Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20170801

Facts of life in case you missed the last episode, sean spicer resigned because of Anthony Scaramucci, who then pushed out Reince Priebus, which opened the door to john kelly, who then muched out pushed out the mooch. Welcome to morning joe. With us we have former aide to the george w. Bush white house elise jordan, steve kornacki, former Communications Director for ted cruzs campaign, rick tyler, sam stein and willies back. Good god where you have been . I was away, i was across the street. The last time i was here, Anthony Scaramucci was not even a glimmer in our eye. What you have missed and in what a short amount of time. Our top story this morning really crystallizes the challenge for the new chief of staff. Well begin with the report that says President Trump overruled his closest advisers including family members when it came to the new york city about the story about donald trump jr. And russian advisers. Its really important for everyone to really keep in mind here the Biggest Issue may be the president himself. That may be the biggest challenge. The Washington Post citing multiple sources with direct knowledge reporting that the misleading foursentence statement was personally dictating by the president flying home from the g20 summit on july 8. Think about it. He gets away from everybody, theres attorneys, theres everybody wants to talk to him, gets on a plane and overrules his inner circle, his kids. According to the post, president ial adviser and soninlaw Jared Kushners lawyers knew how damaging it could be. Hope hicks director of Strategic Communications advocated for a different approach. They say kushners team talked about sharing everything, including the contents of the emails with the mainstream news organizations. Hicks reportedly also spoke by phone with trump jr. About the transparency of the strategy, believing the complete story would eventually emerge. But as they boarded air force one, the president apparently intervened, demanded that he describe the meeting as unimportant, that it was initiated by the russian lawyer and primarily was about her the adoption of russian children. According to people with knowledge of the discussions, attorney for President Trump, john dowd called the story fakeness, incorrect and misinformed of no consequence. And another lawyer used similar language. Willie, take it to the table. It seems to me that if this is true and if this is double and triple sourced at this point, for the president to say lets just tell them this is about an adoption and it will go away, its not smart strategically. It answers the question as youre reading in great detail of the Washington Post. What raised suspicion is the campaign doesnt generally take meetings about policy issues because youre trying to run a campaign. He had secured the nomination but he was still running against hillary clinton. There was no chance he was going to take an issue. This is a fivehour plane ride coming back from the g20. The entire staff is consumed in this inconsequential, meaningless meeting. Then you have the president s lawyer, who apparently went out and lied for the president or the president is lying to his lawyer about the nature of the meeting. And on top of that, steve kornacki, there are serious questions that bob mueller might have about the president drafting this, if he did. If you lie to the press, can you certainly pay a deep political price but generally its not a crime to lie to the press. If you think back to president clinton saying i did not have sex with that woman, its when he lies under oath. In terms of whats on the record right now, theres probably not any legal jeopardy. Elise, what would you be interested in if you were looking at the president , including his team for russia and you see perhaps inconsistencies starting from the president drafting a statement . I think it just goes back to the question why is President Trump himself so involved in how the response is moving forward . Why is he so consumed with what the response is going to be when it comes to this russia investigation and what is it that is out there that he is so worried about surfacing that he has a oneonone with putins translator at the g20 . Just at the end of the day theres that big cloud of why does President Trump address putin and russia in any terms . The other day putin said hes going to ban offver 700 employe at the u. S. Embassy in moscow, not a peep from donald trump. Since when does he not respond to a slight. This for many my provide some hope, some order here, maybe people will report to somebody before they go straight to the president and maybe there will be organization inside the white house. Then you see what happens when this president gets off on his phone with his phone or with his family, things happen, sam stein. Keep in mind, this happened before general kelly or john kelly was chief of staff. I do think youre pointing out Something Interesting, though. When you unceremoniously fire and get rid of your chief of staff, there is the possibility they might come around and bite you. Im not saying theyre responsible for the Washington Post story but you have to wonder what kind of stuff they can tell the press. Im also struck by what willie said, which is theres sort of like this ham fistedness to all of this, this utter lack of discretion from the trump team about how theyre handling all of this that is just puzzling to me. The coverup is just so poorly executed that its just raising all these suspicions. Why is he in there crafting that statement . Why is he talking to putin so much in why is he firing comey . I mean, everything hes doing leads a casual observer to say whats going on here . Something must be happening. Im wondering why theyre so bad at being discrete. It raises the question again and again, to elises point, whenever it comes to russia, theres always cloud and smoke, never a clearcut answer. And if this was an innocent meeting, why do you have this meeting with the president of the United States in the cabin of air force one. Just say its about adoption. If its a nothing meeting, just say what its about. Just put it out there, say what it was about. If Nothing Happened in the meeting, just say what happened. Their current line is this is something that is so rudimentary and benign that every campaign is interested in opposition research. In thats the ca if thats the case, why even go through the first step of attaching it to adoption policy . Why conducoct some excuse of th . But in is what the president would have done when he was in charge of trump tower. They would say, we have it planned out, here it is and hed say no, no, were going to do this. Jared kushner and ivanka and his lawyers wanted to be transparent and the president just overruled it and blew it up. I also think it very interesting about the russian angle to all this because remember, President Trump had an offtherecord meeting with Vladimir Putin. It went on for a long time. Vladimir putin is now taking action for the United States for what obama did as he was leaving the administration and throwing out their diplomats. Now he has finally responded because there was a promise made somewhere to putin that we will lift these sanctions and now that the congress has embarra embarrassi embarrassingly for the president taken that away. There was no american interpreter in that meeting. Putin could come out and say heres all the things we talked about, whether theyre true or not. I think thats dangerous. I think essentially this is the big story of date and the d could unfold into more questions and more answers. The or story we have to get to is the story of yesterday afternoon, which really does Say Something about the president as well that we have to try and understand. After just ten days on the job, white house i dont even was he sworn in . Was he cleared even . He was never cleared. White house Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci is gone. He was pushed out the same day the new chief of staff john kelly was sworn in, the wall street journal reports that shortly after taking the oath, the retired fourstar general urged scaramucci to resign. And scaramuccis profane remarks to the new yorker disgusted and offended the president. Jared and ivanka. This says melania and ivanka trump, who actually advocated for him were a little upset at his language, like it was new information. Take a look. Tcan you describe what he found inappropriate . I said inappropriate for a person in that position. Said what . I cant really explain it any further than that. She cant explain it because this president has a hard time with whats inappropriate, right . How do you define whats inappropriate for this president . Im more wondering, though, about the inner circle who pushed for scaramucci, lets just leave that story aside for now because its kind of sad. His job was to push out priebus and spicer, mission accomplished. That leaves steve bannon to represent the establishment. Sanders also made it clear that all staff will report to general kelly. So six months later they final le get they need a chief of staff that everybody gets in line behind, which could really help, you never know. I guess its never too late to lose hope, even as late as sunday evening scaramucci told Stephanie Ruhle, he believed the fallout from his new yorker int interview would blow over, but it was soon clear that mr. Scaramucci would not be a fixture of the administration but a transitory figure. And seemingly above the fray of it all, the president tweeted a great day at the white house. Do i understand him as saying they planned this . Nobody plans a mack track driving into the white house and spewing profanity. They certainly plan that. I have tired of the jared and ivanka spin machine that is constantly trying to portray them as all powerful and powerless. They have so much control yet they have no control. And i was really disgusted by ivankas tweet today saying she looked forward to working alongside general kelly. Alongside . Respect the chain of command in the white house. Respect someone who served half a century in the military. Maybe you could learn something. If anyone can rein in President Trump, it will be john kelly. Donald trump doesnt do a chain of command. If you think ivanka and jared arent going to have a direct line to their father and fatherinlaw, youre sorely mistaken. I hope that john kelly can do the job a chief of staff has done but ill believe it when i see it. When you do have here is one thing that i think is sort of customary in a white house pup have a new chief of staff coming in saying i want my own people and i want the authority. You go back to ronald reagan, the shortest previous record for chief of communication was eight days, this was six. A new communications was installed, then a new chief of staff, howard baker, came in. The old one was pushed out because don reagan and nancy reagan didnt get along. There is somewhat of a similar dynamics playing out with had one. The so opera dynamics with this one go back much farther. But the thing at the core that we are seeing here is i think something weve seen before, which is a chief of staff asserting himself early on and does raise a question of what will his authority look like a month from now. Im surprised to see a tweet to work alongside john kelly. Theres no one working alongside him. If you want your father to stop drafting statements that will get him into legal trouble, the Washington Post breaking the story, the exact quote is prosecutors typically assume that any misleading statement is an effort to throw investigators off track. This is like putting bread crumbs out for mule aeller and come this way, heres a little trail for you of all the things im going rogue with my family and with no experience to lead this country, instead were just going to try to get out of trouble we have made. They need someone in there to get all the people away from the president so he can focus on his job, sam stein, which right now if you look at the, what is it, ten failures in a row, many of them legislatlegislative, many political, some of them just morally embarrassing. Its time for the family to get out of the way. Once again, i agree with willie. Its a shock, two times in 20 minutes. How do you make an effective chain of command when you have family under the chain of command . Theres no way that ivanka and jared can take off their family hat and report to john kelly. This is part of what people were worried about when you hire family members for that type of gig. Again, the biggest enemy for trump is himself. So long as he can stop the tweeting and erratic behavior, maybe he has a chance to succeed. Kellys already making we have sources in the white house who are really encouraging him to go for it in terms of trying to found a democratic Republican Coalition for things like tax reform. But democrats feel like the well is poisoned a little bit here, that they cant really work with trump. And the truth of matter is that their base really doesnt want them to work with trump, too. Im not entirely confident having done reporting on this that were going to see some sort of showering with blossoming of bipartisan no. Think of republicans. Next hour we have republican senator jeff flake of arizona on the show. He has a new book out. In an excerpt he writes that the Republican Party is in denial about donald trump. And he writes in part this it was we conservative who is upon obamas election stated that our number one priority was not advancing a conservative policy agenda but making obama a oneterm president. The corollary to this binary thinking being that his failure would be our success and the fortunes of the citizenry would be presumably sorted out in the meantime. It was we conservatives who were largely silent when the most egregious and sustained attacks on obamas legitimacy were embraced. We conservatives have maintained an unnerving silence as instability has ensued to carry on in the spring of 2017 as if what was happening was anything approaching normalcy required a suspicion of critical faculties and tremendous powers of denial. Jeff flake will be our guest later on in the show. What do you want to say . I want to say its about time someone is speaking up but jeff has been speaking up. Hes in there and hes assuming the speaking for conservatives and i think thats good because conservatives, in my mind, conservatives who are adhering to principle and not just party label and what trump calls winning, winning, winning, my question as a conservative is if you win, what do we win . I want to know what the policy advancements are when we win . Nothing is happening. The property. We the supreme court. Well, that wouldnt have happened without mcconnell. This president and his inner circle, why in the world what would they want to accomplish by at this point trying to do anything for this administration. You look at how President Trump treats those who are most loyal to him. Its been crazy over the last couple of weeks to watch Jeff Sessions of alabama become a sympathetic figure who is suddenly this righteous arbiter of law and order to the left just because he has been so under attack by his former best friend and alltime supporter donald trump. So if thats the kind of treatment you can expect if you will not literally walk the plank for donald trump, then why make that risk and go in with him . Remember, theres a personnelmepersonnel me element on the jeff flake, front. President trump has said he has a personal layer where trump said i will primary a republican, a vote i desperately need in the senate because i dont like the guy and he hasnt been nice to me. Well have more from senator flake when he joins us and well be joined also by senator bill cassidy, who was at the white house to revive momentum for blake and well talk to the former director of the government ethics office. