Secretly recorded by fired white house staffer Omarosa Manigault newman. The first capturing the moment chief of staff john kelly let her go inside the situation room. Can i ask you a couple of questions. Is the president aware lets not go down the road. This is a nonnegotiable discussion. This is my departure. I would like to have an opportunity to understand and this morning she released another. Again recorded in secret. This one of the president reacting to her firing. Before you hear it, youll note that nbc news has not heard the full recording, so we cannot account for what came before or after this. Omarosa, whats going on . I just saw on the news that you are thinking about leaving. What happened . General kelly came to me and said that you guys wanted me to leave. No, nobody even told me about it. Nobody you know, they run a big operation, but i didnt know it. I didnt know that. Yeah. Damn it. I dont love you leaving at all. According to omarosa, she has more. Do you have more recordings . Oh, absolutely. Are you planning on releasing them . I dont know. I am going to watch to see. They have been threatening legal action. They are trying to figure out how to stop me. They are trying to penalize me because i would not accept a 15,000 a month deal that they offered for a fake job on the Trump Campaign. So im expecting they are going to retaliate. So im just going to stand back and wait. We are again talking about secret tapes and threats of more to come. If you are asking yourself, havent we been here before . Yes. Yes, we have. When will you tell us about the a fairly short period of time. Are there tapes, sir . You are going to be disappointed when you hear the answer. I spoke to alan about it. When it comes time for the financing what financing . We will have to pay someone. No, no, no, no. I got this. That does not include the other problematic recordings that may or may not exist. The alleged tape from the set of the apprentice or the mysterious dossier tape. It also doesnt include the recordings we do know exist like the access Hollywood Tape. Of course, hot mics are different from secret recordings, but still. Our big question this hour, why do people find it necessary to secretly tape donald trump . Joining me now White House Reporter geoff bennett, ashley parker, Washington PostWhite House Reporter, and msnbc political analyst, ken vogel, New York Times political reporter, and msnbc contributor chris winnable, author of the gatekeepers, how the white house chiefs of staff define ever presidency. Jeff, what is the latest reaction from the white house, and what do they think of this idea that omarosa still has more tapes she may or may not release . We have seen the white house take steps over the past few days to discredit omarosa, to disavow her book. Just today the White House Press secretary suggests that omarosas apparent surreptitious recording of the chief of staff represented a serious ethical and security breach. While many people could have a hard time arguing with that, it really comes back to the question of the president s judgment. When omarosa joined the white house in january of 2017 she was a known quantity. Her apparent credibility issues were no secret yet she was giving a highprofile, highpaying job. Its also the president s hiring of mike flynn, of carter page, of Paul Manafort, of rick gates, george papadopoulos, the list goes on. The president said, why did i keep her on . Because at the time she had nis nice things to say about me. That runs parallel to what the president said about scott pruitt who stayed on the job for months after ethics scandals kept mounting. It was because President Trump liked him personally. There is a Common Thread here. If you flatter the president , you go far. Ken, your colleague maggie haber man wrote a story with katy rogers about how someone was secretly taping donald trump at the white house. She said it was not omarosa opening up to the possibility that others are still doing the same within the white house. What is the deal with people needing or feeling the need to record donald trump . Michael cohen recorded him. Omarosa recorded him. There could be somebody else in the white house recording him. I know there are folks out there who have reported on donald trump who have been worried in private conversations that he would take that conversation and twist it. Twist it because, to whatever purpose he wanted that conversation to suit him. You look at the conversation that your publisher had with him about the Fake News Media and enemy of the people. Donald trump went out and seemed to skew the content of that conversation, which was contrary to what suls berger was saying. Its quite telling that people who know donald trump best and spend the most time with donald trump are those who are most distrustful of him and distrustful that he will return the loyalty that he expects from people who work for him. And you see a real culture of that, where Michael Cohen is not just taping trump. He is taping reporters. He told me at one point he had been monitoring my communications with other people on the campaign, and that