Transcripts For MSNBCW AM Joy 20170812

Promise to unleash fire and fury at north korea, you could be forgiven for your confusion about whether youre listening to the fictional hungarian on game of thrones or the very real president of the United States. Trump spent this week ratcheting up the rhetoric even as his own cabinet tried to take it down. The war talk between rounds of golf at bedminster has made it difficult to tell trumps words from those of the brutal 33yearold dictator of north korea. Take, for instance, some of the tough talk from this week about a sea of fire or the threat that only absolute force can work on him. Can you guess who said it . Mother of dragons, kim jongun, donald trump. Okay, all of those came from kims regime. But you werent 100 certain, were you . Because with trump its very hard to tell the difference. Now i should note that the threats and weapons tests and bluster from north korea are actually nothing new. But as the New York Times noted this week with previous american president s they would meet such provocations with carefully warded responses and diplomacy. What is news is that our current american president who ca cavalierly freestyles threats that much of our nation and that inch our nation and the world that much closer to nuclear world. Joining me now is a senior fellow on foreign relations, a spokesperson and Senior Policy Adviser for the counter extremism project, president of the fund, and gordan chang, author of nuclear showdown, north korea takes on the world. Thank you all for being here. I will start, max, since youre here at the table with me, your impressions of donald trump extemporaneous threats that migrated from north korea to venezuela this week. Joy, he looks like a man unhinged. The impression is he enjoys delivering ultimatums. He does another asinine with locked and loaded and then he says i like threatening north korea so i will move to venezuela. It gives the impression he likes issuing military threats. He was somebody who also ran for president on this idea that we didnt want to be the worlds policemen, right, and on criticizing the iraq war very heavily. Now hes being incredibly casual about the use of the american military. This is pointing out the incredible contradictions and incoherence of Donald Trumps world war where he wants to win, win, win, but pull away from the world and his idea of win, win, win, is signaling massive use of military force. Here is a wakeup call to the president , getting into a war with a nuclear arms state that has 10,000 artillery tubes zeroed in on seoul is not a winning scenario. That has the possibility of massive casualties. We should stay away from that. Gordon, am i wrong in saying theres a way donald trump kind of talks the way kim jongun talks . Well, youre right, and secretary tillerson said that on his way back from asia when he said that the president was using language that the north Korean Leader would understand. I think the important thing here for him is to tone down the rhetoric but to amp up the pressure because north korea is a real threat and is threatening not just the United States but also our allies and, indeed, is taking on the international system. There are things that the president he can do to take the initiative away from the North Koreans such as, for instance, sweeping up all that money that is fueling these weapons programs. The president can do that and if he can do that he can signal to the North Koreans that he is, in fact, serious beyond the words. Thats going to be critical if were going to solve this situation. I just want to stay with you and put up a map of east asia, of this region, because i think a lot of people, gordon, dont understand sort of why north korea behaves this way. You see the neighborhood that theyre in. Can you just very briefly explain to us what is the source of this constant insecurity and these constant threats that the north korean regime issues . Not the just kim jongun. His father did the same thing. I think the important thing here is the core legitimacy of the kim regime going back to 1948 when it it was founded was really to rule the entire Korean Peninsula. Its now divided in two with south k south korea, and so kim has to take it over because the North Koreans have been suffering for decades. Now they can suffer and sacrifice if they believe theres a larger goal and they wont do that, though, if they believe that kim is just not the serious about absorbing south korea. So that is inherently unstable where you have two koreas, one poor, one destitute and the other very wealthy and powerful. So this is an unstable situation. And lets listen to and im going to throw this to you, tera, donald trump had been making noise about running for president a long time. He was asked a question on meet the press about north korea. Lets listen to donald trump back then. You say that you as president would be willing to launch a preemptive strike against north Koreas Nuclear capability. First, id negotiate. I would negotiate like crazy and id make sure we tried to get the best deal possible. Wouldnt it be good to sit down and really negotiate something. He speaks very differently now. I mean, do you get the accepts the way donald trump is talking now is real or play acted . What is going on in your view . I think whats problematic about what hes saying recently it doesnt seem to be part of a coordinated strategy, something that hes working with his advisers on and planning before he speaks. The Trump Administration had a solid victory with the u. N. Multilateral sanctions that came before the u. N. Last weekend. They should have built on that. They should have cooperated with china, and they should have worked towards trying to get north korea to the table. At the end of the day you need to have strong sanctions in place and push for some sort of negotiated solution here. Nobody wants a military outcome. You need a credible Deterrent Force on the table, a military option, but you dont want to get into the realm of inadd ver tent escalation or Accidental Nuclear crisis or a misperception type of situation where you end up having the United States unclear if north korea is launching a missile or taking some sort of provocative action. And wars and conflicts can happen because of misperceptions and accidents and we need he to avoid that and we need to tone down the rhetoric to prevent that from happening. And, joe, you now have members of congress, democrats it wrote a letter expressing concern about the way that donald trump is talking about north korea threatening, profound concern over the statements hes made that raise the specter of nuclear war. One it particular congressman from long island asking the speaker of the house to debate legislation that would block a Nuclear Strike without a congressional okay. That is terrifying. It is. Underlying all of this, joy, is the fact the president of the United Statess has the unique and unfettered ability to launch a nuclear war whenever he wants for whatever reason he wants. Following him around in that golf cart in emergennew Jersey Military officer with the command and control codes for the u. S. Nuclear arsenal. The president and only the president can order such a strike. And once he gives the order no one can countermand him. The missiles could be flying within four minutes of such an order. That is terrifying. And so this crisis that is building on the Korean Peninsula brings us closer to war with korea than we have been in over 20 years. And you can see that the North Koreans believe this. The first rule of strategy is to know your enemy. What are the North Koreans thinking right now . They think the u. S. Is out to get them. They think were practicing were implementing plans to overthrow them and, guess what, we actually are. Nbc news reported a couple of days ago that since may weve conducted 11 practiced bomber runs from guam to korea practicing dropping bombs on north korean sites. The last one was on monday. On tuesday the president issues his fire and fury comments. On wednesday north korea responds by threatening guam. You could see this cycle of action reaction that could get out of control and start a war that no one truly wants. And, gordon, is there a chance that because of how erratic kim jongun is that he could do something to try to act first and preempt us . Yes. The thing about kim jongun is that he looks stable most of the time, but there have been periods of intense disruption in the regime. And we saw one as recent areally as january and february where there were a series of events indicating turbulence at the top of pyongyang and that indicates kim jongun has maybe less to lose than we think that he does. In in any event he operates under a set of incentives very different than those of most authoritarian leaders because the kim regime truly is different in some important respects. So as joe says, we have to know our adversaries and in this case im not the so sure we have a good handle on whats going on because no american official has ever talked to kim jongun. The only american who has had any substantial contact with kim is dennis rodman. And yeah, exactly. Were dealing with a gutted state department meanwhile. We dont have the capability to deal with this crisis as we should. I think the key point, joy, to my mind with kim jongun is, yes, he is a brutal dictator but hes not crazy and hes not suicidal. He doesnt want to go down in flames and the reason hes acquiring Nuclear Weapons is basically for defensive reasons because he doesnt want us to overthrow him. I think the proper response is not Nuclear Brinksmanship with the kind donald trump is engaging in now. The proper response is what we did with the soviet union, deterrence and containment. Wait him out. The state has no legitimacy. Its a failed state. It will collapse. Korea will be reunified. Wait for that day and it will be foolish and dangerous if we were to launch a preemptive strike based on the fact his Nuclear Capabilities are increasinging. And, it tara, is anyone in the defense establishment even seriously considering a crazy idea like a preemptive attack on north korea no matter what donald trump says . Im not currently in the government but i can say one of the difficulties can any sort of preemptive strike and one of the extreme risks is they can retaliate. A preemptive strike youd have to be 100 confident that you can hit 100 of the targets in 100 of the locations or else