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Whoooo. Going somewhere . Heres some advice. Tripadvisor now searches more. Than 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30 . Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. Is everything ok . Adt, i could hear crackling in the walls, and my mind went totally blank. All i remember saying was, my boyfriends beating me and she took it from there. When a fire is going on, youre running around, youre not thinking clearly, so they called the Fire Department for us. And all of this occurred in four minutes or less. Within five minutes. I am absolutely grateful we all made it out safely. Its kind of one of those things you cant even. You cant even thank somebody. People you dont know actually care about you. To protect what you love, call 1800adtcares whats the story behind Green Mountain coffee and fair trade . Lets take a flight to colombia. This is boris calvo. Boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. All for a smoother tasting cup. Green mountain coffee. Your bbut as you get older,ing. It naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. Thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. The secret is an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. So it only made sense to create a network that keeps up. Introducing xfinity mobile. It combines americas largest, most reliable 4g lte with the most wifi hotspots nationwide. Saving you money wherever you check your phone. Yeah, even there. See how much you can save when you choose by the gig or unlimited. Call, or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Joining us from washington, associate editor of the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. You right that ivanka trump is part of the problem. And you write foolish optimists expected ivanka trump to be a moderating force in the white house. But by now it should be clear what shes not part of any solution, which by definition means she part of the problem. Apparently ivanka does apparently have real influence, as in matters of personnel. She and her husband reportedly urged President Trump to bring in foulmouthed Anthony Scaramucci as white house Communications Director. Seriously, thats the guy you wanted shaping the administrations message . Scaramucci was dismissed monday after just ten days on the job. In her white house role shes not helping the nation and shes sure not helping himself. Gene, there is sort of a strange reaction that she is having and different members of her staff saying they were insulted by his language. I dont know how you hire someone like Anthony Scaramucci and not know about his foul language. And have you heard the president s tweets and heard his foul language . This is like parallel universes or something. And all of us being shocked that he used such language does not ring credible to me, does not ring true to me. What rings true is that they perhaps wanted him to come in and be like a hand grenade and blow some things up and so he certainly did that. But in the process he embarrassed and really disgraced the administration and the white house and thus the nation in a way that we should just never think of as normal. And i just sat down to write my column yesterday and i just said, you know, heres somebody who has been seen as a relatively sympathetic figure generally, but what is she doing and why is she there . Why is she there as opposed to somebody who actually knows something about policy and knows and has some experience . Well, and, im i mean, i its hard not to get a little bit too personal here but even this is a president who like tweeted at me what he tweeted and i dont know how you can be, you know, upset with Anthony Scaramucci when your father is lobbing out the most vicious, strange, unhinged tweets at news anchors. Its hard for you to make that point because its about you, but, gene, mikas point is exactly right. I get the point. First of all, ive never known the trumps to be fragile flowers who are so frightened and scared by vicious lange badge but when he tweets Something Like that specifically about mika or anybody else on the people hes tweeted about, we didnt hear from them going to the president of the United States and saying, dad, you crossed the line. They havent been upset or insulted when anybody else has used language like this. Now for a guy like scaramucci, who you pushed for, this doesnt pass the smell test. It doesnt seem to make sense. You cant equate those two things. And look it the perhaps the slightly bigger picture. The language is a big thing and the way he attacked mika and the way he has attacked others i think is a big thing. You never had a president of the United States do anything like that. And we what we were told, that ivanka and jared would be doing or trying to do in the white house, were not seeing that either. So either they told us those things in bad faith or they simply are not effective in getting it done. You know, you mentioned, gene, that shes part of the problem. And that point, elise shes very much like her father. And that tweet really does kind of add to that concept that she might just be literally like her father, especially in terms of some of these problems. To say that shes serving alongside john kelly is it seems to be very much about her and seem to be that as an adviser in the white house, she is basically staking out her territory and saying i am not going to be subject to the chief of staffs authority. And thats a very dangerous. What would make her qualified to serve alongside john kelly . Can anybody come on, argue. I want to be educated here. And when she says serving, mika, serving how . Why is she on par with a tore are you kidding me . How embarrassing. When we started all this and they came to the white house, people said it could work, it might not work. Its pretty demonstrable right now its not working and its probably time for them to go. Well, they lack the humility to make it work. They doesnt know what they doesnt know and theyre unwilling to learn and listen. Shes going to be working alongside this storied figure in the American Military and in public service. You asks its a Family Business its a big business but its a Family Business. Its been him, and. Yes, general john kelly is an honorable and good man. Yes, hell be good at his job. But the idea that ivanka and jared will not have a direct line to his father and fatherinlaw is preposterous. He couldnt have concluded because we were too disorganized to collude. Now hes in charge. Yeah. Well be right back. Well is seems to me you have been too much stay with me, mr. Parker. When a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. Stay with me, mr. Parker. The at t network is helping First Responders connect with medical teams in near real time. Stay with me, mr. Parker. Saving time when it matters most. Stay with me, mrs. Parker. Thats the power of and. Booking a flight doesnt have to be expensive. Just go to priceline. Its the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40 . Just tap and go. And while im gone i can even check on my baby with this doggie cam. Oh jack, youre such a good boy. No, jack, what are you doing . Bad dog and if you need to get back home, like right now, priceline has you covered. In our house, we go through a lot of mom et paper. So we switched to new charmin super mega roll. Get six regular rolls in one with charmin super mega roll our longest lasting roll. Guaranteed to fit. Enjoy the go with charmin. Done. Rs. Supercool notebooks. Done. Thats mom taking care of business. But who takes care of mom . Office depot office max. This week, filler paper just one cent with five dollar minimum purchase. Taking care of business. We dei should know. M our eyes every day. I have chronic dry eye caused by reduced tear production due to inflammation. So i use restasis multidose. It helps me make more of my own tears, with continued use, twice a day, every day. Restasis multidose helps increase your eyes natural ability to produce tears, which may be reduced by inflammation due to chronic dry eye. Restasis multidose did not increase tear production in patients using antiinflammatory eye drops or tear duct plugs. To help avoid eye injury and contamination, do not touch the bottle tip to your eye or other surfaces. Wait 15 minutes after use before inserting contact lenses. The most common side effect is a temporary burning sensation. Your eyes. Your tears. Ask your eye doctor about restasis multidose. All right, joining us now veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. Heres some of the last Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci took general kellys advice to resign yesterday after his predecessor, mike dubke quit back in may sean spicer hit after scaramuccis hiring. Sallie yates, acting attorney general, Michael Flynn was fired, k. T. Mcfarland, derek harvey was remanufactured by flynns replacement h. R. Mcmaster, walter shaub, who said he felt he could be more of an advocate for ethics if he left the administration. Hell join us on the show this morning. Left in there steve bannon, Jared Kushner and ivanka trump. Elise alerted us to a tweet that i missed by ivanka trump over the past day, it would be like my dad when he was on the National Security and Madeleine Albright worked for him, saying mika, im going to have you come in and help Madeleine Albright today, just come in and youre qualified because youre my daughter. Everything that ivanka has put on the table has been run over by this president. And now she brings in scaramucci and hes fired after ten days. How could she tweet what she tweeted . She said looking forward to serving alongside john kelly, as we work for the American People. General kelly is an american hero. Clearly she has a sense of entitlement thats given to her by her father, as does her husband, the sense of entitlement given to her by the president of the United States. She probably also has a flawed sense of her own importance at this stage, again, entitled by her father. Shes going to have a different role, i think, now in the white house. Shell still have access to her father obviously. But, i mean, general kelly comes from the chain of command, 40 years, chain of command. When he was lance corporate, he knew that he was responsible for a private, he knew me was responsible for his weapon and anybody serving under him. That followed him all the way through his career of 40 years. He has a sense of a chain of command, a loyalty to the chain of command but a larger sense of lo loyalty to his country. General kelly will be the guy you want there and if anybody does anything that he thinks harms the country, thats where the rubber hits the road. Who does President Trump roo expe respect . Who has he talked about with any sense of reference, its ceos and generals like general kelly. He loved calling him mad dog during the campaign. There is respect from this president for the chief of staff. Theres never been anyone who could actually rein him in. But over the long term will one man in general kelly, as great a man as he is, be able to rein in this president . That remains to be seen and its never happened before. He would have to stop the president from tweeting on his on and every tweet will have to go through him. If that cant happen, this is a nonstarter. That wont happen. Then this is a nonstarter. The front page story in the New York Times today was about donald trump. Would donald trump have been in position, would he have been able to just say this is the statement, nobody ask any more questions or would kelly have had the latitude to step in and say this is not a good idea, im not going to let this happen and would the president have said, okay, ill defer to you. Can the chief of staff do that . Is anybody capable of doing that . Sam, off of what steve just said, im betting the first half of that equation would be true. The second half of whether the president would go along with it, no one really knows. And theres only so many hours in a day that kelly can be at trumps side. Hes not going to be waking up with him when trump grabs himself cell phone off his bed to tweet. Thats impossible. But kellys tasks are more than just stopping trump from tweeting. One of his biggest jobs is to staff up this administration. I dont think people understand just what a crisis this administration is in with respect to staffing. If you go to any agency, any cabinet, at the sub level, at the deputy level, there is just no one there. The state department is