is a cultural issue. From trumps perspective, however, the reason this is inflaming him, this the omarosa story is inflaming him so much, it plays into two sensitivities. Number one, the idea that people should be loyal to him, particularly those who he made, like Michael Cohen, like omarosa in his mind he created them. Number two is he doesnt like anyone to sort of make money off of him, and thats what omarosa is doing with this book. Making money off her time in the white house. Thats why we see such an extreme pushback from trump on omarosa. Its not just these tapes that omarosa made or the tapes that Michael Cohen made. There are tapes of donald trump on a hot mic like the access Hollywood Tape that got him into trouble. There is stuttering john that could get the howard stern character, that could get through to donald trump while he was on air force one. There are reports, ashley, you have seen these, of donald trump using his unsecured phone despite being told not to. Still using that phone. There were russians in the oval office. There are Security Issues that seem to plague this white house, not to mention the staff secretary having allegations of abusing his wives and the white house ignoring those. Well, i think the key thing to keep in mind is that, like so much of what happens in this white house, this is a culture that starts at the top. President trump, before he was president , he always and its unclear exactly how much he did this or used it as a threat, but was known, true or untrue, taping conversations. The irony here is now you have all of these people in his orbit actually doing the thing that they believe their boss did, and now using it against him. And when you have a culture where you hire people who, as he tweeted today, maybe are not particularly well liked, are not particularly qualified but they have said nice things to him and you allow them to behave in an unprofessional way, whether thats leaving your shoes all over the west wing, wandering into meetings you are not invited to or bringing a recording device into the situation room, an atmosphere of nonprofessionalism p nonprofessional pervaids. Here is omarosa why she thinks the president also taped people. Do you think the president is taping people . Absolutely. The president talks often about how important it was to tape your enemies and to make sure that you have information on your enemies. So you think he is actually taping people inside the white house . He threatened comey. We have to take him at his own words. He said to comey, you better watch out because he insinuated there might be tapeings. The Security Issues here, chris, are pervasive. We had ned price, former National Security spokesperson for the Obama Administration, i have never heard of a more serious breach of protocol, not only is it not typical, Something Like this is unprecedented. John kelly fired omarosa in the situation room, an hr person seemed to be brought into the situation room. Omarosa could record in the situation room. It seems like whatever you have to whenever you think about omarosa, this is very telling about how this white house is run and how john kelly is running this white house. This is not a normal thing in any white house. Weve seep a lot of abnormal things in this white house. Its a security protocol problem, obviously, as ned price said earlier for john kelly. I guess the honor system in the Trump White House is, guess what . Not very effective when it comes to recording in the situation room. But having said that, you know, i have been very tough on john kelly. I dont think there is much substance to these tapes, quite frankly. I dont think kelly said anything that was terribly wrong. Is it a normal procedure to fire somebody in the situation room . No. I think he was probably looking for a private place to do it. He didnt realize he was being taped. So that blew up in his face. Having said that, i think the only thing kelly did wrong here was really not having fired omarosa back on day one. I think she probably should have been shown the exit with scaramucci during the first week. In the highest levels of the white house they were expecting she would flunk her fbi test. That didnt happen. But the real mystery is why john kelly didnt fire her a long time ago in a white house full of people who are unqualified. She was in her own league. She was nothing but trouble. Its kind of a surprise she lasted as long as she did. Jeff, any new protocols Going Forward at the white house . Are they going to start taking phones before people enter the oval office or enter the situation room . Well, we havent heard how they intend to respond any differently now that omarosa is making these allegations. Some weeks ago, maybe some months ago now, there was a plan in place where they were checking for people having phones in private white house meetings, and there were descriptions of secret service staffers Walking Around with devices that could detect phones where they shouldnt be. To answer the question, mr. Whipple asked rhetorically about why she stayed on so long, its worth pointing out that omarosa had a wellknown