youre going to have missiles being launched at seoul or japan or at guam or potentially towards alaska. So that is obviously not a scenario we want to find ourselves in and even if you could launch success itful preemptive strikes and take out everything then you have a north korean state on your hands and thats a whole other set of problems within itself. So i dont think we should really be thinking about that right now. I think we should be focused on deescalating this, on containment and deterrent for the time being, pressure with the sanctions and trying to get parties to the table to resume multilateral talks. And should we be contemplating what happened during the spiraling last days of Richard Nixon with schlesinger essentially prepared to ignore the president s authority to launch a nuclear war just in case richard nicxon completely melted down . Schlesinger told the military officers that if the president gave them an offer, an order, they should check with him first. Thats completely illegal, unconstitution al, thats not te way its suppose to work but were glad schlesinger did that. Can the socalled adults around this president intervene . I dont think they have control of the situation. This administration is in a deep state of strategic incoherence and it starts at the top. There is something very wrong with the president of the United States. His statements do not make sense. He strategically, even logically, we are in very, very dangerous territory now and its not just because of the unstable leader in north korea, its because of the lead ership we have here in our country as well. Weve got to be very worried that we dont repeat the mistakes of that quiet august 100 years ago when no one expected world war i to break out, when each side took Strong Military measures they thought would cause the other side to back down. We dont want this to turn into the missiles of august. Yeah, well, on that sobering note, i would just thank my guests. Max will be back later in the show. It tara, joseph, gordon, well have you all back. Thank you very much. And coming up, a story thats been buried underneath the avalanche of trump scandals is next. Using artificial tears often and still have dry eye symptoms . Ready for some relief . Xiidra is the first and only eye drop approved for both the signs and symptoms of dry eye. One drop in each eye, twice a day. Common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and unusual taste sensation. Dont touch container tip to your eye or any surface. 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His family had used another insurance product but i was like well ive had usaa for a while, why dont we call and check the rates . It was an instant savings and i shouldve changed a long time ago. Theres no point in looking elsewhere really. Were the tenneys and were usaa members for life. Usaa. Get your insurance quote today. Yogigspeed internet. Me . You know whats not awesome . When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids. And these guys. Him. Ah. Oh hello that lady. These houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh. Sure. Still yes you can get it too. Welcome to the party. Introducing gigspeed internet from xfinity. Finally, gig for your neighborhood too. Vlade mer putin i believe is worth 200 billion. That money is held all over the world, in banks and america and all over. In order to get that hes had to instruct a lot of people work ing for him. Lets say 10,000 people working for him, to do terrible things, to arrest, kidnap, torture, and kill to take Peoples Properties away. As a result of the act he can no longer guarantee absolute impunity because all of a sudden weve created consequences in the west. Americanborn businessman bill browder is a putin adversary who has emerged as a small but key player in the russia investigation. Browder was once the largest foreign investor in russia until, he says, he and his attorney tried to expose massive corruption among people linked to the kremlin. The backlash was fierce. Browder says members of putins inner circle stole 230 million from his company and set him up for tax evasion charges. Browder was a driving force behind the 2012 magnitski act which imposed sanction on individual russians and was the topic of discussion at one now famous meeting in trump tower. Joining me now is bill browder, founder and ceo of Hermitage Capital management. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Your testimony got overshadowed. Give us the encapsulated version why you went to washington to testify and what it is you think people need to know about the putin regime and the magnitsky a act. My lawyer was murdered by the russian government in 2009. I embarked on this big project to get justice for him which led to the passage of the magnitsky act which freezes assets and bans visas of those involved in his murder and do similar types of things in srussia. And Vladimir Putin became enraged by this whole thing. The reason some of had his money is potentially coming from the same crime that Sergei Magnitsky he can posed and all the money in the west canning frozen. He retaliated by banning the adoption of russian children by american families. He held a big lobbying campaign to get the magnitsky act revealed. I was inveited ited to the sena committee and was there to talk with american lobbyists working on behalf of Vladimir Putin not admitting that they were and trying to get this important piece of human rights legislation repealed. The Judicial Committee was shocked by my testimony because people didnt expect that the evil of putin could be so cle clearly infiltrating washington. When you hear donald trump jr. Met with a lawyer who has lobbied for the overturning of the the magnitsky act and they talked about adoptions, what do you hear when you hear that set of facts . The first thing my reaction is that nobody there wasnt a Single Person in the room talking about adoptions. It doesnt surprise me these people showed up in trump tower because putin has been trying every different tactic he can to try to ease these sanctions because these sanctions affect him more personally because his money is at stake. Vladimir putin himself could be subject to magnitsky sanctions . Thats exactly what im s saying. Hes one of the richestmen men in the world. He has a lot of money held in western banks, american banks, and he received money from the cry Sergei Magnitsky exposed and under the words of the magnitsky act the person who receives money from the crime can have their money frozen in america. He could have it frozen by the magnitsky act. He has a lot of money to be frozen. I want your reaction to the u. S. President , to donald trump on thursday in new jersey and he was asked about the new suite of sanctions hes reluctant ly signed in response to russias interference in the 2016 election. Take a listen. Mr. President , do you have any response to the russian president with workers from our entity . No, i want to thank him because were trying to cut down on payroll and im very thankful he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. Theres no reason for them to go back. I appreciate theyve been able to cut our payroll for the United States. As somebody tangled with the putin regime and whose lawyer was killed or died in custody in srussia, what did you make of that response by the u. S. President . Basically Vladimir Putin doesnt respond to anything other than tough force and for any kind of message to Vladimir Putin that he can do what he wans and get away with it is not a good message to be sending. I would have preferred trump to have a stronger and more aggressive reaction to what putin has done. Perhaps he has some other strategy in mind that well see play out in the future. I do understand hes talking about our response to that on september 1st. I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this. He only understands a boot on the throat. You testified when you went before the committee, a Company Building up a file on donald trump, an Opposition Research file, is also hire as a client of the lawyer who met with donald junior at trump tower and who has been lobbying for the repeal of the magnitsky act. Are you contending that russia was attempting to hurt donald trump in the election . Well, so theres two different issues. Theres the fusion gps did a donald trump dossier and fusion gps did an antimagnitsky dossi dossier. The only thing i can testify to and i did testify to is that at the same time as fusion gps was working effectively for the russians against magnitsky, they were working against the russians with their trump dossier. I dont know how those two things get mixed up. What i can say for sure fusion gps was receiving money indirect lip from the russians at the same time they were preparing the dossier. All right. Bill browder, we appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for shining light on this situation. Thank you. Thank you. And a firestorm in new orleans. Stay with us. Rethink whats possible. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Flonase sensimist. Donald trump aide Omarosa Manigault newman was at a tense scene at a Panel Discussion on policing in communities of color. The journalists in attendance were expecting that as a white house staffer who has prioritized afterry cap american outreach omarosa would answer questions about recent comments advocating police violence. But when the Panel Moderator bounced tvs ed gordon pressed her on the issue things got ugly. The discussion descended into a nearly half hour verbal confrontation between omarosa and gordon which ended with omarosa walking out of the event. And in the next hour ill be joined by someone in the room, in the room where it happened. Sailin away on the crest of a wave, its like magic rollin and ridin and slippin and slidin its magic introducing the all new volkswagen tiguan. Higher and higher, baby the new king of the concrete jungle. Isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. Great show. Here you go. Now hes added a new routine. Making depositing a check seem so effortless. Easy to use chase technology, for whatever youre trying to master. Isaac, are you ready . Yeah. Chase. So you can. I know he mr. Manafort. I havent spoken to him in a long time. He was with the campaign for a very short period of time, a relatively short period of time. I found Paul Manafort to be a decent man. Hes like a lot of other people probably makes consultant fees from all over the place, i dont know. I thought that was a very tough stuff to wake him up, perhaps his family was there. I think thats pretty he stuff tough. News of a predawn fbi raid on one of Paul Manaforts homes had donald trump trying to put daylight between himself and his onetime campaign chief. In that raid fbi agents seized documents related to special counsel Robert Muellers sprawling russia investigation. And now manafort has a new legal team, one specializing in complex financial crimes and reports mueller has subpoenaed bank records involving manafort and his business partners. Its clear manafort has some stories to tell. Bloomberg reports it was manafort who alerted authorities to don juniors meeting with the russian lawyer. Manafortsoperate ining with th investigation. The author of the book the making of donald trump and karen finney, political analyst and former Hillary Clinton spokesperson. Thank you for being here. Clinton, i want to go to you first. John dowd told the wall street journal in criticizing the raid, said this extraordinary invasive tool was for shock value to bring mr. Manafort to his knees. These methods are normally found in russia not america. Could the fbi obtain a warrant to raid someones home just to intimidate them . No. They have to have probable cause for what specifically theyre looking for inside the home and why they think that evidence is in the home. You dont just go and knock on peoples doors and do search warrants. I think its important to note what they were looking for. Two things specifically. One is tax records. Thats probably to verify how it matches up with filings. The other thing is foreign banking records. These are things you cant just subpoena overseas and necessarily know youre getting all the returns. So they probably werent sure they had gotten everything disclosed and this is a way to capture all of that evidence. Manafort owns at least three homes including one in trump tower. How would the fbi determine which of these properties does that mean they have some evidence he may be hiding records in this particular spot . There had to have been some reason why the location was chosen and why they didnt do search warrants in other places. Whenever you go to do the actual request for the search warrant you have to be very specific about why you have to use this invasive technique on that location. For some reason they picked this one location and not all of the other ones. They must have thought thats where the records would be they were looking for. David kay johnson, did it surprise you it was this location and not trump tower . No. We dont know where he keeps his various records. If youre involved in the kind of entanglements with vicious dictators around the world, and thats who the clientele of Paul Manafort has been for a long time, youll have to keep records somewhere. And this raid in the morning approved by a judge tells us that whatever degree of cooperation manafort was providing there came a point where any trust disappeared. Something happened that persuaded muellers team they needed to move in and secure documents for the investigation making their case. To stay with you for a sec d second, david, a piece in the daily beast that quoted a former trump aide saying manafort was only brought onto the campaign because can he count votes. When youve counted votes with some of the people he has there will be plenty of people for a bob mueller to work with. They dont know whether mueller has turned manafort or simply obtained information during his investigation that has led to pertinent meddling. Given the relationship is that wise in your view . Well, donald will throw anybody under a bus. Donald is about donald. This is a man who put the life of an infant in jeopardy over money. He has no remorse or conscience about other people. And this eidea Paul Manafort is an election specialist is intriguing. Perhaps hes helped rig elections overseas. Its not something he knows in the u. S. What we he do know thats something is manafort was seriously on the payroll of the proputin regime ousted in kiev. They tried to destroy the records, threw hem in a lake at the president ial palace and people trained, which i used to be the president of, dove into that lake, recovered the records, and secured them so that we know a great deal about manaforts being on the payroll of that now gone propugh at this point regime. Karen, you have now donald trump are trying to pretend he barely knows Paul Manafort and he only brought him on to count votes and worked with him for a short period of time, but we know a lot about Paul Manafort, his history of representing dictatorial regimes. And his own daughters, whose text mess annals were hackmessa dont fool yourself, that money is blood money. Hes cash poor right now and you ukraine is late in paying him. So this isnt an unknown quantity it to everyone but donald trump. Exactly. Not at all. Our government has known a lot about Paul Manaforts dealings for quite some time. Here is what i think is most interesting and well learn more as the investigation continues, trump is not completely honest, shocker there, with regard to the nature of his entanglements and relationships in srussia fo the last 30 years in terms of trying to build the trump tower there, the Miss Universe pageant, and other real estate dealings and holdings and dealings with various banks. Now the question will be, i think, will any of those entanglements particularly involving various russian bankers will there be a connection back to manafort and some of the various dealings and people that he also has dealt with . I think thats part of why anytime it feels like the investigation is getting a little closer to trump and to his finances, got to go out and Say Something bombastic about north korea. Got to go back to twitter and Say Something about venezuela. It just feels like time and time again trump is trying to throw us off the trail, and i have to believe hes very concerned about these latest developments with manafort and these records. One would think that he should be concerned, clint. Talk to us about the way the fbi builds a case. We know that investigators have reached out to manaforts soninlaw, and this is a guy who was partnered in some business deals with manafort earlier this summer that may have had a bit of some shady elements to them. So why would a case be then built by going to members of his family when he was not involved in the campaign . I think we have to be super careful with this could be four different investigations, three or four different ways. Were talking about real estate deals, ukraine, and russian meddling in the u. S. Elections. So it could be any of these. We dont know what the warrants relate to. Could muellers investigation could be compartmentalized, some could be the campaign but once theyre investigating him theyre allowed to investigate any crimes. They may be looking for overlaps or connections. The other thing this was already ongoing. It sounds like some of the investigations were already moving forward. Why we see manafort pop up first may very well be they had the most already on him bhfr they started. The two things you always want to start with are communications and finances. Those are hard evidence, places that establish your leads before you go Start Talking to people and looking at different witnesses in the case. And i think when you look around the periphery of the Trump Team Going into last year manafort has the most communications and the most financial linkages youd want to look at. It seems trumps real estate empire is the nexus of where the sort of dirty money would come from and that is your reporting for quite a long time. Well, theres plenty of indications we have on the record that donald has admitted to being a sales tax cheat. Ive shown he almost certainly cheated on his federal tax return. He did on his state and local in 1984. Hes not a defendant but a witness in the trump alleged tax fraud that he authorized in which the money disappeared, the profits disappeared and ended up in the bank in iceland at least temporarily under the control of a russian oligarc. A major drug trafficker when he was a casino licensee, a relationship that makes no sense whatsoever because it could have cost him his license unless he was involved in the Drug Trafficking with the guy. And so, karen, should the y way when democrats the and a lot of republicans who are alarmed by russiagate as well, when they look at this scandal, should people be looking to see a mueller outcome that has to do with collusion or is it more realistic to expect what you would see if there wind up being crimes found theyll be more of the mundane kind, corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, things like that and that is the real danger that trump is in and thats what people should be looking for on the horizon not some sort of aha finding of russian collusion . I think we dont know the answer to that yet because, you know, again, every time a new layer is peeled back and we learn quite a bit of new information. I think the nature of the various connections could lead us in the direction of collusion but the nature of some of these real estate deals that creates relationships between people so the issue may be that through the finances they discover relationships that could then foster meetings like the one we know about in trump tower in june of 2016. I had think its hard to know at this point but the one thing i would add having been through whitewater myself, remember, that started out in one place and ended in another. I do think it that both democrats and republicans investigating this are trying to be very careful to make sure and i assume bob mueller is as well that you dont overreach, that you stepbystep gather your evidence, make your case, and then take the next step. I think the challenge, as your other guest was mentioning, a number of Different Directions that it could go in. Yeah, and i think clint will will back me up on this, the way the shrussians get to you is money. Money and influence. Whats textbook, theyre not going to go directsly to the person they want to influence but to their envoys. We have diplomatic relationships with each member of the trump team, economic overlap with business interests and youve got information in the social media space and hacking. So its a full spectrum operation. Need and greed. Great panel. Thank you very much. Coming up in our next hour is Sebastian Gorca the voice in Donald Trumps head and the ohio voter purge. Whats Critical Thinking like . A basketball costs 14. Whats team spirit worth . cheers whats it worth to talk to your mom . Whats the value of a walk in the woods . The value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. Morgan stanley ro last night a mob of hundreds of torch wielding White Nationalists marched on the university of virginia and more are gathering at a, quote, unite the right rally. We have the latest. Those are live pictures youre looking at. A pilot like you shoe serving your country. Youre c. I. A. . Shh. Based on a true story. We need you to deliver stuff for us. Of the c. I. A. s biggest secret. Is this all legal . You trust me . No. On september 29. C. I. A. , d. E. A. Pablo escobar. I made a fortune working for them boys. There are bills blowin around everywhere. Ill rake it up in the mornin. tom cruise. Stop now if you want. Shoot the gringo it gets crazy from here. American made. Rated r. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Flonase sensimist. Istart at the new carfax. Comar. Show me minivans with no reported accidents. Boom. Love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. Start your used car search at the allnew carfax. Com. Will not replace us. Along with the known nazi phrase blood and soil. The march ended with skirmishes with counter protesters and no one was seriously injured. And today White Nationalists groups are expected to gather in shcharlottesville again for a unite the right valley with the goal of saving a statue of confederate general robert e. Lee. Reverend, thank you for being here. I know you were inside of a church last night when these White Nationalist marchers began converging on that church. Blood and soil. Blood and soil. For those who cant really understand what theyre saying, theyre saying blood and soil which happens to have been the slogan of the nazi partys department of agriculture in 1930s germany, the actual nazis of germany. That was their Agricultural Department slogan. Tell me your impressions being inside that church last night. Well, thank you for having me on, joy. The service last night was intended to be a moment of motivation, a moment of prayer and a moment of encouragement for people who wanted to provide a faithful witness of love, anticipating todays march. The schedule for the nazi and the fascist example was supposed to be today and not last night. So we gathered in a standing room only Maximum Capacity crowd to give a word of encouragement. I was invited in to give a speech to that regard and as we were closing down. Oh, i got to go, got to go. I dont know what is happening here. I dont know what just happen there had with our guest. But were going to try to find out what happened. And she was standing at the location where it looks like now violence has broken out among the crowd and for those who are unfamiliar with whats going on today in charlottesville, make sure our producers check on reverend blackmon and make sure shes okay. If somebody could please text her. Theres a rally held and supposed to happen at Emancipation Park which used to be robert e. Lee park which is home to robert e. Lee in charlottesville. The statue was slated to be removed. There was a vote at the city council there. The vice mayor of charlottesville is black and the only black member of city leadership and was seen as the person who spearheaded the removal of that statue even though it was really activists in charlottesville that were removed and a narrow vote to remove the statue and it was supposed to be unite the right vote rally and Court Proceedings over the statue. Richard spencer, the known white sue pr supremacist and selfdescribed mentor to steven miller, one of the white house advisors, got involved in it and there was this idea of bringing together socalled alt right groups but included groups like the clan, local white supremacist groups and converging on charlottesville to protest the removal ot statto the statue. Did my producers just tell me that reverend blackmon is okay . Were trying to get her back on the phone but charlottesville, you have these various white supremacist groups gathering to defend that statue. Last night, there was an action, a counteraction plan and this was essentially a meeting at a church on the campus of the university of virginia where counter protesters who wanted to come out and oppose what youre seeing right here, this White Nationalist rally. They were meeting at the church to pray and to prepare themselves to counterrally. They were not there, but in church praying to get themselves together, and face these white supremacist groups today and instead, a group of hundreds as described to me by reverend blackmon last night to me on the phone, hundreds of torch wielding White Nationalist marchers, mostly men, converged on the church and then on the statue chanting various slogans including the nazi slogan, blood and soil and chanting white lives matter and you will not replace us and the jew will not replace us. All of those chants captured on various cell phone videos. That is a scene right now in charlottesville. As you can see, its a little chaotic and calmer now. Okay, were going to put on andy. Hes a colleague of reverend blackmon. What is going on now . Marching down Market Street is the National Socialist movement, the neonazis. The Traditionalist Workers Party which is the neofascist organization and the ku klux klan. They tried to enter the park and assaulted clergy and they assaulted local peace activists and assaulted antifascist activists. They were using clubs, bats and what appeared to be some sort of gloves or brass knuckles. Is there a Police Presence there . One thing i dont see is the kind of. I have to say at this moment at the state police. They are to the south of us on Market Street. They have essentially created a corridor for both sides to fight each other. I have not seen the Police Officer in the street for at least 15 minutes. Can you tell about how many people . It looks like a very large crowd. How many people would you estimate are there . Inside the park itself, i cant give you a clear estimate but between the counterprotesters and the people who are the fascists, i would say the fascist side has about a thousand and the counterprotesters between 5,000 and 6,000. And your counterprotest, is it fully sort of in the street right now and is your group in the same vicinity . I can only speak for the groups im affiliated with which is the Solidarity Organization which is black lives matter, charlotte chapter, unofficial chapter. Showing up for Racial Justice which is a white Ally Organization and it is the local clergy banded together in a group called congregate and those organizations with the coalition called solidarity and organized some of the counterprotecounterpr counterprcounterpr counterprotests today and met with pretty stiff violence from the neofascists. We describe as we tune in with andrew stepani. Hes part of the White Nationalist convergence march, various who planned to converge at the university of virginia campus today to protest the removal of a statue of robert e. Lee. Tell us a little bit about the organization that you lead and what it is youre trying to do and set the scene for us where youre standing right now. So i am standing on the south side of Market Street at the corner of Emancipation Park where the robert e. Leamon yumt is loek is located. Theres demonstrations. 15 minutes ago, members of the National Traditional Workers Party as well as the National Socialist movement and the ku klux klan were marching town Market Street towards the park and ran at the protests with shields and clubs as well as what appears to be brass knuckles. So far, i have not seen police engage in any of it. Okay. Can you just stay with us for a second, andrew . We have one of our reporters on the line and if you could just stay on the line for a moment. Maya rodriguez, an nbc News Reporter. What are you seeing . Reporter right now, basically at the interception of marcus street and second. This is basically the heart of the rally area. Were right at the corner near Emancipation Park. Like i mentioned today, previously renamed from robert e. Lee park and we saw earlier a confrontation from the alt right folks out here protesting and the people who came in as counterprotesters and basically met in the middle of the intersection. There was a skirmish. People began punching each other. There was some rushing of people, up against the barriers. We did not see the police move in at this point. They sort of held back. There was some yelling and screaming and at some point, it seemed to simmer down a little bit. But those crowds are beginning to reconverge in that exact same intersection once again. Its a very tense situation out here. Talking all morning about what happened last night. Starting to see some of those in motion kind of come to the fore here and we do again have lots of state police around monitoring the situation right now but tensions very high at this rally. Maya, we see people with the red and black flags. Any idea what the insignia theyre supporting there with the flags . Some of the flags are not marked. I cannot tell who they are with, whether theyre counterprotesters or with the alt right. But people are wearing very similar clothing. It just depends what, let me look here. Some say White Supremacy will die. Appear to be some of the counterprotesters here at this rally. If you could go back to andrew for a moment, pull aside anybody from the crowd that you could talk to so we can get sort of a, what are we seeing there . This looks like some movement in front of us. Were just going to let that play out a little bit. But what are you seeing where you are, andrew . I am at the corner of Second Street and marcus street at the corner of park in front of your setup here on msnbc. I have trouble hearing you but theres another skirmish happening as we speak. Theres another skirmish happening . Yeah. Whats the black and red flags . It may be hard to discern in this moment but some of the black and red flags are actually antifascist, not with the alt right and the alt right with aware of who they are and they seem to be going after those individuals. The antifascists are targets of the fascists. Got it. So for our viewer to reset, we talk to andrew stepanian, who is one of the