just bereft. The state department especially. And people just dont get how much government functions at the deputy level. We focus on the principals but if you get stuff done, it happens at the deputy level. There has been sincere and profound hesitation and this is where jared and ivanka dont help. If theres a perception that theyre still power broker, they can go around and get their father, fatherinlaw to reverse course, theres still going to be hesitance to go and. Reports say hes eyeing military drills just outside the edge of natos eastern territory. Thats next on morning joe. Were drowning in information. Where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters . The stakes are so high, your finances, your future. How do you solve this . You dont. You partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. Morgan stanley. Will people know it means theyll get the lowest price guaranteed on our rooms by booking direct on choicehotels. Com . Hey badda book. Badda boom mr. Badda book. Badda boom book now at choicehotels. Com can make anyone slow downt and pull up a seat to the table. Thats why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch. So that you can spend time on what really matters. Marie callenders. Its time to savor. When youre clocking out. Sensing your every move and automatically adjusting to help you stay effortlessly comfortable. There. I can also help with this. Does your bed do that . Oh. I dont actually talk. Though im smart enough to. Im the new sleep number 360 smart bed. Lets meet at a sleep number store. Theres nothing more important to me than my vacation. So when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone who makes it easy to find what i want. Booking. Com gets it. And with the book now, pay later feature, i can hold on to my hardearned cash until checkin. Your vacation is very important. Thats why booking. Com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. Visit booking. Com now to find out why were booking. Yeah. When i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. I just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. My Insurance Company definitely doesnt have that. You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ Liberty Mutual insurance. Mike pence is in the nation of georgia this morning and speaking with the prime minister. Pence appeared to give a meaningful revision to the Trump Administrations Foreign Policy slogan. In a word, im here to say America First does not mean america alone. The Vice President also strongly condemned russias occupation of georgia before discussing sanctions against the kremlin. President trump has called on pressure to cease its destabilizing activities. In a sign of our commitment, very soon President Trump will codify the sanctions against russia. A better relationship, the lifting of sanctions will require russia to reverse the actions that caused sanctions to be imposed in the first place. All this comes amid reports russia is preparing military drills at the end of the summer which seconds sending as many as 100,000 troops to the area. The state and defense departments have drafted proposals to send military e weapons to ukraine as that country continues to battle russiabacked separatist. Whats the significance here in obviously you have the russia story and the campaign and all that that were looking at and bob mueller is looking at. From a Foreign Policy point of view . Putin is escalating. What is President Trump going to do in response to that is the looming big question considering hes been silent in the days that follow putin banning over 700 diplomats and russian workers from working at the u. S. Embassy. Its been strange silence, too, because President Trump always responds to a slight, and so putin is seemingly escalating and its not going to stop. He always follows a pattern of continuing to escalate. What is President Trump going to do to counter it . Not even a tweet about what putin did, throwing out 750 american diplomats. And hasnt he tweeted about a lot less . Yes. You think . And he tweeted about back in december when putin initially announced he wasnt going to take any action, thats when President Trump said thats when he tweeted ive always said hes a very smart man. He had a response when putin said he wasnt going to take action. Now, no response. Hes tweeted about china. Hes tweeted about other countries, tweeted about people. Hes tweeted about all sorts of things. Why not tweet about russia . Because this is a big issue. And President Trump j is he really going to sign this sanction bill . He has said that he will sign the sanction bill thats passed through congress thats lumped in or on north korea and russia, and that was the reason that senator rand paul and senator Bernie Sanders voted against him because it lumped in so many countries, but is trump going to be able to follow through on that . Cant he . Not for some reason. Coming up the Washington Post phil rucker joins us to discuss his report that President Trump de dictated don juniors misleading statement about his meeting with that russian lawyer. Plus one of the most outspoken critics of the Trump Administration. Senator jeff flake. The senator from arizona joins us here onset. Morning joe is coming right back. Binders. Done. Supercool notebooks. Done. Thats mom taking care of business. But who takes care of mom . Office depot office max. This week, filler paper just one cent with five dollar minimum purchase. Taking care of business. Take 5, guys. Tired of your bladder always cutting into your day . You may have overactive bladder, or oab. Thats it we really need to get with the program and see the doctor. Take charge and ask your doctor about Myrbetriq Mirabegron for oab symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage. Its the first and only oab treatment in its class. Myrbetriq may cause serious allergic reactions. If you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, or difficulty breathing, stop taking myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away. Myrbetriq may increase blood pressure. Tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or have a weak urine stream. Myrbetriq may affect or be affected by other medications. Before taking myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. Common side effects include increased blood pressure, common cold symptoms, urinary tract infection, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness and headache. Okay, time to do this dont let your bladder always take the lead. Ask your doctor if myrbetriq is right for you. And visit myrbetriq. Com to learn more. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Youre more than just a bathroom disease. Youre a life of unpredictable symptoms. Crohns, youve tried to own us. But now its our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. Before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flulike symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. Alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion, and vision problems. These may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. Some serious allergic reactions can occur. Do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. Were fed up with your unpredictability. Remission can start with stelara®. Talk to your doctor today. Janssen wants to help you explore cost support options for stelara®. It was not a long conversation, but it could be 15 minutes. Just talked about things. Actually, it was very interesting. We talked about adoption. You did . Yeah. Russian adoption. I always found that interesting. He ended that years ago, and i actually talked about russian adoption with him which is interesting. Because that was a part of the conversation that don had with n a meeting that, as i said, most of the people, when they call up and say, by the way, we have information on your opponent, i think most politicians, i was just with a lot of people, they say who are you taking a meeting with . That was the president of the United States telling the New York Times about a week ago what he spoke to Vladimir Putin in his previously indisclosed meeting with the russian president. This morning reports that topic of russian adoptions played a big role in the very next day when the president personally dictated a misleading statement about that with his about his sons meeting with that russian lawyer. That is incredible if true. Welcome back to morning joe. Its tuesday, august 1st. Joe has the morning off. With us we have mike barnicle, e leez jordan, sam stein, harold ford junior, steve schmidt, and Phillip Rucker who cowrote the big story in the post this morning. Well start with the report that says President Trump overruled his closest advisors including family members when it came to the initial response to the New York Times story about a meeting between donald trump junior and a russian attorney back in 2016. Now, those advisors reportedly pushed for full transparency, but were overruled at the president s personal direction. The Washington Post citing multiple sources with direct knowledge. Reports that the misleading foursentence statement was personally dictated by the president flying home from the g20 summit on july 8th. According to post, president ial advisor, soninlaw, Jared Kushners lawyers knew how damaging the email could be, exple explicitly about white house and the campaign. Hope hicks huddled with lawyers and advocated for a more transparent approach. In one scenario they said kushners team talked about sharing everything, including the contents to the emails with a mainstream news organization. Hicks spoke by phone with trump junior about the strategy of transparency believing the complete story would eventually emerge. But as they boarded air force one, President Trump apparently interve intervened. The president directing that President Trump juniors statement describe the meeting as unimportant. He wanted it to say that the meeting had been initiated by the russian lawyer an primarily was about her pet issue, the adoption of russian children. In a forward cabin trump was busy working on his sons statement. The president dictated the statement to hicks which served as a go between between trump junior. Also a special prosecutor who investigated the bush administrations leak of the cia operatives identity said prosecutors typically assume that any misleading statement is an effort to throw investigators off the track. Attorney for President Trump, john doud, called the story fake news, incorrect, and misinformed, of no consequence. Another one of his attorneys used similar language. Donald trump juniors lawyers told the post, i have no evidence to support that theory of the president intervening. Phillip rucker, is it fake news . How are the sources on this . And if the president dictated this, why would he do that . Well, mika, its real news. Its not fake news. Its based on pretty exhaustive reporting that my colleagues and i did with a number of advisors from a number of walks of life who are involved in this in different ways. Were very confident in our reporting and sourcing, and i dont know what went through the president s mind at the time. I can only say that he personally intervened. There were advisors advocating more transparent and more complete response that we get at the facts of the meeting and the president wanted to be incomplete. He wanted to be misleading and thats what the initial statement was. When air force one landed that evening in washington, everyone involved in this decision knew that theyd have to be dealing with this story for many days to come. They knew the statement that the president dictated that went out under trump juniors name was not going to be enough to put this to rest. Its the decision the president made himself. It also symbolizes the job for the new chief of staff, because you have lots of people advising the president. Please dont do this. Try for transparency. This will come out, and yet, he overrules everybody when he gets on a plane. And has people with him that obviously cant say no. I mean, there were attempts to, but absolutely nothing could stop him. It speaks to the lack of disldi discipline. The lack of impulse control. We have the president of the United States at the top of an organization in a way that is unprecedented in the modern history of the presidency, the nonstop disasemiing, lying, to the American People. Coming home from an International Summit which was not particularly successful. The failure to disclose to the American People the meeting with Vladimir Putin. The absence of an american translator, the nervousness of our most important pallies, but the instinct to lie and how offended john kelly must be by that impulse in the white house. And when you think of his task, obviously scaramucci, his removal was an important first one. But the next person who gets up there and tells a little kid lie that Everybody Knows theyre lying about, what will the gener generals reaction to be. To bring veracity back to a staff level to the white house. Is that even possible with the president s spread lixs to constantly tell mistruths. Theres also a post story. Phil rucker can speak to this after i finish speaking. The sense that hes coming back from the g20 summit. He is on air force one. Domestically hes beset with the health care issue. Internationally hes beset with syria, iraq, north korea, and afghanistan. And yet theres this apprehension fear of anything having to do with russia, and then it consumes so much of his attention and energy flying back to washington. Phil, in your continued reporting throughout the past couple of months, this seems to be a general theme, this fear of anything having to do with russia. Thats exactly right. And its not just a fear about russia. Its sort of an obsession with russia. Its an eagerness by the president to play his own lawyer, and his own strategist and his own public cyst. Hes hired all these professionals to defend him and his family members but hes taking it into his own hands. In some cases as is the case we reported in this air force one story, hes rejecting the advice to the professionals and following his own instincts which is dangerous not only for him but for the people around