role to play in the white house, and it was that her role was to defend the sometimes indefensible. Whenever the president was pushed into a corner on issues of race, whether it be things that he said or things that he responded to, she was often alongside ben carson, the hud secretary, they were trotted out to the public to show, to give a public face that the president was on the right side with black folks, katy, to be completely honest. The same thing with Michael Cohen, who do you believe more or who do you trust more or who is more trustworthy than the other . You have donald trump, who has the Washington Post, as recorded, told 4,000 lies since he has taken the oval office. Then omarosa who contradicted herself about whats in the book on the first day she goes out promoting the book, saying she had only heard rumors of a tape where the president used the nword and then saying she, herself, had heard that tape. Who do you believe more in this situation . The answer is that no one is trustworthy. But thats more of a problem for this white house. And anyone who covered this white house knows that omarosa does not have a ton of credibility. You knew that from your reporting early on, and its lear clear in the way her book has been rolled out. That said, she does have these tapes, and the tapes back up some of the quotes in her book, and that cant be discounted. She sort of brought receipts. The problem with this white house is they have no they have a credibility problem. A lot of that is selfinflicted. And so they are in no position to push back credibly on anything regardless of how outlandish it is. Another issue is they are sort of trying to discredit her and saying how can you trust her. Some of that may be true, but this was the white house. Again, it was at the direction of the president. So you do have some staff having to go out and defend a decision they didnt like. A lot of the staff wanted her gone early on. But she was in the white house. She had a senior position. She was in a position to record the president and to record the chief of staff and to record other meetings. So they sort of empowered her to be an unreliable narrater, and now they have to deal with that. In a credibility contest with almost anyone walking the face of the earth, donald trump loses. In a credibility contest with omarosa, he may very well win. And every minute we spend devoting air time to the omarosa trump feud plays into the trump reelection handbook. You think so . He knows he can win that fight. Why . I am not saying its that well thought or that premeditated. But when you think about all the other issues and scandals of the trump presidency, this is a rabbit hole he would happily have us crawl down. He wants to paint himself as the victim shh. Absolutely. And there is another private conversation, a twohour conversation, for which there may or may not be an audiotape. That was the meeting between Vladimir Putin and donald trump in helsinki. I spoke to a former cia director who says if it had happened on his watch, he would have made damn sure, in his words, that he got an audio recording of that conversation. We still dont know what happened in that conversation and its way more important than anything he ever said to omarosa. 100 . I dont disagree with you at all. That is something that im sure we will talk about again. I do think whats important about the omarosa story is it shows how things are done at this white house. Its just another piece of evidence of how little credibility people have there and how cavalierly they treat security, National Security. How cavalierly aides can tape the president of the United States. And it also shows the way that donald trump hires. And that is important. Thats true. I think every minute we spend, the mainstream media, quote unquote, spends using omarosa as a club with which to beat donald trump, i think a lot of people, and into the just his base, look at us and say, well, there they go again. Anything they can . Anything they can use to beat on donald trump. When you say Sarah Huckabee sanders says no, or kellyanne conway, whoever it was, when someone says no one listens to omarosa in the white house, now she has written a book about the president , all of a sudden you want to hear from her . I am not saying dont not cover it, but have some perspective because we have already stopped talking about the really important things. I have no doubt we will Start Talking about them again very soon. Chris whipple, thank you for being our conscience and our perspective. We appreciate it. Ashley parker, ken vogel, and jen bennett, thank you very much as with. Red flags and loud gongs. My next guest says read between the lines of the manafort trial and there might be a whole lot more there. Or break a trip. And at expedia, we dont think you should be rushed into booking one. Thats why we created expedias addon advantage. Now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. Addon advantage. Discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. Only when you book with expedia. It was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. To do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. To fight cancer. And never lose sight of the patients were fighting for. Our Cancer Treatment specialists share the same vision. 