organizers of the groups. We look at the skirmish between members of the neonazi and White Nationalist groups and antifascist groups. So when you see the people with the black and red flags, they appear to be the antifascist groups. These are live pictures. Not limited to the antifascist organization. They were hitting clergy as well. That was one of the most alarming parts. Individuals from the local clergy. They were not engaged in any kind of protest. What were seeing everybody whos watching, these are live pictures from charlottesville, virginia. Clashes between White Nationalist groups and counterprotesters. It doesnt appear the pris aolie taking much control of the situation. Do you see more Police Presence gather, andrew . Im sorry. Im wondering if you see more police where you are because they dont seem to be getting a hold of the situation. So the police are actually on the south side of marcus street. They are the state troopers, not local police, and so far, they have not entered this street area. It appears now from the south side on second avenue, theres a column of riot police. But theyre also going into the stockades, not approaching the street. I want to get back to maya rodriguez. Nbc News Reporter to update us on what you see right now, please. Reporter im on the south side with the state police on this side of the street. What were seeing are a lot of people carry signs. I hear drums going off in the distance. The park itself is on a bit of a rise from the rest of the street. Thats where you see all the People Associated with the alt right and you can see confederate flags up there. The insignias, all kinds of things from this particular angle actually in front of robert e. Lee statue as you can see and sort of a standoff if you will right now with the counterprotesters that are on this side of the street closer to where i am. I see black lives matter signs and all kinds of stuff on this. But now it looks like im seeing some people with the confederate flags also into this crowd. So the tension has ratcheted up here on this side of the street because it seems to be, there is some between the folks in the park and out here in the street. If you could just explain, the people in the park, was there an organized sort of permitted protest taking place in the park and this is the spillover from that . Correct. There was a permit that was granted for Emancipation Park for the alt right people to have their protest there. The city of charlottesville tried to get that permit changed to a different park that was much bigger and another part of town. It went all the way to federal court yesterday and late last night, a federal judge handed down decision saying no, the permit for the alt right could still take place here at Emancipation Park and of course, the folks with the rally said this was a victory for us were able to do this here but this is a very small park in whats essentially downtown charlottesville which is why everyone is crowded in here together which may have been why the city of charlottesville was concerned about this rally in the first place. You said there are state police there, not local police. Reporter they are marked as state police. These are Virginia State police that are here as well. They appear to be monitoring the situation at this point. They do not appear to have gotten involved and i do not see them out in the street in the crowd where everything is happening. Has there been any response to what weve seen here . Including the violence. You had members of these White Nationalist groups striking, punching clergy members with brass knuckles. Wheres the city leadership . Any response from the mayor of charlottesville . Any response . Reporter i have not seen them out here. Yesterday, they said they would be ready for the rally and planning for this for weeks. They had a plan in place to handle this. Were going to see how that plan unfolds as the day goes on. For those just tuning in, you are watching live pictures from charlottesville, virginia. A very large protest and counterprotest. White nationalist groups, various groups converging on the city of charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a statue of robert e. Lee from a park now called Emancipation Park. Ive been handed by my producer a list of whos down there marching in terms of the socalled alt right, the White Nationalist groups. White rights activist Jason Kessler who lives in charlottesville is apparently the organizer of this protest. That is the person who is organizing this rally. Kessler is a newly sworn in member according to news week of the proud boys alt right fraternity created by vice news cofounder turned right wing provok for, Gavin Mcguinness and expected to attend. Ill let you listen for a second so we can hear what theyre chanting. Its hard to hear. Lets go to the next person. Matthew heineback. A new generation of White Nationalists. A student in maryland and founded and started a chapter at the youth for western civilization. Ywc for the united white the right rally. And alt right blogger and the host of the antise mettic podcast, the hebrew word for the holocaust. A guy named tim geenet who goes by baked alaska, a charming. A white rapper and buzz field social media strategist and geenet went on the road with milo in 2016. A prominent alt right troll, baiting opponents of donald trump with alt right means by his twitter account. We do have, okay, all right, lets just to reset what were talking about here. Were talking about a current rally by alt right nationalists. Weve gotten back reverend Tracy Blackmon, the executive minister of the United Church of christ in charlottesville. First of all, are you okay . We lost you earlier. I am okay, joy. But its getting more volatile out here. Theyre beginning to throw things and we are missing, we lost contact with three of our ministers who had to run because nationalists, the White Supremacists began assaulting them. So weve lost contact with cornell west and steph west away. So we have people looking for them and theyre throwing the White Nationalists, the white spremists are throwing full bottles. Its beginning to be physical here. And were you a witness to members of the clergy being struck . Now im being protect bed by the police. Theyre throwing stuff even into this tent where the police are. Theyre throwing things in the direction of police . We can see that now. Nothing is sacred here, joy. This is a sad day in america and im afraid there will be many more because of the hateful rhetoric we have unleashed in this country. Who do you blame for what were seeing right now . I blame the president s administration. I know that some may not agree with me and i know that it didnt all come from him, but the language that promotes hatred against other race groups, the language that suggests that some people need more militarization of police than others, the language that says everyone does not have a place and is not welcome in america has given permission for hate to be unleashed in this country and may god have mercy on our souls for that. Reverend blackmon, do you mean the president ial administration, the Trump Administration . I absolutely do. And i wonder if now there is a bit of a Police Presence. You said you are being protected by the police. Do you feel there were enough Police Deployed to this rally . Well, its interesting. The police are here but for the most part, theyve taken a passive observation type of stance and only getting involved when theres a physical altercation. As someone who spent two years in ferguson, it certainly is not my history that police in these kinds of situations. So ive also asked myself the question, where is all of the militarization and the mobilization that has happened in the past . Its not happening now. This is charlottesville. Thats ferguson. Perhaps thats a part of it but we certainly could use some of that strong handling of police that we saw with Peaceful Protesters in ferguson that were not seeing against White Nationalists standing on steps throwing full bottles, which is tantamount to a legal weapon, with others. We just located seth and cornell west and they are safe as well. Good to know. Were finding out some clergy who were struck by members of the white supremacist groups. You can see theres another battle going on. One of the other guests that we had on earlier, andrew stepanian. Clashes. Joy, im going to lose you because the police are requiring me to get out of here. Thank you so much for your time, reverend blackmon. I think this might be a Good Opportunity to take a quick break. Well take a very quick commercial break and then when we come back, we will update you on the situation in charlottesville. More a. M. Joy after the break. Tk madeline out on a date, he would call her corded house telephone and get permission to speak to her. Today is a lot different. Billy just slides into madelines dm and shell respond with oh hayyy swing by 4 dinnr smiley face heart emoji even though courtship has become less strict, Hebrew National hot dogs remain strict as ever when it comes to our standards. 