him. Well, and another sort of symbol of the challenge for the new chief of staff is exactly who is making the decisions that led to the oust of the Communications Director. Afterless than t after less to weeks on the job j scaramucci was pushed out. The wall street journal reports citing two Administration Officials that shortly after taking the oath, the retired fourstar general urged scaramucci to resign in a one on one meeting in his office. Two sources close to the president say scaramuccis profane remarks last week to the new yorker disgusted and offended some of those close to the president including melania and ivanka who had initially advocated for scaramuccis hiring. You said the president found his remarks inappropriate. Can you specify what he found disturbing about that . I said he found it inappropriate for a person of that position. To do what . I believe the comments that he made, he found those comments inappropriate. Im not sure whats unclear. I dont think that its complicated to understand that the president felt the comments were inappropriate. I cant really explain it any further than that. All right. Sanders also made it clear everybody reports to general kelly. Everybody reports to him. The president tweeted at the end of the day, i guess he wanted to sort of put an exclamation point on the day saying it was a great day at the white house. Ivanka trump tweeted that she looks forward to serving alongside john kelly. Is there anything wrong with this picture . Yes. Shes not serving alongside john kelly. Shes working for the white house chief of staff. This is the problem of having president ial kids around. It was inappropriate for her to be seated with heads of state at a g20 table. It makes the country look like a banana republic. Its well past the hour where people ought to react to the idea that the inexperienced 34, 35yearold soninlaw of the president should super cede the authority of the secretary of state. These are absurdities, and one of the tasks for general kelly, and he is a Great American patriot, but if the kids are still around, in their current position in the white house in six months, he will not have been successful. This is not how American Government funks. This is why we have nepotism laws. Of course family members can be close advisors and play important roles. George w. Bush did for his father. President bush during the white house days told the white house chief of staff it was time to start packing the bags. But this level of engagement and involvement and the sense of entitlement clearly that emanates, almost that theres a royal pedigree that gives power to the family, its unamerican. Its wrong. And it drives part of the chaos. You cant manage the place when you have nepotism to this degree. But harold, what about the argument that ivanka trump is a Monitoring Force for President Trump . Its a good argument. It hasnt proven to be true yet. At the end of the day, to echo the points made, this is about donald trump. The pushing out of scaramucci yesterday, i wish him the best, but at the end of the day, this is donald trump. I think he deserves an oscar for his direction of anthony. He achieved something that others in the white house couldnt achieve. Which is to get rid of rieprien priebus, but this is about donald trump. Well know in about a week or so whether or not john kelly really has his arms around this white house. Can he control the tweeting . Just a few days ago we were wondering how the president could have tweeted out a change in military policy about how to treat men and women serving in this country in the military. Until we get a directive from the secretary of defense, we went act. Can kelly get his arms around that, and if he does, maybe we can begin to talk about issues and seriously talk about tax reform, health reform. Maybe we can seriously talk about a real Foreign Policy that we dont have at this point as it relates to north korea, syria, iraq, afghanistan, and ultimately can this president talk about russia in a first and forceful way that he should be. Were going to find out the answers to a lot of those questions you just posed over the next four or five, or six months. But sam, we know general kelly. We know his career. We know his dedication to the chain of command. We know the fact that he comes into this job laden with honor, valor, commitment to the mission. Based upon four decades in the marine corps. What we dont know and what youre reporting and others are reporting have indicated is that his ability to handle the level of chaos in the administration under him, and you alluded to it earlier. The difficulty of retaining, finding and retaining people to work in the white house. Yeah. And theres a threadline through all of this. Steves point about the kids being in charge and the problems they face, i thought it was manifested perfectly yesterday. Here you have Jared Kushner who is being dogged by the these russia allegations and his involvement in this meeting in the emails, and then also at the same time tasked with among other things, creating middle east peace, reforming the government, and solving the opioid epidemic. Hes got all these things. And hes being distracted by russia. Yesterday the administrations Opioid Commission put out an interim report by chris christie. It said declare a public state of emergency in the opioid epidemic. They want to authorize more resources to helping the epidemic in the country. No one is talking about it. Even though this is under Jared Kushners per sue, no one is talking about it because there are so many other chaotic things happening in the white house involving kushner and don junior and ivanka and the president. Part of what john kelly has to do is take the spotlight away from here and move it over here to the substantive things the president is doing or trying to do, and then maybe build some legislative progress off of that. Phil, well end with you. The piece you worked on along with your team at the Washington Post. Theres a piece as well saying ivanka trump is part of the problem. You heard sam talking about jared. Theres also don junior, who in your piece revealing the president was busy on a plane crafting that statement for his son, trying to get his son out of trouble. It really is an incredible narrative, family narrative that is taking up the presidency as rome burns. Yeah. Its a Family Business. Donald trump has run his enterprises with his kids in power and floating in and out and him taking personal ownership. Its difficult to run a government that way. And hes finding these challenges in the white house, i think, jared and ivanka are trying to take or at least signal theyre going to take a backseat to kelly for the moment. I cant imagine thats going to last. They have a huge amount of influence with their father and will continue to try to exercise that. As does don junior and Melania Donald trump and eric trump. I dont think theyve signalled theyre taking a backseat, unless alongside means a backseat. Alongside does not mean a backseat, but im told that kelly has made it clear that everybody is going to theoretically report to him, including them, but again, theyll have the ear of the president and be able to work their own process around kelly, im sure. Phil, thank you. And still ahead on morning joe, republican senator jeff flake has taken on donald trump from capitol hill. Now hes taking on the president in a new book where he writes in part, we created him and now were rationalizing him. He joins us next on morning joe. . . Sure, just sign up online. Then well alert you if we find your Social Security number on any one of thousands of risky websites. Wow. Thats cool. How much is it . Oh, its free if you have a discover card. I like free yeah, we just want you to be in the know. Ooh. Hey sushi. Ugh. I smell it youre making me. Yeah, being in the know is a good thing. Know if your Social Security number is found on risky sites. Free from discover. Done. Rs. Supercool notebooks. Done. Thats mom taking care of business. But who takes care of mom . Office depot office max. This week, filler paper just one cent with five dollar minimum purchase. Taking care of business. A trip back to the dthe doctors office, mean just for a shot. But why go back there, when you can stay home. With Neulasta Onpro . Strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection. Neulasta helps reduce infection risk by boosting your white blood cell count, which strengthens your immune system. In a key study, neulasta reduced the risk of infection from 17 to 1 . A 94 decrease. Applied the day of chemo, Neulasta Onpro is designed to deliver neulasta the next day. Neulasta is for certain Cancer Patients receiving strong chemotherapy. Do not take neulasta if youre allergic to neulasta or Neupogen Filgrastim . Ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems, allergic reactions, kidney injuries, and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. Report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. In patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. The most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. So why go back there . If youd rather be home, ask your doctor about Neulasta Onpro. At where instead of payinging a befor middlemen,em. We work directly with family farms to deliver Higher Quality ingredients for less than you pay at the store. Get 30 off at blueapron. Com cook whyoure not thinking clearly, so they called the Fire Department for us. I could hear crackling in the walls. My mind went totally blank. All i remember saying was, my boyfriends beating me and she took it from there. And all of this occurred in four minutes or less. I am grateful we all made it out safely. People you dont know care about you. Its kind of one of those things where you cant even thank somebody. To protect what you love, call 1800adtcares 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. Who knew that phones would starentertaining us,ng . Getting us back on track and finding us dates. Phones really have changed. So why hasnt the way we pay for them . Introducing xfinity mobile. You only pay for data and can easily switch between pay per gig and unlimited. No one else lets you do that. See how much you can save when you choose by the gig or unlimited. Call or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network, designed to save you money. Joining us now member of the Foreign Relations committee, jeff flake of arizona. His new book conscience of a conservative a rejection of destructive politics and a return to principal is out today. In a part of the book you write from the Republican Party is in denial about donald trump. You write in part this. It was we conservatives who rightly and robustly asserted our constitutional prerogatives as a coequal branch of government when the democrat was in the white house. But who despite solemn vows to do the same in the event of a Trump Presidency have maintained a silence. To carry on in the spring of 2017 as if what was happening was normal approaching normalcy required a determined suspension of critical faculties. And tremendous powers of denial. If ultimately our principles were so malleable as to no longer be principles, what was the point of victories in the first place. All great questions. How are you being received among your colleagues . It just came out today so well see. But youve been raising these issues for quite some time . Ive been concerned for quite some time. In the book we talk about being a conservative, what it really means. It means a lot on policy. Im concerned that the type of policies Going Forward, protectionism, isolationism, are really not conservative values, and i am concerned about where the party goes if we embrace those kind of principles. But also being a conservative means something in terms of demean and comportment. A conservative is nothing if particularly in Foreign Policy, if hes not measured and sober and predictable. Our allies need to know that. We need to embrace our allies and recognize our adversaries, and to do otherwise is not conservative. So to ask you to go after your fellow conservatives or republicans would not be fair. But what about putting it this way. What were some of the key moments along the way . So far in the Trump Presidency where you and your fellow conservatives, republicans should have stood up and said no . Well, i think, and i have to say many conservatives didnt come out with firing of jim comey. What were the big missed opportunities. The comey firing. You can fire the fbi director. Could have said last year he did things he shouldnt have done. The way he handled the campaign wasnt good, but the reason given, hey, the russia investigation, that should have set off more alarm bells than it did, and i think Going Forward we ought to be careful. Theres concern that the a. G. May be fired. That would be a real concern. And im glad that some conservative are standing up and saying that certainly wouldnt be tolerated by capitol hill. Senator, in the book you write a lot of things, but in particular you write about a meeting that bill buckley had with barry gold water had at a place in palm beach. Gold water was not concerned so much with running against Linden Johnson or Nelson Rockefeller in a primary, but he was really concerned about the damage the John Birch Society was doing to the cause of conservatism within the Republican Party. My question to you is whats your level of concern about what the Freedom Caucus is doing to the image of conservatism and the Republican Party given the fact that they cheered on, loved apparently, a Health Care Bill that would throw more than 22 million americans off of health care . We can argue about whats conservative and whats not with regard to health care. I certainly think that obamacare needs to be significantly changed, if not repealed. I would love to repeal it and start again if it were up to me. About 200,000 oarizona people will wake up this morning without health care. They pay the fine but cant afford the policy. Even bigger number have a policy but cant afford to use it because deductibles are so high. Were hurting out there in terms of where we need to go with health care. What im concerned about is policies on trade. We have always been, the Republican Party, a free trade party. Were only 5 of the worlds population, 20 of the worlds economic output. If we dont find new markets for our goods, we dont grow. Im concerned about where the party is going and the antiimmigration fervor. Thats not a place the Republican Party wants to be in the future if were going to be an Inclusive Party that speaks to a broader audience. In our interchanges with you over the years, and ive heard democrats speak about you. Youre a friendly, open guy, but theres a level, and its just image, i understand that, but image is important. Theres a level of meanness to conservatism now in this country thats bothersome. I do talk about that in the book. You have to be meaner somehow, and that is not a conservative value. My biggest concern is weve got some huge things to tackle. Our debt and deficit. 