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Last hour in virginia, prosecutors kicked off week three of Paul Manaforts trial on bank and tax fraud charges. The prosecution could rest its case as early as today. The former Trump Campaign chair faces 18 counts in all. In found guilty, manafort could be sent to prison for the rest of his life. This trial isnt necessarily about the overall russia probe, but its offering clues about the direction Robert Mueller and his team could be going. Red flags and loud gongs, as my next guest puts it. Lets welcome gene rossi, a former federal prosecutor. He has tried cases before judge t. S. Ellis. He monitor and ken dilanian National Security reporter outside the courthouse for us in virginia. Ken, first to you. Whats the latest . I just stepped out of the courtroom where testimony has been underway for about an hour. Extremely devastating testimony, the kind of testimony where you are wondering, why is Paul Manafort sitting through this . Its overwhelming. A Vice President of federal savings bank, james brennan, testified about those 60 million loans that Paul Manafort was applying for while he was working on the Trump Campaign. And his testimony was that he uncovered a series of red flags in which he saw that manafort was lying about a number of things on his application, and that he was 90 days in arrears on an American Express bill that he had used to buy season tickets for the new york yankees. Basically, he didnt qualify for this loan. Mr. Brennans testimony is that his boss, a guy named steven caucus, overruled him and his other employees at the bank who didnt want to loan this money to manafort and said the loan should go through anyway. We know from other testimony that he tried to get him a job in the Trump Administration as secretary of the army. The important thing about this testimony is it had nothing to do with rick gates, the man that the defense is going to try to blame this conduct on. This was Paul Manafort and his wife filling out a bank application. A lot of this trial has been very complicated. A lot of complicated tax issues. Its pretty easy for jurors, anyone who filled out a mortgage application, to understand you cant lie on that. You cant say you dont have a loan on a property when in fact you do. You cant fail to disclose being in arrears on your credit card. That evidence was laid out very starkly for the jury over the last hour. You have set gene up perfectly. Gene noticed Something Interesting in fridays testimony. I believe it was fridays testimony. Yes. Lets put it up on the screen. This is about stephen calk. Let me get it up right now. The chief executive of chicago bank that loaned no, thats not the right one. I dont have it. Gene, you have it in front of you. So this is from the testimony, and this is andres, one of the prosecutors, talking to the judge. He says, your honor, i am not sure its clear that mr. Calc is involved necessary saerl. Aerl aerl. So when you see that, other criminal liability, what do you think, gene . Katy, this is, no pun intended, classic red flag and loud gong that there is more beneath that iceberg that muellers office has discovered. This phrase, other criminal liability, means one of two things. One, other criminal liability between calk and manafort on other crimes, or it means that calk is involved in other criminal liability relating to the Trump Administration, the trump organization, the campaign, the transition. And heres whats important. Calk wasnt just some flunkky serving quasi modo. Coffey. So he knows a lot about the inner workings of the campaign, the transition. He got inaugural tickets. That phrase is unbelievably insightful. I have to tell you this, katy. Im pretty surprised it wasnt put under seal. Thats a little indication that mr. Calk may have a lot more to offer. And little indication of where this Mueller Investigation could be going. Absolutely. There is another red flag, loud bang, as you put it. This is the mueller team talking about rick gates and some of rick gates testimony from last week. There was a sidebar and then suddenly everything went under seal. Whats going on there . I worked in that office. I saw that courthouse for 20 years. I had so many side bars before judge ellis, i cant remember them. I had seven trials. In that sidebar, heres what i think was said. Rick gates is providing enormous information to Robert Muellers office. Enormous. You dont have a sidebar like that for 15, 20 minutes. You dont put it under seal. He is providing a lot of information, in my opinion, on the campaign, the convention. Remember at the convention something was withdrawn from the platform. He may know why they did that. The inauguration. And i think he worked for a time for the trump lobby group after President Trump became president. That sidebar is under seal for a reason. So when i look at this and i wonder to myself, this feels like the entire the entire court case feels like a sidebar