Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20170802

Kid on the street. They dont go hey, thats not true, willie. They say thats a lie. In the wall street journal, when it says theres nobody in the campaign in russia. And they wohl ka tha would call that, willie a lie. Sean spicer admits that he met with those at the center of the controversy. And the kid call that a steaming pile of pooh. What would we say to our children about this . I would say im going to send you to your room and im going to spank you. Some parents dont believe in spanking. My dad didnt believe in spanking. If i talked back to him, pow sometimes its against the law depending on who you lie to. So heres the problem. You got general kelly, the great american, american hero. Hes given his all for this country. He has given his all for this country. Great piece, were going to talk about it. He gave his all. He gave his son for this country. Hes sacrificed everything for this country and now hes going in for his country and hes trying to bring order to the cha chaos. He cant do that if they keep lying. There is a culture in that white house where just the people that are the spokespeople to the press lie. And the president. And it all starts at the top. The fish rots, you know, from the head down and its his culture of lying going back 30, 40 years where he would call the press up and lie and say that he was a p. R. Guy to talk about how great he was with women. In small things and large things. These are the United States of america and this is not right. So general kelly cant do anything. You can bring back james baker, couldnt do anything if theyre just going to keep lying every single day. With us veteran columnist and msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle, cold founder of axias. Van high is here. And julie pace is with us. She has a scorecard. And lies or not lies. I know it not morning and were not supposed to be Debbie Downer but it is quite sad. Its more than said. There could be legal consequences attached to many of these lies. The white house has afourld that donald trump, the president , helped draft the initial and misleading response to the revelations of a meeting between a russian attorney general as hand. It was a lie. He said talking about divorces or avocado firms, something the response attributed to donald trump jr. Claimed the june 26 meeting was about adoption policy. Of was, pris it will offered mig documentsoned informing to income nate opinion opinion. In the days after the forkt trumps reports pent on numerous show that the pes or else the president lied to him and then had jay go you its chilling be actually plm dismissed the New Washington post report that he personally dictated the response as fake news and of no consequence. That was a lie. But then yesterday the without acknowledged the the president did take part, claiming that his foj of the stul story was, quote, limited. The statement that john fun the perez white nrnlt there was no vol up, you was disgeist can you clarify the degree to which the president read it in. He didnt downdick tay, weigh m will be proven to be a lie. Because willie, sh has mum many courses that in fact, it was a president who dictated it, who was telling him to be more transparent and was going back and forth with don june. This is an incredible thing we found out during niquias unfortunate evident sewed. He would treat things, miks bleeding all over her face. Oh, shes looking lovely. Then hon on the nash advise per. Pr would would you wrrjs were going o get to the boy zouts . Sfrosh youre lying. Youre lying and you can oo brchl and glen says i dont think anyone just wanders into the oval office says sarah. That was a very bad imfact tear were. I vietnamesed people just wandering in. Like they lie about things it and id say, jack, you havent had have a cookie before dinner. And like chocolate from big, the russian investigation. Right sfrrnlt hes acknowledging he did help create the memo. It proves those people are lying. The boy scouts to what end . Why rye about that . What do you get on that other than the fact that someone challenged whether you were well received and shourd with praise, when the answer wasnt uniform praise he said mixed. Donald trump freaked out because a reporter from the wall street journal said it wasnt missed. Ive heard mixed. And theyre getting caught up in Donald Trumps web. Theres no. The russia story is it much liger and morically kated, why the i it leads to thing. Why would they lie about russia from tay. Out the campaign. We only talked we want americans to vote for us. We never and time given theyre talking to rg fwrrk i dont know why they lie. Are it etrying to cover almost. Rant prng a they think it the lies that are going o get him. That there as downpr fwrrnl moup, if it looks like youre u prn jared curb another gets offiy pop and even you go back to theyre sitting on the airplane, drafting that note. Four people out central kas can i am its inconceivable you forget that and it cannot cop p up. Can i stop you for one second . Yes. Anybody with any character that knew chapped. Because people are trying to p brp if my career son the line, my reputation is son the line and the press of the unputs out success pb. I think every one of us at this time, if youre smart, you immediately say if you put that out tomorrow and you put that in the North Carolina times tomorrow, ive got to go it the remine. I that is what you do agreed. But you know why they dont. We all talk to the same people and they ba they feel like if this krp jared as you lawyers were telling him we have to get this out. Its part of the process. Donald trump knew that Jared Kushner was pressure number. Who else was on that plane when donald trump was drafting light . It was him, his son, jared. Hope. Was. Spicer there in. No, i dont think so. Theyve not been guardrails, though. Thats part of the problem. When thended the presser yesterday, she was asked if donald trump believes theres. One rhett roothen think that thaticchallenge is the they can be control as month as rg, if sflrchl whenever she gets pushed on something where you can tell she as if shes being victimized by media that is to ask questions and yet her yob is to ainge and yes she makes it like, well, youre attacking me. I dont could you Say Something so ridiculous . It becomes on what policeman are we on . I think its really difficult for anybody to speak for this president. Zim possible. Some and it can be pi the wbs in for root hoar within wrn will right now is the atergss ras on the very basic function of our job, which is hold the administration ask theable. They say, hey, theres held they those fan and to say that were doing that for any pli cat be froshl at mission no. Actual will you has plt dal fwrnks clrp it nfrm. Like, for instance, the valerie plane investigation. Prosecutors, when they see lying publicly, even if it tu the press, pb bloo go if a prosecutor find out that subjects an very long speaking to one another, ittan a go up and they immediately become very suspicious that there is keching going on and that is basically obstruction of justice, if theyre fanning a stort, geing their story straight. Those conferrings arent prej id nm g20 is going to be interviewed with the Security Council zbrb who i was on the plane and find out who is going to involved in the discussions. All the walls of a force one everybody involved in th thatfederal budget snurnl specific and then donald trump actually using his position as president of the United States, where he went to the side do plane that he drafted on air loon flofrm. G0 summit and rushing off and fnk on, Health Insurance are trn owe fay to me its a Pretty Simple landscape that were looking at. In every instance, whether its russia, whether its the drafting of the statement on the plane, whatever it, is the source of conflict with the truth is the president of the United States. And that lead to an unbelievable burden on. Like kasey it makes it impossible to deal with a cliend, youre unthe with the mess afternoon it clay flarjs the burden everybody has. But let strip this down and make it simple. Independent sit in our po twrurchl because oaf want be naifblt the first time sbrn prp hes got to resign. Hes got to go out and haute front etprp believe that donald trump is going to be president forever. Your reputation is what stays with you. And when youre dead and buried in the ground, do you want to be remembered as Donald Trumps big man, the person that allow donald trump to lie . Is that what you want written in your obituary. That would be at beast. Things could get ugly. In your point, shes as well as everybody what the truth is peeic him. And like what that prng and look what it done for fom a guy we you a knew d. C. , was it worth it to sean spicer to lie for six opinions it pb sporks the thing that should scare the hell out of president. From s from slnepull at open day, you a. . Theyre all going o have to get lawyered up. I think thats brill as point. No wbs go toe fend them with it it prp the guy dishud been frshlg yard wilets talk about e controversy on sipt. F how far is the president going to i lou prn we have jeff blake ofs are ysh r. Prchb kp frch is anything . Das pb after the prsh froo frfrmt spch who actually will have save with what happened to bob mule. Ownery oerns manning other prerng pee ten fof fochl sfchl see how much distance barch floufrm ecan kbrp zprerchlts frerchl his credibility on floot. Republicans like grechl o join in a level frerj when it was happening, there about be montana, they started saying nobody firm foup nichlt. Adrian it ponl pep it was a winwinwin. And blake will find that, by the way, in arizona. Blake will find that but not not get carried away. The people stand up against the president right now most republicans dont like him but they dont say a barn thing because the base still likes donald trump. And i think it at some point break if he pibs. Were about to have big debate on fax form row for, right . How hes all over the news aing we sutdpshl i dont know how you believe nefrmt you if he whats in, in. Within hours and nrngt joe begunford, him ffrm and sass we going to leave it the way it is. One of the nas and fakest news story of the year. Just ahead, were going to talk about the exploitation of the death of seth rich. And reports are coming out that the president may have had a part in feeding that to fox news. This is getting bad. Also with us this morning, former new york city mayor mike bloomberg. Were going to ask the billionaire if he will give us some of his money. Also senator rob mortgageman. And Senate Democrat Claire Mccaskill who said theres a lot of bipartisan talk taking place on the hill these days. And you guys now the group hime . They like joes. They did a review. Oh, my gosh. Heim. The kid love me. Old kid on the block love me, too 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. And the wolf huffed like you do sometimes, grandpa . Well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. It can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. So i talked to my doctor. She said. Symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. Symbicort doesnt replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. 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A lawsuit filed in federal court claims a fox news report about a slain dnc staffer, seth rich, was reviewed prior to publication by President Trump and was altered at the white houses request. The lawsuit filed by private investigator rod wheeler, who was initially hired on behalf of the rich family, says his quotes in may 16th fox. Com news story were fabricated by reporter malia zimmermann. The quotes in question implied that rich was killed for leaking internal dnc emails to wikileaks. Wheeler kams he complained to a the suit also alleges it was an attempt to avert attention away from the ongoing russian. According to the suit, zimmerman, ba it will can i fox news said in a statement the accusation that fox news published to help detract from the russia collusion, u is completely erroneous. The disprks. Wheeler also claim in the suit, he and mat and provided him with a copy of his investigative notes. But sean spicer said that was a lie, that he never met with anybody, correct . Thats correct. And he asked for regular updates on the story. Back in may spicer denied knowledge. He didnt know the story. Watch this. Its clear. Hes a good guy. Im not aware of i generally i dont get updates on former dnc staffers. Im not aware of that. Threw go. Hes going the stutter that the meeting did take place. Hold on a second. No. Because we yo i dont, im not aware of i generally i dont get updates on former dnc staffers i brsh perhaps a note to sara okay comes back. Bible talks about your words being on chat, at least theyll ib on cable news. The white house insisted yesterday they had no involvement in the story. Of course, of course. Here we go. The president had no knowledge of this story and its completely untrue of the white house involvement in the store on opinion retreat you about 14 times a day. Didnt you say yesterday i give the story four days . Yeah, i probably overestimated it. Got to know by this afternoon that was a lie. Horrible. This is all about using a persons body to deflect from its depraved. This lets clear this up for everybody that i talked about, a murdered month than to try to taub and it publed up from the most ris reputable corners of the internet and has back a popper point. Whatever you can rahal inging a there is nothing that justifies this storys are for the president to be and tam genitally implicated, its time p pow. This is so horrible. His parents have to see that each and every day. He was murdered in a botched murder. It turns out it was totally wrong. For spicer to have that conversation with him. In the story theres a lot of they think, thou its how opini opinion. The level of cruelty in this story is exedded only by the level of malice in pushing it and forwarding it. That tells you everything you need to know about the people lets get it to alex jones. Znd an and not just in the being pushed as the family begged and pleaded,s me stop leaking the story. When it came,000 that and it whats so sick about this member, right . I pell you go a, a strong ma judge zwrurnl youre seeing show up everywhere. Youre seaing republican blee blurredering is a good guy. . What blowing airplanes with civilians and murder willing jun can be and a dal ski said no to any mi are in its not ul up to you dont. First of all im thinking why would the president have o redue a murder of a guy at d. C. It have nuchg this fox News Reporter and ask brrk getting involved just to serve prb. We did have cope nafrm what mr. Wheeler has been saying, fact that this Conspiracy Theory has about, from where the prn. He taken. In about knowing about the story, they lied about peting, if that this nrnlt you lie when you have Something Else o hide. And just like russian story, moms coming. I remain pamably, yimt really does sort of kind of bow si sighsnim i get fired or humiliated and push out temperatures. Sferchlt they commit their career geek kpoom well be back. 