20 trillion. Well be adding 1 trillion a year soon to that debt. The only way to solve that, any decent budget agreement weve had has been when weve had divided governments. When republicans and democrats said were going to share the risk. Right now we dont have that. If we ascribe the worst motives to our opponents and call them clowns or losers, you lose the ability to sit down and solve the big issues and actually enact conservative policy. Thats the paradox of all of this. Somehow conservativism has become being mean or loud, and you cant enact conservative policy if you act that way. The president used the word mean first, just fyi. Senator, speaking of a National Debt as really an issue of generational theft. Yes. And a moral issue. 20 trillion in debt. How is it that supposedly curveti curvetive members are voting on a Health Care Bill that touches a sixth of the economy with no idea how much it costs . To me thats not conservative. Its radical. And i wonder how the conservative movement has been hijacked by radicals who claim the mantle of conservativism. And specifically we think about the John Birch Society in the 60s. Whats their equivalent today . Is it a on talk radio or tv networks . Whats the threat to conservativi conservativism, and why is it we have no regard to spending . Conservative are nothing if theyre not concerned about debt and the deficit. Limited government is the outline of conservativism. Bill buckley got together with Barry Goldwaters and excommunicated the John Birchers from the party. They were the emblem of responsibility. You cant embrace conspiracy theories or talk about alternative facts. There are truths that are selfevident, and we have to as a country agree on certain things. If we dont, were going to have hard time moving ahead and solving the problems. Hard times ahead. So just to be clear, senator mccain voted against you guys in arizona, he voted against the bill because he said he didnt have confidence it would go to congress. That thing would come back and hopefully wed get there. If he fires mueller, is that a catalyst to move forward with impeachment. I wouldnt want to say what its a catalyst for, but we cant stand for that. You talked about the disposition and his demeanor. Is that really the bigger issue here . Because at least if you got to debating issues and policies in a serious way, a lot of what youre talking about would come out is you cant get to that because he has so much personal negative facade around him . And its not just him. I point out in the book, this is not just a problem of this presidency. This was a longtime and coming. I entered in congress in 2001. I am after running the gold water institute. Mcca mike joked with me once on the floor saying i feel like were minutemen called to the battle front and now were told the revolution is over and now were going to be talking about things like a Prescription Drug benefit or no child left behind instead of the big battles of ideas that republicans used to engage in. But we became a coarser party during that time. Standing up with few republicans willing to stand up and say thats wrong, thats out of line. I think whether its a republican or a democrat doing that, we ought to stand up and say some things should be out of bounds, and i think were losing some of that. Senator flake, you talk about just how important it is to actually have principles when it comes to Foreign Policy, and some of the damage that donald trump has done to our Foreign Policy, im curious, how confident are you in this administrations strategy when it comes to north korea . I have tremendous confidence in general mattis and rex tillerson. Hes a great guy. I do think president has picked a good cabinet and surrounded himself with good people. Hes done some good things, i think. Supreme court of justice is good. Some good federal judges. I am on board with some of with what the president has done, but with regard to Foreign Policy my biggest concern is, as i mentionmentio mentioned, we have always stood for principles and have done so in a sober, consistent, predictable manner, and chaos is the last thing that our allies and adversaries need to be seeing. And im afraid theyre seeing too much of that. And our respect for International Institutions that we had a hand in or were the major part in building like nato. World trade organization. These kind of things, i think we need to respect and utilize to hold our place in the world, and i wonder about our standing around the world now. Do you think the new chief of staff kelly can maybe help reign in some of the chaos . I do. Im glad hes there. I think theres a lot of respect for him on capitol hill. I like the start that hes got. And so im very hopeful that that will help. Okay. The book is conscience of a conservative. How today. Senator jeff flake, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. Thank you. Still ahead this morning, katy tur who spoke with Anthony Scaramucci yesterday morning as he was being forced out. She joins us with her exclusive new reporting, and tom brokaw with a firsthand look at why many of trumps voter arent going anywhere. Well be right back. Garfunkel instrumental is that good . Yeah its perfect. Bees bees go go go [ girl catching her breath } [ bees buzzing inside vehicle ] the allnew volkswagen atlas. With easyaccess 3rd row. Lifes as big as you make it. You. Smells fine, but yourin your passengers smell this bell dinging new febreze car with Odorclear Technology cleans away odors. For up to 30 days smells nice. Breathe happy, with new febreze. Buried just under the surface, the answer to it all. We want to need each other. But their nutritional needs vremain instinctual. D, thats why theres purina one true instinct. Nutrientdense, proteinrich, real meat number one. This is a different breed of nutrition. Purina one, true instinct. Joining us now katy tur and tom brokaw. Good to have you both on this morning. Katie, take us through the tick to be of the day yesterday. You spoke with scaramucci through the process. I spoke with him at 10 00 yesterday afternoon depending on the time line that you are trusting thats out there. That was either right as this was happening or it was right before this was happening. And i asked him simply, hey, im getting back from vacation, how you doing . Are you going to be reporting to general kelly. He said i would be willing to do that if thats what the president wanted. I would do anything for him, him being the president of the United States. And i said well, how are things going . He said im in the bunker right now. I trying to deescalate the situation referring back to what happened last week, and i think specifically that new yorker article. Im told the new yorker article was just the last straw for everybody in the white house. It was a one straw and an early straw, and considering that the president himself has used colorful language in the past, but the blowback from that was intense, and that ultimately he could not survive that once it was out there. And they were not happy with the way that he handled himself. That being said, stephanie rule talked to him the night before yesterday morning, so two nights ago, and he seemed fine. He didnt seem to think it was a big deal. What happened between her conversation with him and the conversation that i had with him where he seemed less scaramucciish. Anyone who knows him, knows he has a lot of confidence. He seemed taken back around 10 00 a. M. Yesterday morning. Was that just as this was happening or was it just before this was happening . Its a little rich, isnt it, for the Trump Administration suddenly to be outraged and upset and fragile about colorful language. They wanted to put him in. He lost his chief of staff because of scaramucci. In the pace of about ten days the entire west wing was shaken up and then they let him go because of an interview and language he used . It is a shocking reversal. From indications we had, donald trump liked his language to that reporter and enjoyed the way scaramucci was willing to go to bat for the president and really bolster him. And then to say this, that it was just too much for him suddenly. Listen, what happened without knowing exactly, a fourstar marine general made chief of staff was not going to tolerate somebody like scaramucci around him going around him to get into the oval office. If that had happened in the military, the guy might have been called up on a court marshal. What he did was exercise military discipline. Scaramucci thought he was going to report directly to the president , and now a marine general is standing in front of him saying not just the language, but the idea that he would have the autonomy he thought he was going to have. Seems it was military discipline with full effect. How does military discipline apply to the kids . Thats hard to know. Well find out over the next several days what the new white house is going to look like because hes got a long, distinguished military career. He does have allies in the white house. The president called him in public, the best thing thats happened to the white house in his head of homeland security. So hes put him up and said hes in charge. And i think well see more changes coming along in terms of who reports chain of command and discipline and also the kind of language that people use as well. Whether he can shut down the president on tweeting is another whole matter. My guess is no. Maybe for a couple of days, and thats a big issue. I was going to tell you ive been in wyoming the last couple of days working on a 75th anniversary of heart mountain. It was a japanese internment camp. Were in a small town, community college, prosperous farm community. Voted 70 for trump. I went around and said where are you now in 69. 9, id say at this point, and they blame us. They say you guys are all in the hands of the Democratic Party. They dont feel any connection between what we do and how they live their lives. And theyre not entirely wrong. Because they look at these shows, doing analysis and commenting, and they dont see anybody who looks like them or lives the lives they do. For me, when i raised, for example, the tweeting with one woman, she said oh, yeah, i know that is kind of troublesome, but thats who he is, and thats the one that they wanted in there. Now, his negatives, obviously, are high across the country, but in hard core trump country, he still has a very strong following. Fascinating. Thats what i find too. They like hes a finger in the eye to us and to washington. But did you pick up any frustration that just from a legislative point, nothing is getting done even with donald trump there . Yeah. Kind of one of the senior members of that community has been there forever, and he has a group of guys he has coffee with every morning. He said we have to find a way to work together. Thats the big issue. The country cannot continue with this kind of division fuelled by both sides. But especially about the president who is in my judgment, using the worst kind of language and attacking not just the Democratic Party but now members of his own party about how youre going to get things done. The master at pulling everybody together was Linden Johnson. He had an outrageous temper, but he knew when to go backstage, work the crowd, found out how to get something done. You dont see that at all with this president. Hes now turned on his party, which i think is terrible for the country. And the scaramucci situation over the past 12 days, any precedent for that . What did you think as you were watching that unfold in terms of, i dont know, any parallels youve seen in history . It just seems to chaotic. Its representative of a lack of structure in the white house. Ive covered the white house since the nixon days, and i was a keen student of it before that. And you always had a kind of border. As you know, when jim baker and ri on here, we talk a fair amount. Jim baker ran it with a very strong hand. Who was seeing the president , under what circumstances. Who had one responsibility. They stayed on the menu for the day. Here its jump ball all day long, and you cant govern that way. You may have been able to run his empire here as a builder or in atlantic city, this didnt always work out very well. Hes never had a Corporate Board of directors. He never had to report to anyone except himself. He was well known in this community for winging it and getting in trouble and then not paying his bills on many occasions. Katie, the final word here, but i think it comes down to the tweets. I think if you have a president still tweeting like this president , this chief of staff will not be successful even a fourstar general. Well, i think. My guess is, look, theres no need for general kelly to stay around if they dont play by the rules that he puts in place. Theres he doesnt need this. Hes got a distinguished military career. He has retirement he can enjoy. And what sort of mandate was he given by the white house . He may have been told hes going to be in charge of the staff, but the staff is only so much of the problem. If they go out and deliver a message, a message from the white house that donald trump undercuts the next day, their work is for not, and Donald Trumps not going to be happy with the way hes being defended if hes not being defended for what he believes he should be defended in the moment that he tweets. He