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It used to be robert e. Lee park and actually storming the prayer meeting before the counterprotest to todays neonazi and white supremacist rally. They stormed the meeting in the dead of night wielding tiki torches, looking like tough villagers but a little sort of an interesting choice there. Former Media Consultant for breitbart. Com. What do you make of what youre seeing including violence against clergy in charlottesville, virginia, right now . This is about the most unamerican thing you could ever see. Its disgusting. Theres not even words to adequately describe what it feels like to watch Something Like this happen. In america, in 2017 and a lot is the symptom of what we see pages like breitbart, the rhetoric of donald trump having people like sebastian and steve bannon in the white house. These people think their side won in this election. They think its okay now to come on out of hiding. They dont need the white sheets over their heads. They can walk in the middle of the downtown street and advance this hateful and disgusting rhetoric. And at some point, people need to take responsibility for the level of discourse in the country, for the temperature right now that were seeing for this type of hate and when you look at pages like breitbart and alt right platforms who continually make content that speaks directly to the people and inspires the people, encourages them, the congregation and when it goes bad, theres nothing right at breitbart about this. Theres something about bill maher said the other night. Nothing about this at all. Were not just picking on breitbart for the viewers. It named itself the home of the alt right. Said it wants to be the home of the alt right. Had the blatantly racist commentator write that description of what the alt right is. White nationalism dressed up in fancier clothes. Sebastian gorka linked to a Nazi Organization group in hungary where his parents are from. Wheres their m wears their medals. Steve bannon, passed into sort of decency by much of the media by eulist but just explain in very simple blunt terms what it was that steve bannon was running over in terms of the socalled alt right . It was permeating the zs that somehow immigrants that come into this country are a problem, that White America is constantly under siege and under attack from diversity. The idea that theres something to fear from diversity and from allowing people from all over the world to come here. Which is exactly what our country, by the way, was founded on. The idea that this is a place that anyone could come to and have a better way of life. You know, constant stories about terrorists or immigrants are raping everyone and creating drug problems and somehow theyre the problem with every single thing that we have thats going wrong for White America in this country . Its pointed and targeted right at immigrants and right at diversity. And thats the type of platform that breitbart is. Thats the type of rhetoric coded or not that youve seen from donald trump, from the policies that they try to advance, the America First is really code for white first. It was another slogan used by pro Nazi Organizations in the 1930s. Max, this is a blatantly antise mettic movement. People dont even mention linked to betezzi ran. Hes got a job in the white house. No question, a lot of normalizing of stuff thats not accepted or normalized and ive had a small taste of that myself. Its kind of interesting because im 47 years old and never really experienced antisemitism in this country except with this anti antisemettic hate fest on twitter and get deluged with the pep pi the frog crowd, the neonazis, alt right, whatever theyre calling themselves. You can see the ties pretty obvious that these folks are huge fans of donald trump and they will send out the most hateful vicious propaganda against anybody who descends. One of the other things that people need to know about is that this is not sort of an unsophisticated impoverished groups of media organizations who are very savvy in terms of using online tools to get their message across. When you describe some of the people involved down there, former rapper very ironic youd want to be a rapper if youre a White Nationalist, matthew heineback, the new generation of the alt right, a College Degree from the university, Towson University in maryland and a link to buzzfeed. These are people who actually work in the main, sort of the new mainstream media. And the Trump White House are bringing people from the fringes into the mainstream and not just folks like steve bannon and sebastian who have senior jobs in the white house. Michael anton. Yeah, i mean, i dont know if i would put anton in the same category of the alt right but hes certainly somebody whos very pro trump. But i was thinking of people like mike sorenavic, who claimed Hillary Clinton was running a sex ring out of a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor in washington and you see at the same time now, he is attacking hr mcmaster, the National Security advisor who has clashed with steve bannon. So this, you get the impression that steve bannon has sent the alt right lynch mob after his rival in the white house. Hr mcmaster and you see all of these disturbing links between these extremist outside and the people wielding power within the white house. If i can get my producers to just pull up, there was an article in Foreign Policy that talked about a memo that was circulated inside the National Security council in which another person on the payroll of the United States government circulated this alarmist memo claiming that there were memes, antitrump memes coming from quote unquote globalists and bakers and sort of all of the things that you might expect to come from the alt right fever swamp and saying these people were conspiring inside the government and it was all of the things you would expect and that person has now been fired. Hr mcmaster trying to clean these people out of government. The memo, its deranged. Shocking someone to think like this could possibly be hired for the National Security council but he was hired by mike flynn and its taken six months for hr mcmaster to be able to get rid of him because people like this are protected from the senior echelons from trump and bannon and so forth. It reads like something out of an insane asylum. Or breitbart. Com. But this feeds into the conspiratorial mindset donald trump himself had. This is a guy who came to National Prominence by saying barack obama forged his birth certificate and a massive conspiracy to cover this up . And claim that ted cruzs father was involved in the kennedy assassination. I mean, this plays into Donald Trumps mindset. And remember, any white house is a reflection of the guy at the top and sadly, this is reflective of a major element of donald trump. Absolutely. All right, so i just want to let the viewers know, youre looking at live pictures from charlottesville, virginia. The city of charlottesville now declared an emergency as you can see. You can see on twitter, the tweet just sent out by the city of charlottesville. Literal violence in the streets of charlottesville. One of the towns that went heavily for Hillary Clinton. Its actually quite a liberal college town and a park that is called Emancipation Park, renamed from being robert e. Lee park and a City Council Vote to remove the statue of robert e. Lee causing what youre seeing there today. A group of White Nationalists, of neonazis, kkk. Official organizations that are selfdeclared White Nationalists decided to march on charlottesville and they were met by counterprotests to include antifascists, black lives matter and clergy and last night, those White Nationalists marched on the planning and prayer meeting that was preparing to take on this White Nationalist rally. They marched on it with torches. I guess all they could get were tiki torches at that time of night and marched on it with what one person described to me last night akin to the clan rallies she remembers as a kid seeing in the south. Really terrified when i spoke to her last night. She was pretty afraid when i spoke to her today, throwing bottles, striking clergy, according to reverend blackmon and theres been violence and a very sort of mild Police Presence. Everybody stick with me. Were going to have more on this breaking story after a break. Day 13. If only this were as easy as saving 600 when you switch to progressive. Winds stirring. Too treacherous for a selfie. [ camera shutter clicks ] sure, ive taken discounts to new heights with safe driver and paperless billing. But the prize at the top is worth every last breath. Here we go. [ grunts ] got em. Ahh. Wait a minute. Whole wheat waffles . [ crying ] why wait a minute. Whole wheat waffles . Hey. What can you tell me about your new Social Security alerts . Oh well alert you if we find your Social Security number on any one of thousands of risky sites, so youll be in the know. Ooh. Sushi. Ugh. Being in the know is a good thing. Sign up online for free. Discover Social Security alerts. 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With less pain, i can be more active. Ask your doctor about lyrica. Delicious pasta marinara. But birds eye made it from zucchini. Mmm bird mashed potatoes and rice. But made from cauliflower. Looks like i need a fork oh, no. giggling bird new birds eye veggie made. So veggie good. Bird new birds eye veggie made. Itwhats possible. Nk rethink the experience. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief uses unique Mistpro Technology and helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Rethink your allergy relief. Flonase sensimist. Standoff going on. The protesters up in the park. Kind of above the street here and down below in the street are all of the counterprotesters. Back and forth between both sides. Some of them with water and some of them with other things. We had a bottle land near us. Definitely getting more tense out here as you can see right now. We have a lot of noise going on from the counterprotesting side. It sounds like theyre trying to basically drown out the protest of the alt right who are just away. And we have Virginia State police here that are monitoring the scene but so far, they have not moved in to either create or move between both sides. Right now, we see more Water Bottles and more water going back and forth between the groups. Theyre throwing more items than ive seen so far in the last hour. But again, the Police Presence is here. They have just not moved in to further separate these two sides. Right now here in charlottesville. Maya rodriguez, thank you very much. Stay safe and well come back to you on the other side of a break. Youre watching a. M. Joy and well be right back. Hey, is this our turn . Honey. Our turn . Yeah, we go left right here. woman vo Great Adventures are still out there. Well find them in our Subaru Outback. avo love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. 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Respiratory tract infection and headache. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take. And if youre pregnant or planning to be. Ask your dermatologist about otezla today. Otezla. Show more of you. Just moments ago in charlottesville, virginia, where White Nationalists are clashing at Emancipation Park. These are live pictures now. Theres a lot of object throwing, apparently according to one of our guests, reverend Tracy Blackmon, throwing full bottles of water. Earlier, they used brass knuckles and bats to attack members and antifascist comes out to march against them and black lives matter all of whom converged on the park and spilled into the street of nearby corner near the university of virginia to try to counter this what theyre calling unite the right rally. A violent rally. Joining me now, senior fellow at the council on foreign relations, former Media Consultant for breitbart. Com. And former chief white house lawyer president george w. Bush, im going to start with you. Youve been tweeting about this and pretty strong words for those out there. If you could reiterate those for the audience. Well, this is very similar to what happened in germany in the early 1930s. This is the face of fascism in the United States. And it is directly the responsibility of this administration in the bhous. Ive been a republican for 30 years but we are the party of Abraham Lincoln and george w. Bush, Ronald Reagan. We are not the party of fascism in america and we are going to have to reject this. We need to demand today that President Trump fires Sebastian Gorca, steve ban nonon and all other alt right. This is Breitbart News what youre watching on the streets of charlottesville and as arepublican, i will remain a republican but not support fascism and call for the impeachment if he does not fire the neofascists in his white house immediately. Is there any discomfort inside of the white house with the presence of Sebastian Gorca linked to a nazi linked organization from hungary with the presence of steve bannon who ran the web site where the alt right found his home and any chance the people have job insecurity at this point . If they have any job insecurity, it has nothing to do with that whats going on today. Ive covered lot of these different events in scuffles and some have turned violent and theyre upsetting and disturbing when they happen, but look. Just to be mildly fair to the white house and President Trump for a moment, i think its a little bit unfair to blame President Trump for stuff like this. I mean, if he doesnt denounce this on his twitter feed while hes more than willing to denounce a botched or bloody facelift, than yeah, call him for that but i think way more fairground if you denounce the administration for its racist crackdown on Voting Rights or the intention to uproot and kick out as many immigrant families as they want to. And by the way, those are policies that far predated trumpism and i would like to hear what richard and max have to say about the things long a part of the republican dna long before President Trump came about and started saying vulgar words. Richard . I am happy to respond to that. Not always agree with everything the republican administrations do but we have never ever seen rhetoric similar to what has come out of this white house. We never had anyone like steve bannon or Sebastian Gorca in the Bush White House. Someone who dared to wear a nazi medal to the president s inauguration. That is disgusting. We never would have tolerated that and we can disagree. I disagree with my own party on some issues, but we never would have had any of this in the Bush White House and these people need to be fired immediately and this is Breitbart News. Breitbart news is a racist organization and it needs to acknowledge as such, they should not be given preferential access to the white house which is what theyre now getting under steve bannon and once again, bannon needs to be fired, Sebastian Gorca and the rest of the fascists or we have to remove this president. Our democracy depends on it and talking about president bush or Hillary Clinton and trying to compare this, that is a completely inappropriate comparison to what really is a serious threat to our democracy in 2017. Is it unfair to tie President Trump . I dont think President Trump is directly responsible for instigating the events in charlottesville but fair to say hes catered to the alt right crowd including by hiring some of the champions in the white house, by pursuing policies like not only the crackdown on ilLegal Immigration and mass deportations and wants a crackdown on Legal Immigration which is something that republicans going back to Ronald Reagan have always favored and then trump is opposed to it and wants to challenge affirmative action in court and no question pursuing policies that elicit support from people like this even though hes not directly responsible for this and someone a lifelong and i was a Foreign Policy advisor to marco rubio and i cant imagine those men in the white house employing somebody trafficking some of the hatred and conspiracy monitoring and this is not what the Republican Party has stood for since 1850s. This is principal j almosfringe there all the time but hes brought them to the center of power. By the way, if you think youre seeing guns in the hands of people, you are. Virginia is an open carry state and seeing more clashes. Is this live or tape . This is live. This is happening right now. Youre seeing these clashes and some of the people that are in the streets of charlottesville are armed. You see people carrying long guns. This is an open carry state, so this is an incredibly dangerous situation, incredible violence. Its shocking personally having been in baltimore that the Police Presence is so scant. When we were in baltimore, there were tanks on the streets of baltimore. We are seeing a rather thin Police Presence when we see actual violence and reports weve gotten on the ground, including violence against clergy people, members of the clergy. I want to go to you on this. Because that is sort of the question. You have the Republican Party bring in starting with southern strategy, this idea of coopting what used to be southern democrats who objected to Lyndon Johnsons moves on civil rights or objected to the idea of desegregation and sort of courting them and saying theres a silent majority thats for law and order and softer language targeting people and we know theres a reaction against the immigration and naturalization act of 1965 and pulled certain elements of the Democratic Party into the gop. Did breitbart do something substantially new in terms of what that entity and entities like it brought to the table . I think what they brought to the table was for the first time in the 21st century in a digital era, they brought together a congregating central platform to unite all of these voices, racist voices, and channel them and direct them and focus them in one place every day that they could go multiple times and a day and have content written solely for them. To make them feel like it was okay to feel the way they feel and to inspire them to take action, to inspire them to rally behind a candidate that they thought was one of their own who uses coded language, who brings on people inside his team, who subscribed to their beliefs and really, they use policy as a mechanism to spread the virus of racism and targeting miernlnori and immigrants and laying the groundwork for volatile situations like this to happen and this second, President Trump has yet to speak about this, every second that goes by that President Trump is silent and its not like hes too busy. Hes on vacation golfing, tweeting. Theres no reason why after what happened last night that the white house would be silent if not for the fact theyre sitting there letting this happen. The longer they go silent, the more complicit they are. To that point, when the ferguson uprising took place and again, Water Cannons and lots of arrests including of journalists, president obama who was at the time, it was summer. He was on vacation in marthas vin yard, had to come to a camera and Say Something. The fact that the president of the United States has yet to say anything when there is literal violence in the streets of an American City, isnt it fair to say that the president of the United States is supporting at min minimum, the alt right working for him in the west wing . Im not sure if sub orning is right but it would be nice if he would come out to denounce and didnt threaten venezuela with potential military action. But it doesnt matter of being nice though. When any kind of violence i agree with you. Its what a president normally does. I agree with you 100 on that. The president of the United States should do that, so the rule book goes out the window with donald trump. But my copanelist right now just saying that President Trump needs to sack gorca and bannon. I wonder what mr. Boot or mr. Bardela thinks about Jeff Sessions . Are they saying that with those people need to be cleared out of the administration, Jeff Sessions needs to be too . A fair point. Take gorca out of it. Its an unusual case and i am no fan of Jeff Sessions but remember, if he is forced out of the attorney generals seat, donald trump has the potential to appoint somebody who will fire bob mueller so all things considered, i think most democrats and most republicans at this point think that sessions needs to stay where he is but i still disagree with his policies. Clearly, somebody whos embraced this populist nationalist agenda which is true conservative republicans. And has done for a very long time way before donald trump was even on the bandwagon. Lets go to a break. More on this story after the break. Liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. Yeah, my dad says our insurance doesnt have that. What . you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Charlottesville, virginia. Counterprotests in a unite the right rally. Joining from the table. Kurt bardella and richard painter. There have been sponlresponses ill let our audience know that the governor of virginia tweeted out the acts and rhetoric in charlottesville over the last 24 hours are unacceptable and must stop. Right to free speech is not a right to violence. Theres a response from the university of virginia and Teresa Sullivan who said those who gather to strike fear do not reflect the universitys values. Ill also mention for viewers any facebook posts last night, the mayor of charlottesville, whose name is mike signer, i believe, the marches called a cowardly parade of hatred and intolerance. Im going to go to richard first to get joan seethed. Richard, this is, you know, the south has a history. A particular kind of history. Home of Thomas Jefferson, the place where the rally last night happened was around a statue of Thomas Jefferson who founded the university. We havent confronted the history of the civil war, the south . Well, the vast majority of the people in the south do not support this kind of thing. Do not support racism or neofascism at all. This is a very small minority of people in the south and weve got some of them up in the north too. Its not a north south