to the Mueller Investigation. The larger investigation into russia. I keep asking myself, and we have had this conversation, how is this going to tie into Everything Else later on . Is it going to tie into Everything Else later on . The timing of it right in the middle of this investigation seems to me like it could provide something of a distraction or at the very least a real opening for donald Trump Supporters and people who dont like Robert Mueller or this investigation to say, youre just trying to find anything you can, and you are going after his Campaign Chairman on something that has nothing to do with what you were tasked to do, which is figure out how russia meddled in the election and whether or not donald trump or his campaign helped to it. I respectfully disagree to those Trump Supporters, and heres why. You have rick gates, sidebar sealed. You have this phrase, other criminal liability, that probably should have been sealed regarding stephen calk, who wasnt just a flunky. Today around 10 23 in the morning a filing was done by the federal prosecutors in d. C. For george papadopoulos. It is an order under federal criminal procedure 16 to seal the discovery that was given to papadopoulos for his sentencing, his rule 32 hearing. I didnt do that very often, but when i did or when my fellow prosecutors did, thats a big deal. That means you have an ongoing investigation. It is active. We are not done. We are not done. Period. I can tell you that right now. I can feel that something more below this little iceberg thats the Paul Manafort trial. And here is the other thing. The Paul Manafort trial may be a distraction. Look what you are hearing in the trial. You are hearing that gates worked for the transition committee. Youre hearing that there was an oligarch. Im going to say oligarch. They cant say it. There was an oligarch that was befriending manafort. There was unekovich that was crooked as god knows what. There is a lot of stuff pointing to russia. We dont know how much, but this investigation is not dead. Period. Gene rossi, thank you so much for coming on and walking us through this. Please come back again. We didnt even get into your relationship with judge ellis, but we will. Some other time. Some other time. This book is unblaefable. Thank you very much. Thank you. Today breaking news after months of attacks on his credibility, condemnations for his behavior, personal insults and demands that he be fired by the president and his allies, and of course the mysterious dossier tape, peter strzok has been fired from the federal bureau of investigation. The fbi agent sent private Text Messages sharply criticizing the president along with other politicians during the 2016 campaign while he was acting as lead agent in the early stages of the fbi investigation of the Trump Campaign. Once the Text Messages were discovered Robert Mueller dismissed him from the investigation, but many House Republicans said that was not enough. They have tried to claim strzoks mere presence on the investigation means the whole thing is a scam. Here is a reminder from last months hearing in the house. My testimony, what you asked and what i responded to, was that he kicked me off because of my bias. I am stating to you it is not my understand that he kicked me off because of any bias, it was done based on the appearance. If you want to represent it accurately, i am happy to answer that question. I dont appreciate what was being said changed. I dont give a damn what you think. I dont appreciate having an fbi agent working on two major investigations this morning i watched by the way, im a dentist, okay . I read body language very, very well. And i watched you comment in actions with mr. Gowdy. You got very angry in regards to the gold star father. That shows me that its innately a part of you and a bias. He is a dentist. With me harry litman, a former u. S. Attorney and former Deputy Assistant attorney attorney general under president clinton. Peter strzok fired, are you surprised by that . Yeah, i am. It reversed the recommendation of opr. That doesnt happen that much. Candice will recommended a 60day suspension and demotion and the Deputy Director overturned it and ordered him fired. Look, everyone agrees, including strzok, that the texts he sent werent smart, but there is no indication of any operational effect of them. They were, after all, private messages to another agent. So i thought that it was a pretty severe punishment. Here is what Peter Strzoks attorney told nbc news. This should be troubling to americans. A lengthy investigation and multiple rounds of congressional testimony failed to produce a shred of evidence that special agent strzoks personal views ever affected his work. I know, harry, there are those out there who completely agree with it. I also know people say, hey, listen, those Text Messages were, at the very least, not nice. And they did know schhow he didt want donald trump to be president. Doesnt that necessarily have to affect you in some way if you are in charge of an investigation . You know, im not sure. Everybody in the fbi, or so many of them, have their