just changes his mind so often. Hes on every side of every issue, and he seems to have a hard time controlling himself when he feels like hes under attack. John kelly, good luck to you. Maybe youll get him under control for a few days. Weve seen that happen in the campaign and in the transition, and from time to time, but ultimately, somewhere down the line, a week, two weeks, maybe three weeks, donald trump does break and he does end up going out on a limb hes always gone out on. All president s have tender egos. This one, ive never seen anybody like that, the slightest criticism of him, and he goes nuclear on everybody. Unless its russia. Tom brokaw and katy tur, thank you very much. Both of you. Up next, some republicans are trying to bring the Obamacare Repeal back from the dead. Well talk to senator bill cassidy who was at the white house yesterday talking about the possibility of a revival. And on tomorrows show, an exclusive interview with goldman sacs ceo, and former new york city mayor michael bloomberg. How big business views the Trump Administration and the stalled economic agenda on capitol hill. Well be right back. I no longer live with the uncertainties of hep c. Wondering, what if . I let go of all those feelings. Because i am cured with harvoni. Harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. Its been prescribed to more than a quarter Million People. And is proven to cure up to 99 of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. Certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. Before starting harvoni, your doctor will test to see if youve ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. Tell your doctor if youve ever had hepatitis b, a liver transplant, other liver or kidney problems, hiv or any other medical conditions and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. Taking amiodarone with harvoni can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. Common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. Ready to let go of hep c . Ask your hep c specialist about harvoni. Done. Rs. Supercool notebooks. Done. Thats mom taking care of business. But who takes care of mom . Office depot office max. This week, filler paper just one cent with five dollar minimum purchase. Taking care of business. Wiback like it could used to . Neutrogena hydro boost water gel. With hyaluronic acid it plumps skin cells with intense hydration and locks it in. For supple, hydrated skin. Hydro boost. From neutrogena joining me now is phil cassidy. Sam has a question for you. Thank you for being with us. Hello. I know you are pushing your healthcare plan. Opening threats to under mind obamacare and letting it fail is his wording. Would you advise him to do that or things like that or would you encourage him to keep obamacare in place of the time being. A couple of things, sam, by the way, i love our Exchange Last week so we do not wish to do anything and we dont want to make it worse for them, help them. The short term continuation of the csr that we are calling it share deduction is apart of that. So i do think congress in the short term should authorize the money. We need to obey the constitution and move on something thats a more satisfying solution. Thats a nice conversation. Thank you. Harold. Two quick questions, there seems to be a split in the Republican Caucus in the house where the government should play any role in trying to make Health Insurance affordable in america. Is that a Fair Assessment . I am not sure if your first statement is true. Mark medal says something on the line that we are going to cut the taxes of the wealthy. There is some role to help lower income americans afford insurance. The difference is whether or not washington, d. C. Should have the power or states should have the power. Most republicans agreed that should be the state of the patien patients. Whats the big difference between what you and senator graham and heller are proposing of your core verses what the senate voted down a few days ago . I think ours is more, the grand cassidy is similar to my mind than the hellers plan. It allows the governor to use those dollars in a malleable way to make sure many possible to have a healthcare. The way it was being set up, weapon vote on the skinny package and go to conference and grand cassidy would be over layed in conference and come back out and give us a vote. Senator cassidy, good to see you this morning. Joe is not here so i will speak for him. In other words, why do you keep ongoing in and in on something that failed over and over again in terms of repeal and replace. What makes you think this time will be different . Wily, think about the family sitting around the Kitchen Table who cannot afford premiums. Logging on my Facebook Page and speaking of 1,800 a month for family cannot afford. One couple that i know, their annual premiums was 39 for one year. I am going to continue to work for those family. I am with you on that. I am terms of the vote of the republican majority in the senate and you could no get a skinny repeal through, what makes you think this time you will get 50 votes at least. The meeting we had with the governors at the white house, we need fresh perspective and momentum, it has to come from outside of washington, d. C. Ideally it over comes the partisan divide. Listen to the governor and what would work for your state or other states. You take that input and hopefully thats something thatll appeal to governors across the nation and theyll give momentums. Senator cassidy, thank you so much, best of luck to you. Where does this go forward . Terms in terms of looking for the Republican Party . It is hard to look ahead to see where the legislative win comes from . The ability to go out and make complicated proposal and making popular with the American People and be able to explicate them and on a good day, this healthcare proposal had a 17 approval and none of these senators seem to have the ability to communicate to average americans that what it is that this legislation will do for them and how it will help them. Unless we can do that, you do that on healthcare or tax reform or offering conservative solution and explain it properly. It is difficult toll pass and secondly, i am just struck by, we are talking about the sixth of the economy, the notion that you can reform uni laterally with the majority, it is just wrong. It is not how the senate is supposed to operated. Thats why we have a legislative mess. Steve and harold, thank you very much. Still ahead, the new white house chief of staff moves in and scarramucci becomes the shortest communication director ever. How much power does general john kelly really holds over the west wing . The Washington Post of new materials reporting President Trump dictated don, jr. s meeting should we have seen it coming . Did the president signed off the statement or before it was given . I dont have that conversation. Let me say this, the president was not involved in the drafting of the statement. We were in a german dance group. I wore lederhosen. So i just started poking around on ancestry. Then, i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. It turns out im scottish. So, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. You give us comfort. And we give you bare feet. I love you, couch. Backsweat and gordos everything. I love you, but sometimes you stink. New febreze fabric refresher with Odorclear Technology. Cleans away odors like never before. Because the things you love the most can stink. And plug in febreze to keep your whole room fresh for up. To 45 days. Breathe happy with new febreze. Tap one little bumper and up go your rates. What good is having insurance if you get punished for using it . For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. I want to thank sean spicer. This is a difficult situation to be in and i love the guy. Reince priebus is an expletive, paranoid and schizophrenia. No, i am not reading it. I think it is a distraction. Everyone eats cheese burgers and pizzas, what are you talking about . Oh man. So in case you missed the last episode, sean spicer resigned because of scarramucci who pushed out Reince Priebus which opens the door to john kelly who pushed out the mooch. You got all that . Thats todays episode of where the Trump Administrations pick up. Welcome to morning joe. Joe has the morning off. We have our steve cornacki and former director for ted cruz, rick snyder and sam stein. Will is back. The last time i was here, Anthony Scarramucci was not a glitter in our eye. Wow, what you have missed and what a short amount of time. Our story crystallizes the challenge of the new chief of staff. Now those advisers reportedly pushed for full transparency but were over ruled at the president s percent directioson. I want to put that in quotes because it is important to keep in mind that the Biggest Issue is the president himself, that maybe the biggest challenge. The Washington Post cited multiple sources reports that the misleading was dictated by the president flying home from the g20 summit on july 8th. It gets away from everybody, there is attorneys and everybody wants to talk to him. He gets on the plane and over ruled his inner circle, his kids. The president ireport says he wie white house director of Strategic Communications puddled with christians lawyers and advocated for a more transparent approach. In one scenario these people said chris team shared with everything. And hicks also spoke by phone with trump jr. Of this strategy of transparency. But will the real story will emerge . As they boarded air force one, President Trump intervened, the president directing that trump, jr. Statement describing the meeting. The meeting was about her pet issues of the adoption of the russian children. In a forward cabin, trump was busy working on his sons statement. The president dictated the statement of her pickings. John dow called the story fake news, incorrect and misinformed of no consequence. Donald trump, jr. Told the post that i have no evidence to support that theory of the president intervening. Really take to it to the table. It seems to me that if this is true and double and triple source at this point, there is conflicts of what really happened and some legal trouble for the president. It is so blatant knowing what the truth of this meeting was. For the president to go out lets just tell them it is about adoption and this thing will go away. It is not smart strategically, rei rick tyler, and also of the leaks thats coming out of the west wing, somebodys getting their side of the story out in the public because they know whats coming down the pike. What raise the suspicion when i heard about it is the campaign does not take meetings of policy issues because you are trying to win a campaign. He has not secured his nomination but he was still low against hillary clinton. There was no chance hes going to take it in. This is a five hour plane ride coming back to the g20 and the entire staff is consumed in this meeting and then you have the president s lawyer whos lying to his president. On top of steve cornacki, there is serious questions that bob mueller may have about the president drafting this. Again. If you lie to the press, you can pay a deep price. Generally, it is not a crime to lie to the press. You think that was bill clintons impeachment when he said i did not have sex with that woman. The question here i think is more in direct when it comes to mueller. There is a revelation like this work up his interest in getting him to look this way. I think in terms of whats on the record right now. What would you be interested in if you were looking at the president for a lot of different questions including potentially of his team and collusion of russia and you see perhaps inconsistent inconsistency starting from the president drafting the statement. It goes back to the question, why is President Trump so involved in how the responses is moving forward. Why is he so consumed of what the response is going to be. What is he so worried about servicing that he has a one on one with putins translator at the g20. At the end of the day there is a big cloud of why did President Trump address putin and russia in different terms. The other day, putin says hes going to ban over 700 employees in moscow and not a peep from donald trump. When does he not respond to a slide. This is what we talked about yesterday and now given this new story, it is more important as we deal with potential an in coming chief of staff that for many may provide some hope like o oh my gosh, perhaps well have some order here or somebody will report to somebody before they go straight to the president. Yet then you see what happens when this president gets off on his own with his phone or with his family, things happen sam stein. Yeah, keep in mind this happens for general kelly was chief of staff. I do think you are pointing out Something Interesting though. When you fire or get rid of your chief of staff and Reince Priebus and press secretary, there is a possibility that they may come around and bite you. You have to wonder if people are dis i am sure thats fwoigoin the minds of trumps people. I am struck by what wily said of utter lack of discretion from the trumps team of how they are handling all of this. The cover up is so poorly executed that it is raising all the suspicions. Why is he crafting that statement and why is he talking to putin so much . Why is he firing comey . Everything hes doing leading to whats going on here, something must be happening. I am just wondering why theyre so bad at being discreet. It raises the question again and again to unleash the point when it comes to russia, there is some clouds and there is never a clear cut answer. If this was a nothing meeting as donald trump, jr. Keep on insisting. Why do you have this meeting, just say it is about adoption. Just put it out there what it was about if Nothing Happened in the meeting, just say what happened. Their current line is this is something so rudimentary and benign. If thats the case, why go through the first step of att h attaching it to an adoption policy and having the president wasting his time trying to con castle ro concoct some confusions of this. This is what the president