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You can use whipped topping made. But real joyful moments. Are shared over the real cream in reddiwip. Reddiwip. Share the joy. 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. Im, im looking inside and ive been mystified by what you saw love that. Give me some claps every day. Love when this happens. Any time can you do hand collapse and the robot in the same song. Hand collapse, robot, robot, robot. Who is that . That was Joe Scarborough. Stop it. I hope every one of his songs has a robot dance. Those haeheys were great. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Thats hime. You might want to look them up. I feel exponentially hipper. Theyre good you should go watch their snl performance. Youre hime shaming. Mystified is officially good. There you go. There you go. So cool. No, no, no. Watch some of the videos. The kids, youll be hip with the kids. My daughters theyre out of the valley. Three sisters, they played with their parents growing up. Theyre extraordinarily talented. Insanely talented. I put them with vampire pure ta. They play base, lead guitar. Their parents were musicians and theyve been playing since little kids. They all started as drummers. So their parents started them as drummers to know rhythm better and theyre all really great, talented mu ssicians. And they have a new album out. Jim, you can get on board now. Stop it. Stop it. They do have a special vinyl release for their new album. You knew that. Course you did. Still ahead still ahead, an exclusive interview with Goldman Sachs ceo mark blankfein. Morning joe is back in a moment. Im. Im so in love with you. Whatever you want to do. Is alright with me. Ooo baby lets. Lets stay together. Theres nothing more important so when i need to book a hotel, i want someone who 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 fixodent plus adhesives. Theres a denture adhesive that holds strong until evening. Just one application gives you superior hold even at the end of the day fixodent. Strong more like natural teeth. How to win at business. Step one point decisively with the arm of your glasses. Abracadabra. The stage is yours. Step two choose la quinta. The only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free nightinstantly and win at business. You know its bad when the interns turn. Well, even the interns are leaking you know its bad. You think thats the one place. Theyre told not to but still they do. Jared kushners comments to a group of congressional interns on monday have been leaked to wired magazine. Thats a bad sign. In spite of, and this might have been the problem, explicit warnings against leaking. Hold on, they warned not to leak and voice memo. Wired magazine reports one of the sections drawing attention trying to broker middle east peace. Kushner talks about the process he goes through to determine why historically it hasnt been more successful, noting not a whole lot has been accomplished for decades, and that its emotionally charged. You know everyone finds an issue, that you have to understand what they did then, and you have to understand that they did this, but how does that help us get peace . We dont want a history lesson. Weve read enough books. Lets focus on how you come up with solutions. I got to stop there. Brokering middle east peace in 79, he knew history, he understood sadats history, egypts history, he understood what they were all dealing with at home, and the thousands of years that made this a emotional issue. Its remarkable. This has been their attitude from day one, which is dont tell us about history. Really, would you get contempt when you tried to tell them about history. They believed history started on january 20th, 2017. Which is funny. That was actually a pretty significant criticism of the Obama Administration, the early Obama Administration from conservatives, there was so much hubris and so much affect and belief in their own ability to change the forces of history that it was arrogance. Especially with iran from the very beginning. We dont care about the past. Well talk to iran unilaterally. Its ironic, because the Obama Administration reliance on iran is creating an opening for israel that has nothing to do with the palestinian side. Israel has warmer relations with the sunni kingdoms and the sunni states. Right. That has everything to do with balancing against iran that could allow natural attrition to take effect here but theyre intervening in a process they dont understand and for reasons i cant quite fathom. I dont mike barnical you cant wander into the middle east without understanding the 67 boundaries, without understanding 1948 and what led to it and what happened before 1948, without understanding all the complications. So you can sit down and say, i understand 67, i understand what happened in 2000 in the negotiations, with the oslo courts, i understand but were going to work around that and seriously, this is all of their attitudes inside the white house. We dont need to know history. Jared doesnt have time to study history because the middle east Peace Process is a parttime job for him. Hes reorganizing the government. Hes doing the space program. Hes the president s principal adviser. So this is a parttime job the Peace Process. Right. You just have got to know history. Understand it forwards and backwards to get anywhere in the middle east. Im glad hes telling the next generation to not worry about history. Two stories in the last two days, accuse the president of taking active measures to lower the heat on the russia story, but the investigation is only getting bigger. Plus, eric trump laments republicans arent working with his dad but we have the laundry list of reasons explaining why that may be the case. And well talk to senators Claire Mccaskill and rob portman. Morning joe is coming right back. To move 2017 clearance event, you can do endless online research. Or, you can take advantage of our best offer ever on an xt5. Dont wait. Our 2017 models will be moving fast. You can drive a car. Or you can drive a cadillac. Come in now before the end of our made to move 2017 clearance event and leave with the perfect cadillac xt5 for your next adventure. Choose a low mileage lease on this xt5 for around 339 per month. 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. 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Legendary. Old guy, doesnt know heim. I do now. Washington bureau for the associated press, julie pace. Julie. We have to do rattner. Hes a mets fan. Joining the conversation political reporter for the Washington Post robert costa. Costa. And kelsey snell who covers congress for the Washington Post. Its very good to have you both on board. Noah is back or sinatra we call him because he leaves and walks back on. Im sorry the bathroom is down on 60th. I had no idea. Its on 60th. Theres some construction. Quite a walk. Why do you think theres garbage cans under here . As i move forward, noah, a remarkable story about the secretary of state Rex Tillerson actually rejecting 80 million in money from congress to counter isis propaganda and russian propaganda, and you talk to most Foreign Policy experts, they will tell you that isis most potent tool is propaganda, and russias most potent tool right now is propaganda against western democracies. I dont think ive ever heard of a secretary of state rejecting this money. Why did they reject it . Or any department rejecting 80 million appropriated to it by congress. It might expire by the way in two months. Their explanation for rejecting it is . It might anger moscow to counter their propaganda. Its a Genuine National Security Threat and also isis which recruits lone wolf attackers as a result of its propaganda, its a dereliction of responsibility and notion theyre just letting it sit here as some sort of a process, sort of strikes me as bizarre. What in the world is going on . Julie, they actually admitted it. The spokesperson for what am i missing here . Rex tillerson admitted it. Rex tillerson coming under more and more fire, and furrowed eyebrows lets say, from the foreign community. This is inexplicable that he says no, no, no, we dont need the money to counteract isis. Its completely bizarre this is the explanation for turning down the money. Isis thrives on propaganda. Its not as though they have a huge swathe of territory really anymore. They are thriving on online videos, theyre thriving on inspiring people in europe and in the United States. Tillerson just continues to kind of flounder at the state department. He was out there yesterday talking to reporters in his first full briefing, and its Pretty Amazing when you think about whats happened to americas voice on Foreign Policy around the world, when you have a president who isnt particularly fluent on these issues, isnt spending a lot of time talking about them, thats a role that ends up usually being then filled by a secretary of state, but tillerson has taken this complete opposite approach, where he is largely underground, not having a lot of outwardfacing appearances and when he does talk, when he does give explanations for some of these decisions, they really are eyebrow raising, to say the least. Joe, why do you figure the slow but sure deconstruction of the state department along with a nearly invisible secretary of state is not a bigger story . I dont know why. I dont know why especially because the stories that we are going to be talking about, these stories were going to be talking about north korea. In the next month or two is going to be north korea and there is a likelihood were going to look back on these mooch stories the same way we looked back on gary condit stories before 9 11, because north korea right now is the story. Theyre, about one of five things can happen and theyre all bad. You can have an invasion from the north to the south, a lot of people worry about that. You can have a u. S. Military strike on the north. Thats significant. You of course i mean, we can go, willy, really all around, all the different areas that could happen on north korea, and yet we dont have anybody under Rex Tillerson that can effectively work these issues at the desk. We dont have diplomats out there. Donald trump fired everybody that was out there, and theyre not refilling it. This is a huge, huge story for russia, you know, russia bringing 100,000 troops to the edge of nato coming up, north korea, you can just go down the list, and here once again, russia in inplexably comes in as a story that no one can understand because he said no, we dont want to anger russia, despite the fact russia has openly been trying to undermine western democracies with fake news and with propaganda. And further confusing us on this story, the one youre talking about in politico the refusing of the 80 million, this is an administration that says its obsessed with fake news, that it accuses everyone else of participating in fake news. That 80 million were talking about is earmarked for countering actual fake news coming out of russia for countering propaganda coming out of russia and isis. And on your paint, Lindsey Graham on the today show raising the prospect of a shooting war with north korea, basically saying weve been crossing our fingers hoping the chinese will do something for how many years and theyre not doing anything. He said if theres a war and there may be one, he said a lot of people are going to die on the Korean Peninsula. He said that on tv yesterday. We talk to white house officials over the last week and asked them what are you most worried about . So far hasnt been an economic crisis, hasnt been a foreign crisis theyve had to deal with. All four of the things they mentioned require state department intervention, if they happen, north korea, china, a cyber