issue. President trump needs to send in forces, military. Thats what president eisenhower would have done to deal with this situation, and get these facists off the streets. Theyre throwing bottles at the cops and at the clergy. This cannot be tolerated in the United States. The neofacists need to be fired in the white house. Sebastian gorka and steve bannon, the rest of them. We cannot tolerate neofacism in the United States. I as a republican have to live with the fact that my party is in control of the white house and both branches of congress and weve got chaos in the streets. As i say, its starting to look like germany in the 1930s. Its not a northsouth issue, its not about the civil war. Its about 2017 and the serious threat to our democracy right here and now. You know, joan walsh, Steven Bannon worked in hollywood. Stephen miller, who last week essentially said that the statue of liberty, the poem is irrelevant and went on a tirade against immigration is from california. Talk about cosmopolitan. So it is a northsouth issue. This is an issue with a particular strain of ideology thats really taken hold in the gop. Right. A lot of these people im sorry. Joan first. Im sure a lot of these people are coming from elsewhere, theyre not necessarily virginians or southerners. I just have to say when i saw this start last night and i saw those little man boys with their mommies tiki torches marching, at first it was almost funny. A scitronella torch. This morning they showed up in formation with riot gear. At first i thought certain people were cops but they were the altright folks planning for this. I listened to Evan Blackman say they were throwing things at the police. And hitting them. And hitting them. And nobody with black lives matter would ever for a moment be allowed to get away with Something Like that. So the behavior of the police is going to come in for a lot of criticism and, yes, the behavior of donald trump. How about mitch mcconnell, where is he . I know hes not from virginia, but hes a huge republican leader. The silence of republicans this morning on this issue is going to haunt them. Well have our producer go through and look and see if there is any response on twitter. People go to twitter to get a response, but lets show some images of ferguson, missouri. Ferguson happened in august. The president of the United States, who was then barack obama, was on vacation in marthas vineyard, had to come out, made a statement. Came out and went in front of cameras and made a statement. Look at that Police Presence. There were there was essentially an army on the street at ferguson, missouri, when you had the ferguson uprising and it was a very different scene. Dogs were used, hoses were used. I was in baltimore where, again, there were tanks. There were armed police from all over, from all sorts of jurisdictions around the country in different regalia. What youre seeing here is very different. Its very different. What im seeing on twitter is that most of what the police have been doing is interfering with the counterprotesters, not so much with the altright protesters. So, you know, theres something really off here in the Police Presence. But we saw this in berkeley a few months ago when the altright provoked a clash and kicked their butts. The police were parked on the sidelines and reporters were going up to them saying what are you doing, why arent you out there at least protecting some of these people . And there was nothing. And, kirk, is part of what sort of an mates the altright wait a minute, we have charlottesville the city of charlottesville has sent out a tweet that says alert Unlawful Assembly declared for the rally at Emancipation Park. Now we may see a change in the weather because this has now been declared an Unlawful Assembly. That just went out from the city of charlottesville. The sense of impunity, speak to that a little bit. Im sorry, i didnt catch that. I just wanted to say one thing. The chairwoman of the rnc did just tweet the hate and bigotrys dangerous. I agree with joan that we need a lot more leadership right now, vocal leadership, from republicans, from republican leaders, elected leaders in congress and in washington. This is the Republican Party right now thats on display. Donald trumps Republican Party. If they dont want to be tied to it, if they dont want to be associated to it, people like mitch mcconnell, speaker paul ryan, john thune, marco rubio, ted cruz, anybody who proclaims to be a leader who doesnt want to be associated with this type of hatred and racism, bigotry and ignorance, they need to speak out right now loud and clear. I want to let everyone know and im emailing this to my producers, i was just texted a tweet from the Prince William county Republican Party, and they just tweeted out lets be very clear about whats happening in charlottesville. There is nothing conservative about White Nationalism or racial supremacy. They attach a statement that says the Republican Party of virginia stands for freedom and against White Supremacy over the superiority of any race over another. We support free speech and uphold our declaration of independence, the principle that all men are created equal. The idea of White Nationalism and supremacy is immoral and contradictory to the constitution of the United States. They go on to say there is nothing conservative about White Nationalism and White Supremacy. As an africanamerican, i am proud that virginia will respond to this rally as a model to the nation for freedom, inclusively and equality for the opportunity of all people. That is a message from d. J. Jordan, the vice chairman of the Prince William county republican committee. So im going to tweet that out so you can get that on my twitter feed as well. Weve not heard yet a response from the white house, however. The governor of virginia has responded, the university of virginia has responded. Look at these clashes, dragging an American Flag between two people. Now we see some water hoses happening. This is amazing. This is happening on the streets of an American City. There are people out in charlottesville with guns. There are people who are armed. And there are people who are fighting, throwing bottles, throwing water. What did you just say . James, who are we going to . Okay. I think we are going to just stay with this coverage. You now do see an armed Police Presence. You can see them standing in body armor. Not a lot of Movement Among those Police Officers, but they are showing up. Youre starting to see their presence. Just incredible scene in an American City all over the proposed removal of a statue of robert e. Lee from a park that is now called Emancipation Park, used to be robert e. Lee park. This is happening on or near the campus of the university of virginia in charlottesville, virginia. Police have been struck. Clergy have been struck. Now were starting to see a little bit of armor here. But just ann incredible scene. Max, you had a final comment. Just a quick comment. You certainly will see republicans condemning this but what we need is not just condemnations from various republicans, you need some moral leadership from the white house. Even though trump himself i imagine at some point will issue a statement condemning this, he doesnt show the kind of moral leadership that we had from president obama, that we had from president bush, that we had from president clinton, trying to bring people closer together, trying to heal these racial divisions. Donald trump is a divider, not a uniter. He constantly tries to set one group of americans against another. He scapegoats muslims, he scapegoats muslims, transgender people, various individuals, in order to achieve his own political success and that is deeply troubling. I dont blame trump directly for whats going on here but i do blame him for the moral leadership lacking right now from this white house in this country. Its a disgrace and its a shame. Joan. I guess i do blame donald trump because i do think he pulled the lid off this. These folks are out there but their numbers have skyrocketed since he declared his candidacy, basically declaring mexicans who are undocumented mexicans rapists and criminals. And i think that he stoked the fires of this kind of thing. He refused to put it down and he put steve bannon in the white house. I do blame him. Theres a reason we didnt see this three years ago, four years ago. Breitbart, there has been inklings that they want to expand into europe, expand as a business. At some point are they going to start to distance themselves from what they call the altright, this White Nationalist movement . Well, they havent yet and theres not a single bit of content on their home pages about whats going on right now, the biggest story right now in America Today and there are crickets on it so this tells me this is exactly the kind of stuff they want to have happen and they hope to spread elsewhere. Frankly the Republican Party needs to change its philosophy to prevent this type of stuff from happening. A lot of their policies are racist when they talk about incarceration over drug treatment. That targets minorities, pure and simple. Richard painter, ive been told by friends who are associated with two bush administrations that it would be a Different Party if you still had either of the bushes still at the top of it. This isnt a policy debate. This is about neofascism and it can happen anywhere. We had a bombing in a house of worship in minnesota just days ago and Sebastian Gorka in the white house had the nerve to say that we were faking it. Were not going to tolerate this in the United States. And once again, they are going to be removed from this administration, gorka, bannon, every one of them, or this president is going to be removed from office. And thats the way its going to work and im saying that as a republican and the vast majority of republicans in the United States are going to agree with me on that. Were not going to tolerate whats happening in charlottesville or what happened in bloomington, minnesota, a week ago with the bombing of a mosque. We dont tolerate this in america. Well, thank you to our panel. Joan walsh, max boot, kurt bardella, richard painter. That is our show today. A. M. Joy will be back tomorrow morning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Stay with alex witt for the latest in this breaking news story. All right, joy reid, thank you very much for the handoff, i appreciate it. Welcome