has done. This meeting would come back of Jared Kushner and ivanka wanted to become transparent. It looks like don jr. Was on board with that plan and the president blew it up and their story just changed. The adoption story was not working, oh, it was the russians and oh, never mind. I also think it is interesting about the russians angle to all this. Remember, President Trump had an off the record meeting with Vladimir Putin that went on for a long time. Vladimir putin is taking action against the United States of what obama did as he was leaving the administration and throwing out their diplomats. Now, he finally responded. There was a promise made that he will lift this sanctions and now that the president is taking that away. What would putin say in that meeting because we dont have our side of that transcript. There was no american interpreter in that meeting. Putin can come out and say here are all the things that we are talking about whether it is true or not. I think that stinks. Still ahead, ivanka trump, says shes happy to work alongside john kelly. That conversation is next. But, first, bill karins is checking our forecast. We had a bit of a wind damage but nothing too bad and thankfully no one was hurt. Thats beach florida. Emily is out of the opening water. Now we move onto the next story, this is one is going to be epic. 15 Million People at risk of excessive heat. The problem of the pacific northwest, not everyone has airconditioning. They right lane conceconcerned elderly. How hot will it be in the northwest . We start today off with record heat and medford oreg, oregon, break the record today into 100 degrees. We have a chance to get an all time High Temperature in memphis and seattle is going to break record easily. The hottest temperatures recorded is 107 degrees. We have al good chance of that on thursday. The rest of the country, watch for some showers and storms, hit miss from st. Louis to chicago. A nice summer day under way for much of the east coast, including new york city, morning joe will be right back. This is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people. People who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you youre more than just a bathroom disease. Youre a life of unpredictable symptoms. Crohns, youve tried to own us. But now its our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. Before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flulike symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. Alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion, and vision problems. These may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. Some serious allergic reactions can occur. Do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. Were fed up with your unpredictability. Remission can start with stelara®. Talk to your doctor today. Janssen wants to help you explore cost support options for stelara®. Whats the story behind Green Mountain coffee and fair trade . Lets take a flight to colombia. This is boris calvo. Boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. All for a smoother tasting cup. Green mountain coffee. We, the people, are tired of being surprised with extra monthly fees. We want hd. And every box and dvr. All included. Because we dont like surprises. Yeah. Like changing up the celebrity at the end to someone more handsome. And talented. Really. And british. Switch from cable to directv. Get an all included package for 25 a month. And for a limited time, get a 100 reward card. Call 1800directv. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make4 7. Our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. The smoomooch is out. The mooch is toast. Yes, the mooch blast, lasted only ten days. Thats not even a whole pay period. [ laughter ] hes Going Away Party conserves whats left of his welcome cake. They can change congratulations to congratulater. [ laughter ] was he sworn in . Anthony scarramucci is gone. He was forced out the same day the new chief of staff was sworn in. Shortly after taking the oath, sources surged scarramucci to resign. Scarramuccis profane remarks disgusted and profaned some of those close to the president. Jared and ivanka. Melania and trump who would advocated for him were upset of his new language. Take a look. You said the president found his remarks can you specify what he found inappropriate or disturbing about this . He found it inappropriate for a person in that person. To do what . The comments he made, he found those comments inappropriate. I am not sure. It is unclear. I dont think it is complicated to understand that he felt the comments were inappropriate. I cannot explain it further than that. She can explain it. This president has a hard time of whats inappropriate. Right. I am wondering of the inner circle who pushed for scarramucci, lets leave that story aside for now because it is kind of sad. Well, his job is to push out Reince Priebus and sean spicer, mission accomplished. Sanders made it clear that all staffs will report to general kelly. So six months later they got the chief of staff that everybody gets in line behind which could really help. Scarramucci told stephanie th that mr. Scarramucci would not be a figure who created an opportunity for mr. Trump with his daughter ivanka and soninlaw Jared Kushner to take the far reach shake up intended to purge the white house staff of leakers and aids viewed as not sufficiently loyal to his cause. The president tweeted, a great day at the white house. Do i understand that to be them saying that they planned this . Nobody plans to bring in a colossal disaster and driving to the white house and spewing profanity so we can do they certainly did not plan it and it is more their spin. I am quite frankly tired of the jared and ivanka thats trying to portray them and how all powerful get powerless. They have so much control and yet no control and cannot control anything. I was also really disgusted by ivankas tweet yesterday saying shes looking forward to work alongside general kelly. Respect the chain of command and respect someone who served nearly half a century in the military, maybe you can learn something. Coming up. Jeff flake who says his party is in denieal of donald trump. Straight ahead on morning joe. Hey. Pass please. Im here to fix the elevator. Nothings wrong with the elevator. Right. But you want to fix it. Right. So who sent you . New guy. What new guy . Watson. My analysis of sensor and Maintenance Data indicates elevator 3 will malfunction in 2 days. There you go. You still need a pass. To find smarter solutions. To offer more precise and less invasive Treatment Options than before. Like advanced Genomic Testing and immunotherapy. See how were fighting to outsmart cancer at cancercenter. Com outsmart bounty is more absorbent,mom per roll so the roll can last 50 longer than the leading ordinary brand. So you get more life per roll. Bounty, the quicker picker upper what if we could bring you by having better values . At blue apron, we work directly with more than a hundred family farms. So instead of spending on costly middlemen and supermarkets, we can invest in the things that matter most making farmland healthier. Cutting down on food waste. And bringing you Higher Quality, fresher ingredients for less than you pay at the store. Because food is better when you start from scratch. Get 30 off at blueapron. Com cook buttrust angies list to help. , [ barks ] visit angieslist. Com today. Theso when i need to book tant to mea hotel room,tion. I want someone that makes it easy. Booking. Com gets it. And with their price match, i know im getting the best price every time. Visit booking. Com. Booking. Yeah republican senator jeff flake of arizona whos taking on his own party of the moment they could have stepped up and stood their ground of the start of the Trump Administration. What was the key part where you and your fellow conservatives, republicans should have stood up. I have to say many conservatives did come out. What was the biggest opportunity . The comey fire. You can fire the fbi director and could have said last year he did something he should not have and the way he handled the campaign was not good. The reason given of the russia investigation, that should set off more alarm bells and i think Going Forward, we caught to be careful with this and concern that the ag maybe fired. That would be a real concern. I am glad that some conservatives are standing up p and staying certainly thats not tolerated by capitol hill. The book, you write a lot of things in the book. You write about a meeting. And, goldwater was not concerned so much of of rocker feller and lyndon johnson. My question to you, whats your level of concern over the Freedom Caucus is doing to the image of conservativism and Republican Party given the in fact they cheered on and loved apparently by healthcare bill that would throw more than 22 million americans off of healthcare. We can argue about whats conservative and whats not with regards to healthcare certainly, i think that obamacare needs to be significantly changed. If not, repeal. I would love to repeal it and start again if it is up top me. About 200,000 arizonians will wake up without healthcare. Theyll pay the fine and cannot afford the policy and deductibles are so high. We are hurting out there in terms of healthcare. I am more concerned of policies like on trade. We have always been a Republican Party of a free trade party. We are only 5 of the worlds population. If we dont find a new mark for our goods, we dont grow. I am very concerned of where ever the party is going and antiimmigration forward. Thats not the place the Republican Party wants to be in the future. Well be an Inclusive Party that speaks to the broader audience. You know and i heard democrats speak about you. You are a friendly open guy. It is just image and i understand that. There is a level of meanness to conservativism n conservati conservatism some how. My biggest concern is we got some deficits toi tackling. Well be adding 20 trillion soon to that debt. If you look at any decent budget agreement we had was when he had divided government. Republicans and democrats sat down and say we are going to share the risk. Right now we dont have that. If we describe the worst motives and demean them. You lose the ability to sit down and solve the big issue and thats conservative policy and of the pair doradox, somehow okay, the book is conscience of a conservative, it is out today. Anthony scarramucci can face some foreign ethics issue while working at the white house. Well talk to Walter Schaub who resigned his role saying the rules need to be tighten. Youre going to be hanging out in here. So if you need anything, text me. Do you play . Use the chase mobile app to send money in just a tap, to friends at more banks then ever before. You got next . Chase. Helping you master whats now and whats next. Can make anyone slow downt and pull up a seat to the table. Thats why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch. So that you can spend time on what really matters. Marie callenders. Its time to savor. Done. Rs. Supercool notebooks. Done. Thats mom taking care of business. But who takes care of mom . Office depot office max. This week, filler paper just one cent with five dollar minimum purchase. Taking care of business. Moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis was intense. My moms pain from i wondered if she could do the stuff she does for us which is kinda, a lot. And if that pain could mean something worse. Joint pain could mean joint damage. Enbrel helps relieve joint pain, and helps stop further damage enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. Serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma other cancers, nervous system and Blood Disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. Tell your doctor if youve been someplace where fungal infections are common. Or if youre prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for Heart Failure or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding or paleness. Dont start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. Since enbrel, my moms back to being my mom. Visit enbrel. Com. And use the joint damage simulator to see how joint damage could progress. Ask about enbrel. Enbrel. Fda approved for over 18 years. Finding the best hotel price is whoooo. Now a safe bet. Because tripadvisor searches. Over 200 booking sites so you save up to 30 on the. Hotelock it in. Tripadvisor. Scarramucci got out and stood behind me, it was time for us to head out to the oval office. Less a week ago, yesterday, he got bounced himself and i figured out who he is . Who . I have been thinking who is this guy . It is ari gold from the show. The mooch. Kind of explosive and profane and like what hes doing in the white house . Joining us now, msnbc anchor, Stephanie Ruhle. And our contributor editor and columnist and former director of the office of government ethics and now senior director of ethics, Walter Schaub and washingtons chief, susan paige. Lets start there stephanie, because you spoke with scarramucci. I did. I speck to him on sunday night and he was in the mode of i am here to serve the country and i made a mistake of my language but it is full steam ahead, i will be at work in dc, first thing tomorrow. Something that i find rich here for the white house to say and Sarah Hucklebee sanders to be saying that language is too much and for jared and ivanka to put out this narrative was awe feof. Nobody was offended when scarramucci was served as hit man getting bannon out. Well, we did not want anthony here and general kelly. Twothirds day ago, it was ivanka and President Trump who brought anthony in the white house and met with him for an hour and a half. Hours later, President Trump offered him the job. The last week, white houses lawyers were spinning worried of anthonys conflict because his company has not been sold. Now the single senior woman in the white house said a single word when the president viciously attack you and anthony did not attack the president. He was serving the president. He was talking how much he loves and adores, ivanka said nothing then but now it does not work. Please. Can we just dispense what the