views. Remember, katy, the same report says that there was a, quote, deep and visceral hatred among many in the fbi for Hillary Clinton, and in fact thats my sort of anecdotal experience as well. And if we think that that automatically affects, you know, thats quite a road to be begin to go down. Now, i actually think that we depend on the bureau to have, as human beings do, personal views. But it set them to the side. So its troubling. I have to say if we were doing an investigation of parallel expressions of animus towards clinton, wed find quite a bit and wed be spending the next few years in investigation. Now, the Deputy Director, who is well respected, as is candice will, apparently thought it showed a quote unquote willingness to do, to take action against trump. That would be a problem. We know that and an important thing that underscores it didnt happen. Everyone has agreed there has been no operational effect. Of course, he was fired right away and his work was replicated. Sure, you dont want somebody in charge of an investigation who would do that. But a professional agent would not. And thats why opr ordered just the suspension. Lets be clear from what we know about this investigation. It didnt start because peter strzok decided to cook it up one day because he didnt like the president. George papadopoulos was bragging about the dirt they had on Hillary Clinton to a diplomat while in a bar in london. That was one of the things. Not to mention donald trump on july 27, 2016, openly saying in front of cameras to the world, russia, if you are listening, find Hillary Clintons emails. We know that raised some red flags, among other things. So its not like we can say that peter strzok made some stuff up and started investigating it. I do want to get to the mueller true. Go ahead. I want to get to the Mueller Investigation and something that you wrote about it. You said, time for mueller to bring out the big guns. Notwithstanding giulianis representations that trump is pawing the stall. Eager to smith to an interview, it is increasingly apparent that neither trump nor anyone in his orbit has any interest in answering muellers questions. In a word, they are playing mueller and in the process playing the country. By the way, for our viewers, this is donald trump in ft. Drum, new york. He is going to be signing that defense spending authorization bill in a little bit. Just so you know what you are looking at. Harry, go on with the oped. I want to raise the point, look, i would never secondguess mueller. I think he has known for some time, its not a serious set of negotiations. Hell determine whae wants to do. The point about playing the country or the main thing i wanted to add with the oped, katy, we have a dual kind of investigation here by mueller. Yes, we are looking at crimes and thats what we focus on, but we are also looking at what happened. He is really our only hope here. Everything else is hopelessly politicized to give an account and for us to ever really know what happened. And with trumps playing around and suggesting and basically never sitting down under penalty of perjury to tell the truth, we have the real possibility, which i think is intolerable, that this whole probe will end with huge holes in the historical record that we will not be able to get to the bottom of because the president of the United States refuses to candidly answer questions. Thats a very worrisome prospect i think. And it seems like the president is watching some drills right now at ft. Drum. Aerial exercises at ft. Drum, to be clear on what were seeing while you are speaking, harry. So its not confusing or disconnected. But one more question about rudy giuliani. He is contradicting himself a whole lot. This is not the first time. Wont be the last time. He is now saying that donald trump never had a conversation about Michael Flynn with james comey, even though he said about a month ago that donald trump did have a conversation with james comey about Michael Flynn. Rudy giuliani and his credibility in the grand scope of things, or this investigation, how much does his credibility matter legally speaking . I mean, his credibility i really think just objectively was already at zero. But set it aside because its not only he has said that, but trump has said six and seven different things. And this is no minor detail. What did he say to comey about flynn . And now, seriously, a year in its, oh, we never had a conversation at all. That is mind bogging mind boggling. The oath requirement is there to get at the truth. You have two pieces you have comey saying under oath with contemporaneous notes here is what trump said to me. We need to know what trump says trump said to him. Its the opposite of what use his little phrase a perjury trap. This is down the middle stuff. And, yes, after all this to say, oh, you know what . There was never a conversation at all . You wouldnt let a school boy get away with that. You know what would be helpful, harry . If there were tapes. Exactly. Ill start with that. And your top of the story word, uhdspa. Try to tell the truth about a not insignificant matter. Thats the president again in ft. Drum. He is going to be signing that military authorization bill in honor of john mccain, the man that he has denigrated so viciously over the past few years. What can you say . Harry litman. Thanks for having me. The president is going to continue watching all of these military drills. These aerial drills. You know how he likes watching military parades and military shows. Of course, we are keeping an eye on this. Next up, the president s rhetoric versus his record on race. Business unlimited card i get unlimited 1. 