attack, or a more conventional terrorist attack. All four of those things, and people might be saying who cares about the state department. Theyve not staffed anybody around him, so theres not really any way for us to communica communicate. Rex tillerson is a rookie. He has no idea what hes doing at the state department. And if i didnt know any better, thats intentional. Because i can tell you, during the transition, Donald Trumps idea was, lets get somebody weak at the state department, and well have Jared Kushner doing all the deals. Right. This is intentional. They are undercutting this man intentionally and they get somebody who doesnt know what hes doing in there and let me say it again. He doesnt know what hes doing. Arent you surprised by the weakness . Tillerson ran a Massive International company. He was brought in and people said whoa, this is one of the most impressive cabinet picks and you talk to people, probably one of the bigger surprises in terms of being a disappointment and they fault his chief of staff, they fault his staff but ultimately they havent given him the they also though didnt give him Elliott Abrams. He wanted Elliott Abrams. Thats right. How would history have changed if they put somebody in at number two whether you like his politics or not . A guide. Who knows how the state department runs. Theres very few undersecretaries. I was in kiev in february, it was early february and theyre saying were running on autopilot on the Obama Administrations Foreign Policy because we get no guidance from the state department and no undersecretaries, no diplomatic staff and political appointees particularly in hot spots like the Korean Peninsula. They are operating under the philosophy we can move on ine inertia and crises are coming up fast. Bob costa, the great irony going back to what noah said, this was our complaint, not you and me, but this was what conservatives complained about, with barack obama, that they didnt have a world view, that they ran our Foreign Policy, other than iran and cuba, they ran our Foreign Policy on autopilot, that there was inertia. It was like dont do dumb stuff, was the obama doctrine, and now the trump doctrine is the same. Theyre just doubling down on it. Dont do anything, and dont hire anybody. Well, the trump doctrine is different than the doctrine most republicans follow, especially on capitol hill, and you see what the move on russian sanctions in the republican congress, theyre trying to box in this white house to say if youre going to have a doctrine thats reimagining u. S. russia relations were not going to go along with it. We want to shape policy in a more hawkish direction, a traditional republican direction, and you see this administration continuing to react to that. Theyre trying to do their own thing. Jonathan swann, jims colleague at axios is reporting how the administration is thinking about going after china in a more aggressive way on trade, of maybe shaping the relationship over there with regard to north korea, and youre also looking right now at general kelly trying to form a bond with tillerson. My sources in the west wing say tillerson, general mattis at the defense department, and general kelly have been kind of the generational peers in this cabinet, and they think this is the way to maybe bring tillerson back to the center of the discussions, to not make him feel so isolated because he has that relationship with kelly. Andrea mitchell, lets bring you in here. Im glad while were talking about how Rex Tillerson is raising too many eyebrows in washington, around the world, im glad jim or bob costa brought up his alliance with general mattis, who has embraced Rex Tillerson and insists there is never any separation between the two, but if thats the case, and if jim mattis is handling the pentagon as well as he is, why arent we seeing more of that at the state department . Is it intentional on the Trump Administrations part to strangle the state department . Well, theres certainly a problem here because tillerson did embrace the budget cuts, 30 . That is an enormous budget cut, and i think he was trying to prove his bona fides with a president he did not know or have a relationship with and prove not being a general that he could be part of the team and bring a Management Study to the table and take sort of the business approach to the state department. The problem there was that, to say that youre freezing all jobs, and youre doing a Management Study and sometime in the fall youre going to have those results, and then by spring start nominating people for the critical job, assistant secretaries of state they are the brain power, the people who know the regions who speak to the ambassadors on a daily or frequently often during the day, more than once a day, and so now you only have two holdover obama appointees out of 24 assistant secretaries. You have only one with a holdover also from the Obama Administration, but a career person, as one of the six undersecretaries. Hes basically home alone. So he is really he really hurt himself, and he was saying yesterday to us at that briefing which we were grateful for is, is the first time in the briefing room, the diplomats i talk to all the time, three times a week i meet with them, they are saying help us, help us fix this problem. Thats a very select group. Thats not what im hearing and not what all the reporting is. Theres really been a mass exodus and youre losing a generation of diplomats. That is, ive heard that on so many levels, andrea. Ive also heard from the beginning, he has not been given who he wants by his exactly. Hes tried very hard to get people to help him acclimate and run the state department so historically, any precedent for this . Is there any administration that has a state department this empty at this time six months in . No. No, its unprecedented. There are vacancies also at the pentagon where mattis pushed back against political appointees. In in this case from the beginning Elliott Abrams was his choice to be deputy secretary and that was overruled and ever since its been very difficult, a lot of leaks coming out of the white house, undercutting him saying hes failed and that has been deeply hurtful. I think he really feels that the addition of kelly, whom he was very close to, worked very hard on in mexico, and to work on latin american problems, the wall and all the rest and try to moderate the president s rhetoric regarding mexico, i think he thinks that kelly, from all reports, will be such an important ally that the grownups are now in charge in the white house, at least for now, but its been very difficult. There have been rumors he wanted to quit. I think hes going to try to stick it out the best can he, but this has been an uncomfortable fit. Sometimes you have to walk away. Andrea mitchell thank you so much. Thank you. We want to note that yesterday her 39th anniversary here at nbc news. Wow. Its unbelievable. A child reporter. She came as a child at the age of stroller. 2. Her parents brought her to nbc. Thats amazing, andrea. Still gets it done. Congratulations, andrea. We greatly appreciate it. Continuing on, go ahead, willy. I think what andrea is talking about, were all talking about the state department is sort of to the point you made, joe, is that when you come in on january the 20th and history begins with you and you try to remake an entire government, thats a tough slog. Im not sure thats their goal. Theyre saying were not going to rely on Career State Department staffers, were not going to rely on the way things that are done in the state department and the white house. Were seeing that across the government. Look at legislative result. Kelsey, what have we got, anything on the horizon . Historic . Im sure you have a very long list. Historic. You know, i think that what we might see is we might see congress leave, well the senate leave a week earlier than they said they were going to. We saw them say theyre going to stick around two weeks they needed to get all this done, but theyve spent the past couple of days just passing things by unanimous consent and trying to get out of town. They have nothing really to do. The house when they come back is preparing to do something on the debt limit, they have to get that done by the end of september. They have to pass a spending bill by the end of september and reauthorize faa money. Theyve got a bunch they need to do in september but theyre just not here, and they, you know, theyre talking a lot about tax reform. Theres this conversation about the big six meetings thats kevin brady the ways and means chairman, paul ryan, the speaker of the house, and Mitch Mcconnell, and orrin hatch and two people coming over from the white house, the treasury secretary and the National Economic adviser. Theyre all talking about tax reform. They say theyre going to get something out there by labor day but tax reform is a lot harder than i think people are giving it credit for. Theres a reason it hasnt happened since 1986. Its really hard. Yes. And its not simple to say were going to cut all of your taxes and were going to cut rates, thats great but were going to cut your mortgage interest deduction, thats a little bit harder. So kelsey, Donald Trumps been trolling republican senators telling Mitch Mcconnell how to do his job thats not smart, and im wondering whether the senate deciding to get things done and leave early may be Mitch Mcconnell saying you know what . Ive had enough. We cant deal with this guy. Best thing we can do is get our senators back into their states and let them hold town Hall Meetings and meet their constituents. I think its a little bit of that and a little bit that congress likes taking august off. They like to go home and reset and we call it jet fumes, they get really, really powerful when senators want to get out of town, and some of them want to go on kodells, things that advance the legislative agenda outside of washington and being harangued by the president not Getting Health Care done is not something they want to keep doing. The Washington Post kelsey snell thank you so much. Julie pace thank you as well. Still ahead on morning joe eric trump says his dad is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and that republicans need to get in line. Well ask two republicans, senator rob portman, and congressman charlie dent what they think about that. Youre watching morning joe. Im going to 60th street. Ditching the coverup for good . Thats cool. Showing off my arms . Thats cool. Being comfortable without a shirt . Thats cool. Getting the body you want without surgery, needles, or downtime . Thats coolsculpting. 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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. Or a little internet machine . [ phone ringing ] hi mom. It makes you wonder. Shouldnt we get our phones and internet from the same company . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. [ laughing ] so all you pay for is data. See how much you can save. Choose by the gig or unlimited. Call or go to xfinitymobile. Com introducing Xfinity Mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. My father said it. I mean he said it a couple weeks ago in a tweet. He said am i going to have to carry this whole weight on my shoulder . When are some of the people in my own party going to start protecting me . I feel as well and im an outsider looking in on the white house. Im running our company, but i mean, i want somebody to start fighting for him. Hes the best fighter in the world. He will do a better job fighting for himself than all of them will do fighting for him, but i mean how much weight does he have to carry by himself . I cant. Okay. All right, alex. President trumps son, eric, taking aim at republican lawmakers criticizing them for not fighting hard enough to advance his fathers agenda, and he seems to be following in his fathers footsteps. President trump has openly and repeatedly attacked members of his own party saying theyre at risk of looking like quitters and fools over health care. He hammered alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski for voting against the gop plan, and senator dean heller, who was thinking about it. You didnt go out there. This was the one we were worried about. You werent there, but youre going to be. Youre gonna be. Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesnt he . Ha, ha, ha. Trump also took aim at republicans at large for not protecting their president. He attacked his administrations own attorney general as beleaguered and publicly toyed with secretary tom prices future at health and Human Services. By the way youre going to get the votes . I hope so. He better get them. He better get them, oh, he better it shall otherwise ill say tom, youre fired. Ill get somebody. Ha, ha, ha. Joining us now from bethlehem, pennsylvania, republican congressman charlie dent. Very good to have you on the show, congressman. Great to be with you. Does eric trump have a point . Do more people need to have his dads back . Are they failing him . Republicans . Well i have to disagree with eric, what he just said there. Lot of us are working with this administration very constructively, working with them on the debt limit, working with them on budge eight greements. I work closely with the va, i oversee their funding. Were working with secretary mattis on the transgendered issue only to have that whole effort undermined by a president ial tweet that really contradicted what the secretary of defense had been doing, so we are working with the administration but sometimes the Administration Needs to get out of its own way. Congressman, its willie geist. Good to see you this morning. Part of at peel for many voters of donald trump as president he was this ultimate deal maker, he branded himself that way and hes going to get to washington and this is what he does. He makes deals so hell do it with congress. What has been the experience of you and your colleagues in that regard . Is he working the phones in terms of getting, i know youre not in the senate but in terms of getting the house bill through on health care . Was that the guy that you saw firsthand, the guy that was portrayed during the campaign, the guy weve seen on the apprentice the guy who calls himself the master of the art of the deal . I think the president seems to want to deal on health care, any deal, he wants something on his desk, but many of us do want to present a deal not only to him, but to our leadership, 43 of us in the last few days put forward a bipartisan plan on health care that would stabilize the individual insurance market, that would provide for costsharing reduction payments and stabilization, and repeal of the vice tax, employer mandate. Wed love to engage in that kind of a deal so to speak either with our leadership or with the president , so i look forward to engaging on that. Has he been that kind of president for you, congressman, in terms of working the phones and being a deal maker . Well based on health care, i always had the sense that the administration and the president , they had outsourced the Health Care Issue to congress, and let Congress Kind of handle this, and at least the president seemed to be less engaged with any specific details. That was my experience on that issue. Bob costa . Congressman dent, bob costa here. When it comes to the debt limit, whos going to actually determine what comes out of the house . Is it going to be your group, the moderates, the tuesday Group Pushing for a clean debt limit extension or whether it be the Freedom Caucus and theyll probably want some cuts or some other part of the deal . Well, bob, good to see you. I believe procedural consideration should be given to those members in the tuesday group, the moderates, so to speak. We are the ones who are going to put the votes up. Id like to determine how we vote on this bill, specifically we need a bipartisan, bicameral budge eight agreement to provide for some budgetary stability and we need a debt limit to provide market stability. We should put the two together. We should negotiate this ping. We should negotiate it before october 1st and get it done. That would be the best thing to do to provide budgetary and market stability and well put the votes up for it. Congressman, this is mike barnical. You referenced the 43 members you caucused together for Health Care Legislation. Sounds like a aaa for legislation. Roadside your car broke down but the 43 members, can you give me a breakdown by party of the 43 members . How Many Democrats are in this . Yes, this is the problemsolvers caucus. Its 43 members, its roughly evenly split between republicans and democrats who are supporting this proposal. I think we have about 50 members right now, so we had a strong consensus among the group to do something constructive on health care that we think is the starting point for a discussion. So its an incremental reform. I believe this is the way we should have always moved, do something durable, sustainable. This doesnt solve every problem but it provides some stability and we as republicans can walk away with some wins and so can the democrats. Thats a new story right there, half and half, democrats and republicans working together. Wow, stop the presses. Yes. We can only hope. Congressman charlie dent, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. Robert costa, thank you as well. Coming up, mike barnical takes us back to john kellys old neighborhood. One man told him i remember general kelly very well as a little guy, kind of a shy kid. Given the job he just got i hope to goddess over being shy. Well talk about that all next on morning joe. Crohns disease. 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. 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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 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. Mike barnical writing in the daily beast about the Boston Neighborhood that made john kelly. Their neighborhood was 1950s postwar era, largely irish and catholic, nearly an apartment in almost every twofamily home touched by the impact of world war ii and korea. There were more veterans on the block than hydrants. This was john kellys world then and today, devotion to the chain of command, to family, to country, to loyalty, honor, courage, to history to the memory of those who sacrificed all. Today general kelly works for a commander in chief who could not be more unlike his chief of staff. Where kelly symbolizes honor and honesty, trump symbolizes expediency and duplicity. Loyalty is a stranger to this president. It is in kellys blood and on the long days when he wonders why he took the job he will no doubt think of how he was raised in brighton with his father john at the Kitchen Table and his mother, joan, making breakfast and think of the son he often visits who is quite close to the white house, just across Memorial Bridge in section 80, grave 9480 at arlington, First Lieutenant Robert Michael kelly, United States marine corps, who died in afghanistan on november 9th, 2010. He was 29 years old. Roberts father, marine corps general john kelly, still serves every day. Mike, talk more about this guy and the strange marriage between donald trump who works on impulse, who works on insult and john kelly, who has lived his professional life inside a chain of command with honor and duty. Well, joe alluded to part of the problem earlier when we were talking about the president s difficulty with the truth, and if if he continues to have difficulty with the truth, general kelly, who symbolizes the truth, and honor and integrity, he has all of his life especially during 40 years in the marine corps, he will stand up to the president. It should its important to note who this guy is, general kelly, and anecdotally, this offers up some definition of who he is, and who his family is and what his family represents. When he received the call finally accepting the office of chief of staff, the position of chief of staff to the president of the United States, he was in california. He was visiting his oldest son, marine corps major john kelly, who was about to be deployed. Hes lost one son to war. He has another son in the service of the country. He is in the service of the country, and all of us, no matter what we think of donald trump, we have to root for john kelly, because rooting for john kelly is rooting for the country. Yes. Absolutely. Is he the kind of guy, mike, who, when donald trump makes him look bad for the first time, or when Donald Trump Tells him something that isnt true, for the first time, he will walk away from it to protect his own digni dignity, protect his own integrity or will he be in there pushing back and fighting on behalf of the country . I think the latter. I think he stays and pushes back, because this isnt about his dignity or his reputation. This is about i this i in general kellys mind, this is about the United States of america. You know, mike, to explain to people, though, how general kelly may be more patient than they would expect, how he might take a snub here or deal with abhorrent behavior in other ways and still stay in his job. It does help to know he sees this as service to the Country First of all and secondly, as we know, the idea that all generals and Lieutenant Colonels and other members of the military that john kelly served under, as he moved up the general, would not be accurate, that you have to put up many times in the military with incompetent supervisors and youve got to figure out a way to get through that and to move to the other side of it, and so the military does the discipline is not just a physical discipline. It is also a discipline to understand that when you are in the chain of command, youre not going to like everything that you are told to do, or ordered to do, and sometimes it means even taking men and women into combat when you dont think thats in their best interests. Well, general mcmaster wrote a terrific book dereliction of duty about exactly that, joe, about how sometimes Junior Officers under the command staff, they know the decisions are wrong, and are going to be harmful, and in the course of the vietnam war not enough Junior Officers stood up to the command staff. General kelly, because of his life, because of his four decades in the marine corps, he knows he has a responsibility for everything thats under him. Right. Its his responsibility. Hes not going to say, joe, that was your responsibility. Right. Youre under me. Eight my responsibility to make sure you do your job. So the way the job is going to go for him well find out but i think in the end he stands up to the president of the United States. And the only way this works, mika, is again, everybody reports to general kelly. Right. Everybody. Sons, daughters, soninlaws, everybody, friends, acquaintances, they all have to go through general kelly, if you want the white house to work. Right. No one works alongside him. No, ivanka trump does not work alongside him and shes not proud to be working alongside him. Something we all said yesterday, i got to say this. Its very interesting. We all said this yesterday, i didnt but i was saying it, you know, like up in boston, after seeing the gang going yeah, i was agreeing with everybody and i thought that especially i thought that Steve Schmidt gave a very impassioned plea as to why daughters dont work alongside generals that have given their entire life in service to this country, just because theyre daughters. I thought it was interesting. You got attacked yesterday and it was like in the press, it was like it was very sexist. It was like a catfight. Well, right. Because you said it, but when the men said it, that didnt rate a mention, but you state something that we all say about white house policy. Actually i was talking about jared and ivanka. Yes. They turned it into a catfight. I didnt see anybody yesterday thinking it was appropriate ivanka trump tweeted i like ivanka, by the way. Always have. We met in new york, weve known her for years and always said nothing but great things about her and i said before they got into the white house if you want to have something to judge donald trump positively by, look at his kids. Ive said it a billion times. So this is not personal against ivanka trump. I will tell you, this text is repugnant, put the tweet up. Its just, it is, its repulsive, and it goes against, it illustrates exactly what has hurt this white house over the last six months, and it explains why general kelly needs to report to his boss, donald trump, and everybody else needs to report to general kelly. Looking forward to serving alo alongside john kelly as we work for the no. Willie, why . Why would they think anything other than what she wrote . Shes been at the president s side since the beginning, her father. He made her and her husband, Jared Kushner feel like they are the right and lefthand of the president of the United States, even without a formal role in her case. I dont think that was a dig. I think that was just, that was her, the way she feels. I sit at the side of my father, who suspect president of the United States, and welcome aboard general kelly. And yet, we were saying a couple days before everybody else has said that everybody has to report to the chief of staff, if you want the white house to work, and jim, i would say never, ever, ever going to happen. It goes doubly for children, and i wonder, i just i cant even imagine ever saying im going to work alongside general kelly, da, da, da, da, da, da. With absolutely no qualifications. Come on. Its never going to happen. Like were all recidivists who the white house will fail. Have this bizarre faith in his own way, eight working the phones late at night, talking to the kids. For all the stuff you dump on trump it was a strong pick. He should be applauded for putting somebody strong in there. Hes not going to change. Hes not going to change. Hes still going to work the phones late at night and still going to talk to the kids. Thats fine to work with the kids. Its fine to talk to the kids of course. Its fine to work the phones late at night. If they are at the white house they report its not fine to have a structure where you let family members Wander Around your chief of staff and guide policy. Its one thing when you go home and somebody goes, you know what you did today was really stupid, you should consider apologizing. Thats happened to me throughout my lifetime. I go back the next day, i said something really stupid yesterday and i apologize. Thats one thing. Its quite another to be telling the world, i am going to work alongside the chief of staff. No, youre not. Not if this white house is to function. Not if you care about whats in Donald Trumps best interests. Not if you care about whats in this countrys best interests. You will not in the office work alongside the chief of staff, or you will cause your father to fail. Its that simple, if you want donald trump to succeed, get out of the way, and you will let the chief of staff do the chief of staffs job. You report to the chief of staff, the chief of Staff Reports to his boss donald trump. And thats it. If youve been the trump whisperer or the moderating force, youve been terrible at it. I mean, its been a failure for six months. There is no trump whisperer. So own it. Mikes great column is posted in the daily beast. Check it out. Coming up next experts say the president has been good for Economic Growth but that he might just might maybe overstating his role. Well talk exclusively to the former new york city mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and Goldman Sachs ceo lloyd blankfein. Morning joe is back in a moment. 