not undermine the chain of command. >> you absolutely did. >> did not. >> you said yesterday that you weren't going to resign when senators asked you this question. i believe that you probably won't resign. you seem to be very happy sailing up over there. if we didn't have a president was so adult, you all would be fired. that you deserve. you've let down people who wear the uniform in my district and all around the country and you are far more interested in what your percep

does go back and talk about this some more but we do want to bring into the conversation right now phil rucker, senior washington correspondent for "the washington post" and an msnbc contributor. also co-author of the best-selling book "i alone can fix it." donald j. trump's final catastrophic year and monica alba and msnbc military analyst retired general barry mccaffrey. i'll start with you, general mccaffrey there. and it was a point that was brought up towards the end of the segment or the briefing we were just listening to about the transcript of the phone call you had for context purposes, retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman in donald trump's impeachment trial tweeted out, if this is true, general milley must resign. he usurped authority and chain of command. it's an extremely dangerous precedent. you can't simply walk away from that. i want to get your thoughts on that tweet. what do you make of colonel vindman's comments and do you believe milley violated the principle of civilian control over the military based on the report in this book? >> oh, vindman's comment is shameful.

joining us now, phil rucker for the "washington post," also author of i'll fix it and michael schmidt, washington correspondent for the "new york times." still with us, former nato supreme ally commander. michael, i think you have a copy of the book. supposed to come out next week. there you go. always on top of everything. let's talk about the book. it's credible from my reporting that general milley and i believe secretary of state and others in the government, a very small group, had as the election and the aftermath of the election and certainly after january 6th, got together and agreed they would counterman, if you would, any national security orders that came from the commander in chief because his, what they believed to be his instability. these are specifics though in the book. take it from there about this extraordinary calls with the chinese counterpart of our chairman of the joint chiefs. >> so milley was concerned about two things. one of them was in october of 2020. where u.s. intelligence showed that the chinese thought that trump to try to stay in office, to make himse

punchbowl news co-founder anna palmer and senior washington correspondent from "the washington post" phil rucker. anna, we're finally getting clarity from joe manchin, what his red lines are, what his top line number is. for the progressives in the house who have been waiting for this clarity, they now have the clarity and it's not what they want. >> they aren't hearing anything that they want from joe manchin. i think they don't trust him. and he kind of just proved their point, that they are so far apart that they are still in unison against this infrastructure bill because they don't feel like reconciliation is going to happen. >> and phil, i was sort of fascinated by this proxy war we're seeing between joe manchin, who is the most conservative member of the democratic caucus in the house and senate, and then you have bernie sanders, the progressive chair, who basically told the liberals to tank the bill in the house. >> his point is not every democrat who is a member of that party is a bernie sanders democrat. a lot of different democrats make up the majority in the congress that are a small

only because of the reporting in the realtime but also reporting that we did later for our book, phil ruckeris the trifecta you know, these three items we were instructed very explicitly to doctor, to jimmy, because it would be, quote, unquote, according to brian murphy, embarrassing to the president. it is sort of striking to me, too, nicole, how frequently it's almost like a little bit of whack-a-mole and i don't mean this in a joking way, but how many times you have people popping up who said, yeah, this happened to me and also, i was told to doctor reports. and also, we were also not allowed to say anything about russia you know, it reminds me of the head of the national counterterrorism center, in our book, we learned that he basically was told, look, we know china and iran are really not that big a threat. russia is the one that's really trying to interfere in the second presidential election, but let's not really emphasize that let's not lead with that bill had his hand, basically, forgive me, his head handed to him by house speaker nancy pelosi she had been briefed on the real intell

these are the words that donald trump used in describing january 6th to me and to my co-author phil ip rucker. when we went to interview him in march he was living kind of an in an alternate reality in which his protesters were just doing sort of god's work and were doing it with open hearts and no violence. and, of course, we all know the violence that was involved. every single person who stormed the capitol, yasmin is correct it was a storming -- every person who trudged through there, a large number were shoving police to get there. that's an assault on a law enforcement officer. they were shoving police baccardax. many armed with climbing gear, batons, flag poles, bear spray, chemical spray. these -- these are not moments of peaceful protests or hugging and kissing. >> no, indeed. and in terms of preventing something like this from happening again today, we heard from garrett and yasmin about the preparations at capitol hill. our latest piece on "the washington post" dives into the security that's been put in place for the rally today, specifically how the new capitol police chief initia

another third anti-trump book "i alone can fix it" sat down with phil rucker to give his account of whatought it was like -- what this was like behind the scenes deal with president trump. you are the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. when bob woodward calls or rucker calls, i'm busy. i have a war to destroy. i have a foreign policy to try to save instead of you are not going to believe how crazy donald trump is that, to me, he should have resigned the minute that became clear. and i think marsha blackburn or dan sullivan was the one who asked did you really actually say these things? oh, yeah. why? why would a sitting chairman of the joint chiefs of staff help somebody's book sales and wants to corrects the record to make himself look like a hero when in retrospect it does not make him look good almost anywhere. steve: when asked about the bob woodward book he said, you know, i really can't talk about it because i haven't read it. , which come on a political guy in a military job. he halls read "the washington post" summaries where they talk about how he essentially circumvented a

they were talking to phil rucker and doing this thing with bob woodward. the government for anything at all. you gave up the game earlier when you said you wanted to address elements of your personal conduct. we are questioning in your official capacity undermining the chain of command which is what you did. >> youou absolutely did. you said yesterday that you were not going to reside when senators asked you this question. and i believe you probably won't resign. you seem to be very happy sailing over there.ab but if we didn't have a president that was so out, you would be fired. you've let down the people that wear the uniform all around the country and you are far more interested in what your perception is and how people think about you and inside of washington books than you care about winning -- >> the gentleman's time is expired. >> thank you>> mr. chair and gentlemen, i apologize for the behavior of my colleague. i'm deeply appreciative of your service and of the decades of experience that you all bring to this conversation. thank you so much for the

rucker, of "the washington post." eugene robinson of "the washington post." and a.b. stoddard, good evening, and welcome to you all. phil, i'd like to begin with you, ashley parker writes, the president's handling of such disasters also lets him push a message that has been central to his appeal since he was a candidate. that government can work for people, and bipartisanship, at least in moments of crisis, still exists. phil, i guess the question is, is this viewed as a pivotal time, aka, and more cynically, perhaps, a change in subject for the white house, at least an opportunity? >> certainly, brian, it's a pivotal time for president biden and for his administration. because of all of the crises converging this fall. and because of increasingly dire political standing that he's in. the poll that came out a couple of days ago showed his approval rating has actually fallen below 50%. it stands now at 44% among all americans approving of his handling as president. his numbers have declined specifically to the coronavirus and the war in afghanistan and to the economy. that spells trouble for a president with a razor-thin