5 cash back. Its so simple, i dont even have to think about it. So i think about mouthfeel. I dont think about the ink card. I think about nitrogen ice cream in supermarkets all over the world. I think about the details. Fine, i obsess over the details. 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Learn more about why you should choose an aarp Medicare Supplement plan. Call today for a free guide. vo is ahhhmazing plan. Simple goodness meaty morsels. A tender texture. With real meat and a blend of peas and carrots i can see. A totally new kind of awesome going on here avo beneful simple goodness. Tender, meaty morsels with real ingredients you can see. Cof the president is set to speak at ft. Drum in watertown, new york, in just a little bit. Again he is signing a Defense Authorization bill. The bill was named in honor of senator john mccain, who is the chairman of the Armed Services committee. Pretty interesting considering how the if the has so viciously denigrated john mccain over the past three years, and said he was not a war hero, among other things. In the meantime, lets move to another subject. A lot of attention is being paid to President Trumps both sides rhetoric regarding this weekends actually very small unite the right rally. Its his administrations policies, not the president s rhetoric, that have the clearest consequences. The department of hughesing and urban development delayed an Obama Administration era rule. The doj rolled back affirmative action policies on college campuses. The state department pushed back on a u. N. Antiracism resolution. The administration has supported work requirements for medicaid, and theyve repealed a policy targeting discrimination in auto lending. To say nothing of their family separation policy. Critics argue these policies, among others, disproportionately impact americans of color. With me now eddie glad along with Zerlina Maxwell drerktser progressive programming for sirius xm. They are both msnbc contributors. I didnt even get into voter fraud. I know. It seems like protecting Voting Rights would lead to better policies for black people as the first step, protecting our Voting Rights. On the one hand, there is more obvious examples like title 9 and 10, affirmative action. Also clean air and water. All of the regulations being rolled back at the epa under scott pruitt Impact Communities of color. Flint today does not have clean water. There are many other flints and communities of color suffering because of the environmental regulations being rolled back in their area. Eddie, we spend so much time on the president s tweets and the things he says and the divisive way he uses twitter, tweeting against the nfl, et cetera. His language. And because of that we tend to spend less time on the policies that are getting enacted. I just ran through a number of those policies. The affirmative action rollback. The federal use of private prisons rollback. You know, that idea that they were going to use, phase out the use of private prisons. The antiracism resolution at the u. N. That was struck down or rescinded. All of these things have real everyday impact, and they are not getting talked about all that much. Oh, absolutely. We didnt even mention what was going on in the department of education with betsy devos and forprofit colleges that disproportionately impact africanamericans, particularly africanamericans overburdened with Student Loan Debt in certain ways. You know whats interesting about this, katy, is this. Typically, we want to exceptionlize donald trump. He is a White Nationalist. He has broken the norms about of the con sken sus about race. Its by way of that we single him out. And we say he is a bigot, he is unique, he is singular. When we look at these policies, what we see is how consistent he is with republican policies. This is not uniquely donald trump. What scott pruitt and before he resigned did at epa, this is a republican agenda. Whats going on at d. O. E. , republican agenda. Whats happening at doj . Republican agenda. What ben carson is doing at hud . Republican agenda. This is really important when we look at the policies. What we see is that trump is not that much of an outlier. What we see is really whats the oil in the engine thats driving trumpism, and that is, i think, a meanspirited republican agenda that has a disproportionate impact on black people and communities of color. You will admit donald trump is more successful getting these policies enacted or put into place or rolled back than other republican president s . Absolutely, because in some ways he provides cover. He is