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Vernon marketplace in baltimore just outside a restaurant owned by one of the programs graduates we have ceo lloyd blankfein, former mayor of new york city Michael Bloomberg and the owner of scrub nail boutique, Jasmine Simms who is graduating from the xram toda program today. Congratulations. Thank you. Lloyd, weve been fortunate enough to go to many of these events with you and see love the program. The impact that this program is having. Talk about what youre finding after doing this for several years, how is this program taking root in communities and really helping people start their own Small Businesses. Well, thanks a lot, joe. Weve been doing this in, for about seven years now. Were up to 14 cities, and we also have a National Program that brings people together in classes where we are operating in communities that choose small dedicated programs, but where weve done this weve found entrepreneurs who are in business, have done kind of well, and need to break out to the next level, and thats kind of a sweet spot, where we can get real job growth and we can just take people who committed, proven, have the ambition, have the concept, and sort of get them to leverage themselves a little bit more, provide them with capital, provide them with business education, that has components of negotiation, how to deal with, how to request financing, supply some financing in many cases, how to negotiate, deal with their employees, and most of all, give confidence to people who are pretty terrific to begin with, and as a result of this, employment takes off in these places. Mayor bloomberg its willie fwoo geist. Good to see you. I know youre on the Advisory Board here. Talk a little bit about the climate for Small Business. President trump touted in the last several days the stock market. Hes touted low unemployment. Whats it like for an entrepreneur like jasmine right now, trying to start a business in this country . Well, all the job growth, willie, in the United States has been in Small Businesses for a while. People are moving from Big Companies to small companies. Small companies have the advantage of typically local, typically where you can get some ownership in them. Typically where you can bring your skills to bear, without being overburdened and having to go retain, and what we need to do is to create more Small Businesses throughout the country to give people who are losing jobs in losing jobs and that are being phased out because of technology or industry or people moving, give them jobs where they are using the skills that they have. We can talk about Big Companies and getting more skills, but thats where automation will continue to reduce employment. Its the Small Businesses where personal Service Really makes a difference and where they cant afford a lot of Big Technology projects that are going to motor our economy along and give people the dignity of a job and the ability to take care of their families. So, jasmine, i want to hear your story, especially as it pertains to some of the challenges that you face in baltimore. Mayor bloomberg, of course, has had a huge impact in baltimore with Johns Hopkins university. Jasmine, though, trying to get a business going and moving in the city of baltimore, how has the program helped you, but what are some of the challenges you still face . So i started my business with like little to no resources. So i struggled a lot just trying to figure it out on my own through trial and error. When i came across this program, i know it offered the structure and strategy that i needed to take my business to the next level. Theyre Different Centers and help you get started. You run into certain pitfalls and roadblocks, you need to know how to navigate those challenges. So this program really helped open my eyes to just a great group of instructors and professors who came from all over the place who really helped us zone in on what our opportunities were and how to navigate those and use the resources that we have and also the members of our cohorts, the resources from them as well. Lloyd, weve been talking about Small Businesses here, but obviously there also is a lot of concern about whats happening with the economy in general. Youve got the president saying that this is the best economy that weve had in a very long time. Im just wondering, what are you looking at not only the United States, but across the world as far as our standing and companies that arent just contained inside the borders of the United States. Whats the climate like . Joe, it may not be the best economy weve had for a long time, but its pretty good. If you were transported down here, if you were frozen in an iceberg for four years and you knew and you woke up, came out, thawed and you saw an economy thats at full employment, low energy prices, basically Balance Sheets have been cured, a lot of cash, again, low rates, youd think and again, people may not like the job they have in every case, but they never do. Were here kind of in a full Employment Situation now. Id say its pretty good. Id say the political environment is very bad. And when youre dealing with the economy, its not its not just science, youre dealing also with sentiment so of course theres an interaction between the politics and the economy because at the end of the day economy requires confidence. And so it could be better. Theres some frustration about the fact that it could be better, but really, joe, financial conditions and Economic Conditions are really not as bad as the politics would suggest. Mike barnicle. Mr. Mayor, you just heard what lloyd said. The dow yesterday rockets through 22,000. Everybody, front page stories about the dow jones and the stock market is great. Why do you think there is or do you think there is such a lack of faith among middle income americans in the Economy Today. Their immediate future is paycheck to paycheck, month to month, why that lack of faith given all those numbers that lloyd just accurately pointed out . Well, change is always difficult to deal with because it takes you into the unknown and its much more comfortable to continue to do what youre doing. Unfortunately, the world doesnt let you do that, you have to change. And i think whats happening is some industries are going away, some industries are coming back. What we need to do is to have more global trade because that creates jobs in america. Unfortunately, some of the politicians try to convince the public the reverse, but its just not true. We need to be able to export our products around the world. We need to be able to buy raw material its around the world, to build our products and retrain our people and start new businesses. So we need immigrants here to start new businesses, we need immigrants here to do some of the jobs that americans dont want to do and americans want jobs that pay more and require more training and thats great. But somebody has to fill in behind them. And so as lloyd said, the stock market says that the economy is reasonably good. There are some industries that are suffering. If you take a look at retail, because of the shared economy, because of electronic sales like amazon, companies that let you not have to go to the local store, we have to realize that different jobs are going to be the Jobs Available and we cant just sit there and bemoan or try to stop the ocean, the tides from coming in. An i think its too early to tell with this administration. They have only been in office for six months so lets see what happens down the road. But at the moment lloyd is right, the economy is not terrible, it could always be better. Some people are suffering but a lot of people are benefitting. Those in the middle of the country where a lot of the jobs are going away have to be given opportunities and thats what we should focus on, bringing new kinds of businesses there instead of trying to stop old businesses from declining because nobody will be able to do that. Some of the stress the economy a good economy does two things, it generates well and it distributes it. Some might say theres more stress right now over the distribution than there is over the ability to generate, but i have to say at the end of the day, we want to make sure that whatever we do doesnt hurt the countrys ability to generate well, even as the political sector debates how the wealth thats generated gets distributed. Mika, if you look at the Economy Today compared to eight years ago, nine years ago, after 2008 right. It is incredible, doubledigit inflation down into the 4s at the end of 2016. Its been a pretty good turnaround. So, jasmine, i want to hear what your goals are. Where do you want to be a year from now in terms of your business . And also, can i be a member of your nail boutique . Because i go to baltimore like three times a year. Of course. So at my nail salon we have a membership program. Our members pay a monthly fee and get unlimited manicure services. You get a chip, you come in and well see you. A year from now we plan to have ten locations around Baltimore City. Were expanding to have express versions of our fullservice nail salon so our members can go anywhere in the city and redeem their benefits where its most convenient for them. So we can be the gym of nail salons. How many people work for you, jasmine . Four. And how many will you have a year from now . Oh, probably about at least 30. Im liking it. That is fantastic. Thats pretty good. Thats great. Jasmine sims, congratulations graduating this program. My next trip to baltimore im coming with my daughter to get my nails done. Well be waiting. Ill be looking for you. Lloyd, willie and i being men of our time, we are populists, but we still are waiting for the offer to work at Goldman Sachs. Were not good with numbers, but, you know, well you know, well hes used to making Good Business decisions, joe. Lloyd blankfein, Michael Bloomberg, thank you very much. Joe, you have too much hair to work at Goldman Sachs. Okay, well, there you go. Once again discriminated against. Exactly, poor guy. All right, thank you, everybody. Still ahead this morning, senator Claire Mccaskill, senator Chris Van Hollen, senator rob portman all join the conversation. Morning joe back in a moment. Nothin gs 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 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. flourish spray noise flourish spray noise flourish spray noise flourish spray noise the joy of real cream in 15 calories per serving. Enough said. Reddiwip. flourish spray noise share the joy. If the president was directly involved in creating that statement, its not illegal to lie to the press, does it bother you . Yeah, it bothers me a lot because, one, he put his son in jeopardy. Now we have to wonder about what don juniors team will tell you about what he actually did. If he didnt know about the email, the statement may have fooled you. If you know about the email with don junior, then its a misleading statement. So the president said he wasnt involved in drafting a letter defending his son. That is not true. Also known as, thats a lie. They lied. The president said he got a con congratulate lower call from the boy scouts. That isnt true either. The kids at home, you know im connected with the kids on the street, they say, hey, thats a lie. New lingo. The president told the wall street journal nobody on the campaign saw anybody from russia. That is not true. Again, willie, the kids call that that would be a lie. And the lawsuit says the white house worked with fox news to concoct a damaging story about democrats. The white house denies involvement, but sean spicer admits that he personally met with the people at the center of the suit. Good morning, its wednesday, august the 2nd. I dont im not comfortable with everything the kids say, willie. Its terrible. No, theyre all terrible. You dont understand. Its terrible. Theyre all terrible. What would we say to our children about this . I would say im going to send you to your room and im going to spank you. Well, if youre some parents dont believe in spanking. Yeah, i know. Like my dad didnt believe in spanking. If i talked back to him, pow. But it didnt affect me, mike, right . And sometimes its against the law, depending on who you lie to. So heres the problem. Youve got general kelly, a great american. An american hero. Hes given his all for this country. He has given his all for this country. Mike has a great piece on him in the daily beast. He gave his all for this country. He gave his son for this country. Now hes going in for this country and trying to bring order to the chaos. He cant do that if they keep lying. There is a culture in that white house where they all lie. Not all, they dont all lie, let me correct myself. Just the people that are the spokespeople to the press lie. And the president. And it all starts at the top. The fish rots, you know, from the head down. And its his culture of lying going back 30, 40 years where he would call the press up and lie and say that he was a pr guy to talk about how great he was with women. In small things and large things, he lied all the time. This is the United States of america and this is not right. And so general kelly cant do anything. You could bring back james baker, couldnt do anything, if theyre just going to keep lying every single day. With us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor, Mike Barnicle, cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei. Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Barnicle is here i dont think its sticking, joe. Its going to stick. Associate editor for commentary magazine, noah rothman and Washington Bureau chief for the associated press, julie pace, is with us. She has a scorecard, lies and not lies. Were not supposed to be Debbie Downer, but it is quite sad. Its like nothing ive ever seen before. Its more than sad. There could be legal consequences attached to many of these lies. The white house has confirmed something that the president s team had repeatedly denied. That donald trump, the president , helped draft the initial and misleading response to the revelations of a meeting between a russian attorney and his top Campaign Aides in trump tower. So he lied about the fact that he drafted it and also the actual thing that he drafted was not true. It was a lie. He said they were talking about, i dont know, like divorces or avocado farms or something just completely irrelevant to what they were actually talking about. The president. Which is we have dirt on Hillary Clinton. The response attributed to donald trump jr. Claimed the june 2016 meeting was about adoption policy and made no mention of the Broader Campaign being discussed. Of course emails later revealed trump junior was explicitly and exclusively offered official documents and information to incriminate Hillary Clinton as part of support from russia and its government. In the days after the New York Times reported the meeting first came out, trumps attorney, jay sekulow, went on numerous shows saying repeatedly that the president was not involved in the drafting of the initial statement. Ive known jay for a long time and have liked him. Thats a lie. He did not tell the truth. He just lied. He lied. Or else the president lied to him. And then had jay go out and lie to the american people. This is not normal. And on monday night by the way, you dont have to say that again. We all know this is not normal. Yeah. But you can say it again if you want to. Its just chilling, actually. The president s legal team dismissed the New Washington post report that he personally dictated the response as fake news and of no consequence. That was a lie. But then yesterday the white house acknowledged the president did take part, claiming that his knowledge of the full story was, quote, limited. Look, the statement that don junior issued is true. Theres no inaccuracy in the statement. The president weighed in as any father would based on the limited information that he had. This is all discussion, frankly, of no consequence. There was no followup, it was disclosed to the proper parties, which is how the New York Times found out about it to begin with. Can you clarify the degree to which the president weighed in . He certainly didnt dictate, but he like i said, he weighed in, offered suggestion like any father would do. First of all, if you believe the reporting, that could be proven to be a lie in the next couple of days because, willie, the Washington Post, the New York Times, everybody has multiple sources that in fact it was the president who dictated it to hope hicks, who was telling him to be more transparent, and was going back and forth with don junior. Again, this is an incredible thing we found out during mikas unfortunate episode. The tweeting back and forth. He would tweet things that you could prove hes lying. Mika is bleeding all over her face. Heres a picture, oh, shes looking lovely. On the national enquirer, Joe Scarborough told me to try to kill the story. Im sitting there reading it and its all of these lies. Wait, why would you lie about something that was so easily disproven. Show me the white house records, i never called, it never happened. Were going to get to the boy scouts. Thats another thing. Boy scouts said it was the bettysbubett gettysburg address. No, youre lying. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says nobody just walks into the white house, the oval office. Yeah, they do. Glen thrush, says i dont think, sarah that was a very bad imitation of sarah. No, i was imitating glen thrush. Dont play victim. People are just wandering in. They lie about things that can be disproven. Its like jack having a cookie in his hand and crumbs all over his face. Jack, you shouldnt have had a cookie before dinner. Chocolate chips flying all over the place. Jack would never do that, by the way. Thats the level of these lies. And they do them on levels high and low, issues big and small. Big, the russia investigation. Right now you had Sarah Sanders in that sound bite acknowledging, he did what any father would do. He did in fact help create the memo and thats the defense. So it proves the lawyers are lying. It proves jay sekulow and other people that went on tv. Issues smaller, the boy scouts. To what end . Why lie about that . What do you get out of that other than the fact that someone challenged whether or not you were well received, whether you were showered with praise. When the answer was, no, it wasnt uniform praise, he had to lie about it. Donald trump freaked out because a reporter from the wall street journal said it was mixed. And he said it wasnt mixed. I know mixed, that wasnt mixed. But theyre getting caught up with Donald Trumps web. Go ahead. And thats a small thing but it makes a larger point. Theres no issue too small that they wont fabricate a story to cover Something Else. The russia story obviously is much bigger and more complicated and begs the question why would he lie about that. Why would the white house lie about that . And why would they even implicate the president in the first place and allow him anywhere near drafting that memo. And by the way, leads to the bigger question, why would they lie about russia from day one . Hey, nobody met with russians. We were running a campaign. We only talked to americans. Because they said that. They said we only talked to americans. We want americans to vote for us, we never talked to ruskies. What did they do . We find out time and time and time and time again, theyre talking to russians, and they keep lying about talking to russians. I think what trouble you talk to anybody in the white house, i dont know why they lie. We dont know. Are they trying to cover something up or is it just part of the fabric of this white house. But the thing that scares the hell out of almost everybody around donald trump and it was in that Washington Post piece buried down lie is they think its the lies that are going to get them. Theres been such a pattern of them built around the russia story, whether its about his insecurity about not winning the popular vote, whatever the motivation of it is, its illegal. It looks like a coverup, like youre routinely trying to cover up facts. And its not just the president. Jared kushner gets off easy. How do you keep forgetting all of these meetings and then suddenly recalling them . You go back to that theyre sitting on the airplane, theyre drafting that note. That meeting was unforgettable. Right. Four people out of central casting sitting in there after giving you an email saying i have the goods to sink your political opponent. Its inconceivable. Its inconceivable you would forget that and that that did not come up when theyre thinking about how should we draft this. And the son at the fathers urging, oh, it was about adoption. Can i stop you for one second. Anybody with any character that knew what happened, because there are people out there trying to cover their ass saying, well, we were trying to no. Listen, i know. If my career is on the line, my reputation is on the line and the president of the United States puts out something knowingly false, this was about adoption, when i knew he was lying, i think every one of us at this table, if youre smart, you immediately say, hey, if you put that out tomorrow, if that runs in the New York Times tomorrow and you lie and im here knowing youre going to lie, ive got to go to the New York Times. Ive got to resign. Ive got to go to the New York Times and ive got to tell everybody that youre lying. Still ahead on morning joe three leading voices from the u. S. Senate, democrats Claire Mccaskill and Chris Van Hollen join us and republican senator rob portman. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Mike and i are both veterans, both served in the navy. I do outrank my husband, not just being in the military, but at home. She thinks shes the boss. She only had me by one grade. We bought our first home together in 2010. 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Keeping the world of business connected and protected. Thats the power of and. 17 past the hour. Joining us now from capitol hill, democratic senator Claire Mccaskill of missouri and republican senator rob portman of ohio. They are part of a Bipartisan Group of 20 senators supporting new legislation that would hold websites liable for facilitating and growing online sex trafficking, the market. Well get to that in just a moment. Good to have you both on. Its always great to have you guys on. Hey, joe. Lets start, senator portman, with you. A lot of talk from the administration and the president himself that theyre going to defund the Affordable Care act, that theyre going to do whatever they can at health and Human Services to make sure that the aha basically dies on the vine. What are republicans specifically going to do . Are they going to work with the president to kill the Affordable Care act before theres a replacement or are you all going to make sure that Peoples Health care gets funded . Weve got to be sure people are taken care of, joe. I think the Affordable Care act is kind of dying on its own. In my own state of ohio weve got huge increases in deductibles and copays. We had 19 counties with no insurer a couple of days ago. 27 counties with only one insurer. I think we have about 45 now in that category. So, look, its not a good thing for us to pull the rug out from under those people who are depending on those plans. On the other hand, weve got to do some real reforms here and thats why i did support the effort to replace, not just repeal, but to replace the Affordable Care act with something better. Youre going to talk to the president at 2 00 today. Are you going to discuss this with him . You know, well see. Im looking forward to talking about the legislation claire and i are talking to you about today, which is combatting sex trafficking. We know where its happening, its happening online. We have a solution that 47 attorneys general have asked us to do, all the trafficking groups have asked us to do. Its really going to make a difference. Im looking forward to talking about tax reform. I think thats an opportunity to give the economy a real shot in the arm. Well see what comes up. No, i dont think we ought to be pulling the rug out from under people who need this coverage. Claire, were going to get to your Bipartisan Senate bill, but i want to ask you one question about the Affordable Care act because and health care in general because so Many Americans are dependent on it right now, including some members of my family. So my question to you is, will you work with republicans to move beyond the Affordable Care act and come up actually with a bipartisan bill that maybe both republicans and democrats in missouri can look at a year from now and say dont love everything about this, but it is a good compromise for, you know, people that represent swing voters in states like missouri . Yeah, the most important thing we can do is to do something in a bipartisan way. What weve learned is when you do it with just one party, it becomes political. It becomes a gotcha exercise. Thats what happened with the Affordable Care act. Thats what happened when the republicans tried to do it just with republican votes. So what weve got to do is come together and meet in the middle. There are things we can do to make health care better. We all theres lots of problems with obamacare. But theyre fixable, they really are fixable. Some of it means maybe we go and acknowledge that some of the things we did were not the right way to look at this. Im there. In fact just last night and last week im involved in a lot of bipartisan meetings to try to get that done. But in the meantime, joe, it would be the height of irresponsibility for this president to continue to threaten millions of americans that hes going to take their Health Care Away because hes upset that this bill that the republicans tried to pass didnt succeed. Lets talk about your bill. Youre going after websites as it pertains to sex trafficking. Claire, can you explain what it is youre hoping to accomplish here . Well, this is a very narrow piece of legislation that will remove a protection that sex traffickers have right now. They can hide behind a law that