fiction that the president hates viral people even though he fired people on the apprentice. How many people have been fired . Whether or not hes the person who call them, you got to go or not. Various people, george w. Bush fired john sununu. There is this idea that he ne needed scarramucci to come into fire Reince Priebus. Anyone could have fired Reince Priebus. He could have handed a letter off to the body fire Reince Priebus. It does not matter. I think we agree that this move would not have happened had general kelly would not be there. This is the kind of guy of four star general that donald trump respects. Is it too much to ask to reign in whatever it means President Trump. What human being comes into a job whose assignment is to control there is this notion that trump is standing on one side, he cannot fire and hes too scared to fire people and scarramucci is too delicate and he came in and fireproof. He will fire kelly two months if he has to. He does not care. Who has the president truly shown respect for and great credibility in the white house. Tom rick puts it best, he hijacks their credibility over and over again. I am skeptical it will be different. As the ceo that donald trump respects or a general. He talks so much of mad dog and patent on a lot of the campaign trail. These are the kind of people that he respects whether it extends to the new job. Well get to that in a second. Susan paige, a twofold question, what was the concept of bringing Anthony Scarramucci in, whose idea was it . It seems like a horrendous idea and a terrible mistake and a huge embarrassment for the white house. Ivanka trump tweeted that she will work alongside with general kelly. Does that mean shes on par with him . The number one advocate bringing Anthony Scarramucci to the white house was scarramucci. I dont think you should under estimate the power of the message that john kelly sent by getting him fired, by firing him as basically a condition of plummet. There is to prospect that the chief of staff can reign from the president. To pose some kind of order that john kelly has. There is no order at the white house. There is no fundamental process that we have seen at the white house. Limiting on what you can expect him to do. Clearly, he plans to do that and getting rid of the mooch was step one. Step one, i mean i understand that you want to put a frame around it but understanding the power of it. I am going to push back a little bit. Thats about the easiest thing in the world to fire scarramucci, the guy thats spewing fbombs and insulted people right and left and was just a human time bomb in the white house, to ask him to leave, thats not, you know, i am not saying kelly is not a dpra great man with unbelievable skills. How do you deal with steve bannon and the forces that are bringing this president down which happens to be the president s own fingers. Thats what i want to see. Would you say those are the real challenges and not scarramucci. Firing scarramucci is not the toughest thing that john kelly has to do. All those things happened and the president did not protest what he said. Totally adpregree that ivanka a jared are trying to get control with. If scarramucci is still there today, this would be a problem for john kelly. Just to recap for people, what made you step out of that office. What bother you so much that made you say i will not finish my term here. To answer that, i have to explain that i have not been at the office since 2001, i have seen how the Ethics Program was supposed to run and under democrats and republicans and administrations, always have the full support of the white house. There is a lot of talks these days how we are discovering how fragilely people who want to play by traditional rules. It was absolutely true of the government ethics. Oge has no power. What we have done again is the man whos not there. Hes uninterested of the Ethics Program and unable to signal that rules matter. The thing that general kelly has to deal with is the absence of somebody in the Councils Office saying we have to be careful and instead of somebody stoking with fire. Is there a specific action where this is a last straw. There is something that happens that i cannot have efficacy of this job. I fought a battle to get routine documents and copy of waivers. And, it was amazing that they resisted that and it is completely routine. When i got my hands on it and when you are trying to figure out why the white house does anything. But when i dpot thgot that, the all the appearance. It seems like the secret waivers is that there were no secret waivers. They are undated and unsigned and one of them is ex p the president basically says i here by waive the ethics rule by myself. At that moment, i had doubt about this. General kelly can impact this. I spoke to someone in the white house on friday who said kelly is not going to like scarramucci. No side deals or steve bannon can talk to the great bar. General kelly will tighten the plan. The question is, can he execute that. The challenges of jared and ivan ivanka, thats coming out a little bit. There is no moderating force, what is it that they bring to the table . You ask the question of what will be the sign that kelly has control of the white house and there is a simple answer of that. If we hear that five or six people still have the right to walk into the oval office when ever they want to and kelly has not control access, well not have control of the white house. If bannon walks inside the oval Office Without him, he will not have control of the white house staff. It is that simple. If it happens and he dpgets the right to close the door, he will be in charge and if it does not, he wont. Ivanka trump has never shown up to a warning meeting. President trump attends and Reince Priebus. Ivanka never been to it. Now that there is a new general in town, is she going to be apart of the staff. Susan paige, is the big story of the day, the reporting that the president dictated donald trump, jr. s defense or explanation of the meeting of the russian lawyer. The fact that the president got on the plane and against the better judgment of people around him just took over. The story today that could have consequence down the road. I raises the perception of obstruction of justice by the part of the president. It is not against the law lito like the press. It is one more brick to look at and questions about whether the president has tried to prevent the story from coming out about russia. The firing of james comey is a bigger piece of that wall that we maybe seen of special counsel starting to build. Yes, thats the most consequential story that was in the paper this morning. Stephanie ruhle, thanks for coming on. Thank you all as well. Before we go to break. Some sad news this morning from the acting world. Award winning actor and play wright, sam shepard has died. He kentucky from complications from lou gehrigs disease. Shepards rise began in the 1960s in new york, but it was his work in the 1970s that helped thrust him into the spligt including the 1979 pulitzer prizewinning play bu buried child. He was celebrated for capturing the darker side of American Family life. He then made the move to the big screen starring in days of heaven, baby boom, and the right stuff, which earned him an oscar for his portrayal of test pilot chuck jager. He was celebrated for his works as novelist and short story writer. He was 73 years old. Up next, steve bannon and the Trump Administration push their brand of nationalism, our next guest is having a call for a Global Response to press iing iss issues. Your big idea. Will people know it means theyll get the lowest price guaranteed on our rooms by booking direct on choicehotels. Com . Hey badda book. Badda boom mr. Badda book. Badda boom book now at choicehotels. Com 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. I love you, basement guest bathroom. Your privacy makes you my number 1 place. To go number 2. I love you, but sometimes you stink. New febreze air effects with Odorclear Technology cleans. Away odors like never before. Because the things you love the most can stink. And try febreze small spaces to clean away odors for up. To 30 days. Breathe happy with new febreze. Their leadership is instinctive. Theyre experts in things you havent heard of researchers of technologies that one day, you will. Some call them the best of the best. Some call them veterans. We call them our team. On september 23rd, comcast and nbc are proud to partner with Global Citizen for the Global Citizen festival in new york in central park. Among the headliners, stevie wonder, green day, the killers and the chainsmoker who is sat down with Jacob Soboroff to discuss the movement. One of those organizations, its incredible what they do on such a large scale but its about the small scale and the individual. I think its crazy that everyone attending this concert has gone out and done something to help further the progress of this world. And join us now, founder, ceo of Global Citizen, our good friend, hugh evans. Good morning. Good to see you. How are you . Another incredible lineup starring with stevie wonder. Say no more. You had me at steve you wonder. Its a fun night in central park, obviously, but its not really about the music, its about the message that comes in between. Whats the focus this year . Last year when we got together, president obama was in the white house. We have a new president now. How have things changed in those 12 months . A lot has changed and we live in turbulent political times. I think what were seeing around the world is increasingly voters are rejecting that sort of nationalism and populism. I refer to the French Election and the wonderful outcome there and i think that the message for this years Global Citizen festival is that we want to stop the foreign aid cuts that President Trump has proposed an we also want to see a Real Investment into global education, because for too long education has been the poor cousin of global development. A lot of focus has been on global health. We want to see that the Global Partnership for education raises the 3. 2 billion it needs to ensure that the 263 million children currently out of school get a chance to go to school. So you, how is it whats the degree of difficulty been for you within the last six or seven months in this country . Globalism is one thing. Were all in favor most people are in favor of globalism when they think about it, but this withdrawal symptom here in this country toward nationalism. How has that impacted you . Interestingly, were finding far less complacency than ever before. To give you one statistic, we have now about 20 million to 30 Million People every single month enfwajing with Global Citizen. Compare that just to a few years ago and that was 4 million. So we of seen this massive growth in engagement amongst americans who are taking action like never before. So while on a Public Policy level its been really challenging, on a an engagement level were seeing more Global Citizens active than ever before. Especially did you notice any changes in grassroots engagement at the beginning of the Trump Presidency . Not to make it political, but you saw a lot of marches happening across the world. Were people who werent usually engaged decided to become engained in some way. Yeah. I think if complacency isnt dead its definitely dying and i think thats the good news. Were seeing incredible engagement and thats why were so excited for this years festival, because i think we have this rallying moment when all the heads of state are in town for the u. N. General assembly meeting, the only time youve got every world lead there are in one moment. We can make sure that issues that matter not just to the current political turmoil but actually matter to the world can be on the agenda and we can focus for a second if only for a heartbeat and say we dont need to just worry about these, you know, ins and outs of the next tweet that comes but focus on the things that matter for humanity. Its not just social issues. Its also National Security. Can you talk about how this movement actually can make the world more secure . Well, obviously, they say that any food Foreign Policy is based on defense, diplomacy, and development. And obviously theres a lot of talk on defense all the time these days but we also need to put a lot of attention on diplomacy and development. As President Trump has proposed a 32 cut in foreign aid, that would be existential to the movement to end extreme poverty. Fortunately, the House Appropriations committee has said they wont go through with that and the senate Appropriations Committee has recommended a more reduced cut thus far, but we hope there will be no cut, it will be level and we can actually see the sorts of investments that even george bush made in africa to fight hif huff aids continue, because this is always been a bipartisan issue. Foreign aid has never come into the political fray and we want to keep it that way. This is above politics. We say hugh evans is a radical optimist. He is. He believes we can eradicate poverty from the world. Sounds crazy, but you have a way to get there. Whats your goal this year . Our goal would be that education is on the agenda, that by february next year, 3. 2 billion is raised to help the Global Partnership for education put 263 million children into school. Sounds pretty good to me. I think you can do it. Global citizen festival takes place september 23rd in new york citys central park. It does such great work. Go to the website and check it out, see how you can get involved. Hugh evans, thank you. Thats a good note to end on this morning. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Good to see you again, mika. Hi, there. Im Stephanie Ruhle with a lot to cover today starting with the Washington Post bombshell that the president s lawyers call fake news. How involved was President Trump in his sons misleading statement about why he met with a russian lawyer . If this is true that the president drafted a lie in connection with criminal investigation, hes got to go. Is there any further information around anthony trump and the Trump Administration . Now that hes out as Communications Director, why did you toss the mooch