was written 20 years ago and say we dont have to give you any information about what were doing because we have no responsibility as to whats on our sites. We did a very long investigation, went all the way to the Supreme Court over years and forced back page to give us the documents that proved that they were in fact hiding behind this statute, that they were engaged and involved in placing ads to traffic children for sex. So what were trying to do is give other people the same tools we had with the subpoenas that were available to us in the senate. Senator portman, how is it that weve arrived at a point where these billion dollar Insurance Companies have such a thumbs up thumbs down control in a sense of so much of the Health Care Legislation . How did we get to this point . Well, id love to talk about our sex trafficking bill too, but look, the Insurance Companies play a role here because theyre providing the coverage. As senator mccaskill said, weve got to be sure people have access to that coverage of the one of the reasons that the replacement was important, i think, is that it would have provided for affordable coverage in the private sector for a lot of people through a tax credit, which gives them the opportunity, whether they have taxable income or not because its refundable to be able to buy their own health care. It would be advanceable, meaning people could get it in advance of having to pay these higher premiums. So youve got to have a system where youre working with people to come up with lower premiums and lower deductibles and lower copays, thats what the intent ought to be. I agree with Claire Mccaskill, weve got to Work Together on it. I have a meeting this evening to talk about that. Senator alexander has announced that his committee is going to hold bipartisan hearings. The finance committee should do the same thing with both of us serve on that committee. Weve got to fix this thing because its not working. The status quo is failing the people i represent in ohio and it deserves to be fixed. We can continue to work on this even while were doing other things. We can chew gum and work at the same time. Jim vandehei. Senator portman, ill take you up on your offer to talk about the bill you want to talk about. My wife has worked on sex trafficking for a long time. Tell us why the facebooks and googles of the world dont like your legislation and thats one of the reasons its complicated efforts to do what a lot of people think should be done quite easily. First of all, jim, your wife has a champion and she produced this film i am jane doe. Its on netflix. It talks about our investigation and talks about exactly what Claire Mccaskill just said which is that these websites like backpage, which is considered to be the walmart of sex trafficking, meaning that they are probably 80 of the commercial sex traffic is on one sight, about threequarters of the complaints that come in to the National Center for missing and exploited children come in through backpage, so this is the site that does most of this. The problem is they have hidden behind a piece of legislation that is sort of preactive internet back 21 years ago that gives them what courts have said is immunity. But the courts have asked congress to step in here. In terms of the Tech Companies, i think most Tech Companies will support this but some have concerns that they think this could lead to lawsuits against them. Thats why we wrote it so narrowly. Theres a house bill thats much broader but our bill is much narrower. You have to knowingly be engaged in supporting sex trafficking. I dont believe google does that so i dont think they have a concern here. Its not about them, it is about websites that are exploiting women and children right now as we talk. We believe that this legislation is critical, as frankly does everybody in the community thats been working on this. The lawyers. The courts have asked us to step in on this one to stop this horrendous practice. Senator Claire Mccaskill and senator rob portman, thank you both very much. You bet. Up next, inside the lawsuit that accuses the white house of trying to drive coverage of the death of a slain dnc staffer. Ari melber interviewed the man who brought the lawsuit. Ari joins us for that, next. 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 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. 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 a lawsuit filed in federal court claims a fox news report about slain dnc staffer seth rich was reviewed prior to publication by President Trump and was altered at the white houses request. The lawsuit filed by a private investigator, rod wheeler, who was initially hired on behalf of the rich family says his quotes in a may 16th foxnews. Com story were fabricated by fox News Reporter malia zimmerman. The story was retracted by fox a week after it was published for not meeting its standards. The quotes in question implied that rich was killed for leaking internal dnc emails to wikileaks. Wheeler claims he complained to ed butowsky, a trump supporter, who hired him to probe richs death. Wheeler said he was told, quote, that is the way the president wanted the article. The suit also alleges the rich article was an attempt to divert attention away from the ongoing russian investigation. According to the suit, zimmerman, butowsky and fox had created fake news to advance President Trumps agenda. Butowsky did not respond. Fox news said the accusation that foxnews. Com publisheded malia zimmermans story to help detract from the coverage of the russia collusion issue is completely erroneous. The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally, and we have no evidence that rod wheeler was misquoted by zimmerman. Wheeler also claims in the suit he and butowsky met with then white house Spokesman Sean Spicer in april and provided him with a copy of his investigative notes. He alleges spicer asked for regular updates on the story, something wheeler believes butowsky did. Back in may, spicer denied knowledge of the story. I dont im not aware of i generally, i dont get updates on dnc former dnc staffers. Im not aware of that. Now spicer has confirmed to nbc news that the meeting actually did take place and that the pair, quote, came in and told me about the story they were working on for fox. The white house insisted yesterday they had no involvement in the story, but in the lawsuit, wheeler cites both a text message and voice mail from butowsky in which he allegedly said not to add any more pressure, but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately. Its now up to all of you, but dont feel the pressure. Joining us now, msnbc chief Legal Correspondent and host of the beat on msnbc, ari melber, who interviewed wheeler on his show last night. You know, ari, a lot of its a lawsuit. We dont know we cant verify everything yet. That said, the white house has already been caught lying about this story. And working with fox news in some way. And working with fox news on this story. What can you tell us . A complaint is always one side of the story. There are two sides to the story. But no matter how bad the white house may or may not look when the evidence comes out, the evidence against fox here is pretty overwhelming. Like what . Well, they retracted the story, which means they went to air with something they later determined was false about this murdered staffer. Number two, they relied on this individual who is the core of their reporting who now says that the quotes were fabricated. Fox isnt really disputing that aspect of it. Which means somewhere along the line they, as a news organization, ended up running with these quotes to basically imply that this murdered individual single handedly masterminded the hacking instead of the russians. As for sean spicer, i asked mr. Wheeler about that. Can i ask you more about fox. I saw an article yesterday that alleged to have emails between butowsky and anchors at fox news telling them specifically what they should say. Have you seen those emails . Ive seen quotes from them. The complaint includes those emails from butowsky, whos this individual involved in the story, to the anchors. In fairness to the anchors, people get a lot of emails, so we cant say that that except for the fact let me break it down. Do you have the emails . The suit claims that on may 15th, the night before the story aired on fox, trump supporter ed butowsky emailed various fox news producers and onair talent, including those at fox friends telling them how to frame the story. He allegedly wrote im actually the one whos been putting this together, but as you know i keep my name out of things because i have no credibility. One of the big conclusions we need to draw from this is that the russians did not hack our Computer Systems and steal emails and there was no collusion like trump with the russians. According to the lawsuit, butowsky also texted wheeler that same night as well writing in part, the narrative in the interviews you might use is that you and fox News Reporter malia zimmermans work prove that the russians didnt hack into the dnc and steal the emails and impact our election. If you can, try to highlight this puts the russian hacking story to rest. Try and highlight that it ends it. So here now is fox friends how they reported on the story the next morning. For a long time on the internet and elsewhere, he has been rumored to have been the one who gave wikileaks the dnc emails. So if that is true, and we dont know yet, it looks like russia didnt give it to wikileaks. Right. Seth rich perhaps. I think you report that out perfectly because the key here, as i was going to say in fairness to them, we dont know whether they read the emails or not and the case will proceed. What we do know, joe and mika, is what you just showed which is how they did cover it on air which they have now retracted. Well, they covered it the same way that he told them to cover it in the email the night before. Yep. The president seems to be implicated in this a little bit. How likely is that, that thats inserted just to generate some traction here . Was he completely uninsulated from this . Is that likely . This is a bombshell that goes beyond the case. I asked mr. Wheeler about that. I said you have this allegation in there, do you believe it . He said i dont know because he doesnt personally know whether the president reviewed it. He just knows he was told that and fox news was proceeding with the case. The spicer meeting did take place. Whats in the voice mail . The voice mail says basically weve heard directly from the white house, claims from this individual who worked for fox news, that the president has reviewed the article in advance and wants to go forward. So two obvious takeaways. Number one, what would the president of the United States be doing reviewing journalism in advance, in this case discredited journalism, and number two, was that then part of fox news motivation, this is a question raised by the suit, to provide a false, or to use the term of our fake news cover story regarding russia. Wow. As we said earlier, the level of malice has exceeded only by the level of personal cruelty in this story. You said earlier there are two sides to every story. In this case theres three sides to the story. Theres the Police Report and the police investigation, which indicates that this was a random robbery, street robbery, and this poor young man gets killed. Theres also his parents who have literally begged fox news and others to just stop this. Its just awful. Exactly. This is a problem no matter what, but the fact that it is a problem built on a young mans murder, an unsolved murder, by the way, is heinous. I did ask mr. Wheeler about that because he does not have completely clean hands. He started out going on fox news playing along is what it looked like and he said he publicly appa apaul jazzes to the rich family that any of this got this far. Senator Chris Van Hollen joins us live 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. 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. 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. Lets bring into the conversation, democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of maryland. Senator, so great to see you. I want to start by showing you a campaign ad from amy mcgrath whos running for congress, democrat in kentucky. Take a look. When i was 12 years old, i knew exactly what i wanted to do when i grew up. I wanted to fly fighter jets and land on aircraft carriers, because thats the toughest thing that you can do. When i was 13, my congressman told me i couldnt fly in combat. He said congress thought women ought to be protected and not allowed to serve in combat. I never got a letter back from my senator, Mitch Mcconnell. I then wrote every member of the house and Senate Armed Services committees asking them to change the law. I said they hadnt met me yet and i knew i could do it, but most of them told me that i couldnt. Then i got into the naval academy, and wouldnt you know, thats when they changed the law. Im amy mcgrath and i love my country. I flew 89 combat missions calming al qaeda and the taliban. I was the first woman marine to fly in an f18 in combat and i got to land on aircraft carriers. Now im running for congress against andy barr in kentucky. Hes Mitch Mcconnells hand picked congressman who said he would vote enthusiastically to take Health Care Away from kentuckians. My mom is a polio survivor who became one of the first women to graduate from uk medical school. A lot of people told hershey couldnt pursue her dreams either but she persevered and ended up treating the same kind of people whose health care you would take away. This is my mission, to take on a congress of career politicians who treat the people like kentucky like they are disposable. Some are telling me a democrat can win that battle in kentucky. That we cant take back our country for my kids and yours. Well see about that. So, senator, that ad out has caught fire. John podhoretz said it was an incredible ad. Isnt this the sort of candidate, obviously a dream candidate for either party, but for democrats that need to reconnect culturally in regions where they have been shut out for some time. Isnt this the type of candidate democrats need to look for . Yes, absolutely. Thats a very powerful ad, as you said. I think it connects directly with voters. You know, the house is busy recruiting a lot of those candidates. In the senate, were also recruiting a lot of good candidates, although as you know, joe, on the democratic side, were primarily defending a lot of seats where we already have senators who have stuck up for their constituents in their states. You were just talking to senator Claire Mccaskill. Shes up for election. Senator heidi heidcamp. These are senators who are already very connected to their states. Theyre all about helping the people in their states regardless of the politics. Noah. Senator, noah rothman with commentary magazine. That was a culturally conservative candidate for the house. Recently, i think, it was the dccca said they would be interested in funding the campaigns of prolife democrats to the chagrin of organizations like nral and howard dean said he would probably have to withhold his support in the dccc in the event they went forward with that. Can the Democratic Party be a Prolife Party or are they two organizations . I think candidates in my experience are chosen by their constituents. They come out of local organizations, they come out of their local work experience, so you dont have the dsec choosing the candidates, you have the democratic primary voters in these primaries making those decisions. I think its important that those decisions be made at the local level. What i do know is that this health care fight that weve had generated all sorts of enthusiasm in support of our candidates across the country. Jim vandehei. Not just on abortion and over issues, theres a lot of pressure on democrats to take a very rigid view against donald trump. Where can you work with him . Are there any components of tax reform hes talking about that democrats would actually vote for, knowing no matter what youre going to say about that theres going to be so much pressure on all of you guys to never give him a win . No, jim, we just actually sent a letter to Mitch Mcconnell, we meaning the democrats in the senate, saying we were happy to work with him on genuine tax reform. Were not interested in providing another round of windfall tax breaks to very, very wealthy people. We dont think thats the priority in the country. But woe asked them to follow senator mccains advice. Lets work through the regular order, have hearings when it comes to tax reform, and we also are very concerned that theyre going to blow a hole in the deficit and debt by providing big tax breaks. What we saw in the early 2000s was that trickledown didnt work. We had the bush tax cuts. They spiked the deficit way up. They didnt do anything for regular working people. So there are things we can do to simplify our tax code. I mean theres a lot of junk in there that was put in there by people who were able to hire powerful special interest lobbyists. We need to cloneean a lot of th stuff out. But were not interested in a exercise thats just a back door effort to provide tax breaks to very wealthy people. Kind of like the health care bill, which cut Health Care Benefits to tens of millions of americans in order to provide big tax breaks to very wealthy folks. Senator Chris Van Hollen, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. Good to be here, thanks. Frustrated over chinas reluctant to rein in north korea, the Trump Administration is reportedly planning to take action against beijing over trade. That story is ahead on morning joe. A Millie Dresselhaus doll happy birthday, sweetie oh, millies. Trick or treat were so glad to have you here. What if we treated great female scientists like they were stars . Yasss queen what if Millie Dresselhaus, the first woman to win the National Medal of science in engineering, were as famous as any celebrity . [Millie Dresselhaus was seen having lunch today. ] [. 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Tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. And before starting xarelto®about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. Its important to learn all you can. To help protect yourself from a stroke. Talk to your doctor about xarelto®. Theres more to know™. Amid the escalating tensions with north korea, President Trump over the weekend placed the blame on china. On saturday he fired off a tweet that read in part i am very disappointed in china. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do nothing for us with north korea, just talk. Lets go to Cnbcs Sara Eisen live from the new york stock exchange. Sara, there are reports this morning that President Trump is looking at steps to crack down on china over trade. Yes, this could mark an escalation in the tensions with china over trade. So according to reports, the u. S. Is looking to open a broad investigation into chinas trade practices focusing specifically, mika, on intellectual property. Allegations from u. S. Companies which weve heard over the years about doing business in china, having to open joint ventures, sharing technology and research in exchange for market access. It does mark an escalation because investigations can always lead to sanctions or even tariffs. So well be watching this one closely. Theres a lot at stake for both countries and economies. The big worry is if the u. S. Does impose sanctions, china could hit back. Its an important market for u. S. Companies, including Consumer Companies like apple, nike, general motors. Were talking about 600 billion in twoway trade. Theyre our largest trade partner. And, yes, the u. S. Does buy a lot more from china than we sell to china. Its still the third biggest export market for the United States, and many say helps to keep prices, Consumer Prices lower here in this country and supports millions of jobs. Having said all that, the market doesnt appear to be worried about it, set for a new record high after the 31st, 31 record closes for the dow of 2017. Apple earnings are giving extra fuel this morning. Back to you guys. Sara eisen, thank you. Noah, its stunning that we are moving towards a crisis with north korea. Theres really only one country positioned to partner with, to deescalate that situation, and donald trump is going to start a trade war with them today . Well, i suppose tomorrow . Its better than steel tariffs. This is what the Business Community wants. The question is whether or not theyre going to move forward through 1970s laws or the wto and really describe that the agenda of steel tariffs and Industrial Production and ignoring these global institutions is completely defunct and were moving forward with something standard and boilerplate. But technically, mike, again rattling that sabre as we are woe weeks, months away from a meltdown on the Korean Peninsula joe, youve got north korea with missile capable submarines out there right now and were provoking china on a daily basis. We do not have a secretary of state any secretary of state to be effective, the foreign leader has to assume that hes speaking for the president of the United States. We have a secretary of state who speaks apparently for no one and to no one with regard to china. So it is American Dream week at the white house. And yesterday the president hosted more than 100 Small Business owners calling them the engine of the American Dream. Were going to take another look now at a program that is focusing on empowering Small Businesses and really trying to get to that American Dream, which in turn hire more people and continue the cycle. Its Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. And we should again note that Goldman Sachs is a partial sponsor of our show this morning. They wouldnt give willie or me a job earlier. No, no. They discriminated against you. The program has its baltimore graduation today and joining us now, the mayor of baltimore, katherine pew, along with two Business Owners graduating today, president and ceo of mahogany incorporated, Jeff Hargrave and crystal boykins, Company Owner of cuties on duty. This is a program weve been following for years. Tell us some of the challenges in baltimore. Ive spent a lot of time there specifically in the city to try and help businesses get a start. Well, first let me just say while we have our challenges, we have a great opportunity here. We have currently 12,000 Small Businesses in baltimore, but this kind of investment between bloomberg philanthropies and Goldman Sachs means a great deal for baltimore. Youre talking about almost 60 individuals who will graduate from a program that is encouraging Small Business to continue to grow in our cities so were very excited. Youll meet the two entrepreneurs and talk to them, but i can tell you this is like fuel in the city of baltimore, to continue to expand and grow Small Business. Im just totally excited because this means a great deal to baltimore because what we do know is Small Business is the engine that drives the economy of any city. And so this is really exciting for baltimore and i look forward to more people in our city taking advantage of this opportunity and im really grateful weve got some exciting people coming to our city today. You know mr. Bloomberg is here, mr. Blankfein is here, Warren Buffett is here saying they believe in baltimore. We believe in baltimore and certainly we believe in the opportunities that businesses will provide for our city empowering our people in our cities. All right. You also have these Business Owners. Lets go to crystal. Cuties on duty. Hello. What were you able to accomplish through the program . But more importantly id like to hear your goals for a year from now. Well, what i got from the program is how to structure my business. Weve been in business for about five years but we started off going door to door selling our products to nail and beauty salons. We actually gave the term to rolling until the wheels fell off. Our suitcases were worn on the same street that we are located in, which is inside of the avenue market. Cuties on duty is all about building confidence, being unique, tenacious and empowered. Although were a Small Business, were making a big impact in our community. When i think about community, i think about unity, coming together, and just being able to aspire and also hire. Five years from now i see us going globally, so more so growing from just being locally to a global company. Amazing. And we specialize in customized accessories, body butters and body oils. So were ready to take this journey and thankful for this program. It really has gave us structure and it really has caused us to grow. Okay. So let me move to jeff as we close this out here because i want to hear what your goals are for the company and what the program itself has done to make those goals possible. Im looking at employee growth. Are you looking at expanding your company . Yes, good morning, everyone. Jeff hargrave, president of mahogany incorporated. Were a general contracting firm. Yes, we intend to grow. Our grow plan is to grow nationally up and down the east coast. We currently employ 55 people here in Baltimore City and with our Goldman Sachs training, were hoping to expand nationally eventually. I mean the goals are endless. Needless to say it taught me to think big, dream bigger. I always had big dreams but now after the Goldman Sachs program, the goal, the sky is the limit and were really trying to do some big things not only in baltimore but across the u. S. All right. Jeff hargrave, crystal boykins, congratulations on todays graduation, by the way, mayor cath lynnkatherine pugh, as well. Jim havandehei, final though. Its awesome to see these young entrepreneurs. I tell any College Student i talk to theres nothing more exciting, more fun, more thrilling than starting a company and doing it from the ground up like these folks are doing. Whats your takeaway. Small business, Growth Engine of america. Away from Small Business, what are your takeaways . We are just testing apparently Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in the pacific, which is a delivery vehicle. So the north korea issue is going to be on the front youre such a downer. Sorry, guys. Forewarning. At the same time, the fact that thats happening and donald trump is provoking china at this time is pretty stunning. I am sure i would guess that general mattis and just about everybody else that may have to send americans into war would probably prefer that he didnt provoke the chinese at this stage. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Thanks so much, mika. Thanks, joe. Good morning, im Stephanie Ruhle with so much to handle. How about this one, like any dad would do. The white house confirms, thats right, confirms now tha