the carnival barker. He fogs up the place. We are paying attention he is like a magician. We are paying attention to the hand whale the illusion is happening with the other hand, right . And so to the extent to which many republicans have engaged in that Faustian Bargain, we didnt talk about at the macro level what the tax cuts will do. They are creating this massive debt. They are starving government and they are going to use that as a pretext to cut social programs. They are already doing it with regards to medicare, with regards to social security, with regards to the social safety net generally. So they have entered into a Faustian Bargain where we can understand their silence visavis trump in all these other areas. Look at two polls. One from may 2017, Public Religion Institute survey. Beyond economics fears of cultural displacement pushed the White Working Class to trump more than half, 52 of White Working Class americans believe criminal snags against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. This other poll august 2018, cbs. One year after charlottesville, a majority of americans see racial tensions on the rise. Overall, 83 of republicans approve of the president s handling of racial issues. Then there are a number who think that racism towards white people is just as pervasive as racism towards people of color. Yeah. They have been sold a lie. The idea that reverse racism is a thing that exists in the world, it does not. There is racism and there is not racism. There is no such thing as reverse racism. The president alluded to this over the weekend when he referenced charlottesville in his tweet. He said all forms of racism. Almost implying that there are multiple forms. There are not. There is one form. Racism. And so i think that on the one hand you have the president and his rhetoric exacerbating the situation, and you have him talking about all forms of racism as if there is more than one, but black and brown people live in this country, we live here every day. We know what its like. We understand how the policies are affecting us in reality. What about those who argue affirmative action that effectively pushed them out of the job search or made it harder for them to buy a job because affirmative action exists or harder to get into college . I have said this before on air. There is a quote on the internet that is passed around and explains this well. When privilege, when you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. And so the anxiety you see among white americans where they say i feel like i am oppressed, its simply because you have essentially had free rein over everything. Affirmative action doesnt take tests. Take tests. When i was told you only got into Tufts University because youre a black person, youre only here in this Law School Class with me because youre a black person, i would say affirmative action does not do my home work, does not study and does not take the test for me. I earned my place here and im earning the degree when ive completed all of my studies, so for me its something ive lived through and people have said that to me. I said, no, i deserve to be here and im showing you that because im graduating with good grades, not because affirmative action has given me a leg up and taken the test on my behalf. Eddie, what to you make of the unite the right rally being very small and the counterprotesters vastly outnumbering the White Supremacists who showed up . First, let me just say that its just factually incorrect about affirmative action. Thats just factally wrong. We can go to the data to show thats a mischaracterization. But in terms of this weekend, a couple of things. We see a collapse of the leadership of the altright or White Supremacy organizations or White Nationalist organizations. What we also see is the effect of the left in public shaming. Folks lost their jobs when they were identified who participated in the white supremacist march in charlottesville. Folks lost in some way their standing in their communities. We i. D. ed them and there were consequences. So i think in combination with the question around leadership, the problem around leadership, theres also the issue of accountability. And we saw in some ways the victory of those who have a different vision of the country, but thats not to say that white supremacist organizations arent on the rise. Just a week or so ago, we saw what happened in portland, oregon, in that rally there. We saw violence and four people were arrested. But covering it so much, zerlina, are we amplifying it . No. We need to put a spotlight on it because these are happening every single day. The media only notices every few weeks. Racial violence is happening. People are saying to small children at school, build the wall, build the wall as almost a racial slur. So trumps rhetoric is impacting our everyday lives and its important to talk about it every single time. Eddie, when you look at the policies and you look at the way things have been rolled back, when you keep an eye on thing, what is the one thing that stands out to you as most concerning . Well, the one thing that stands out to me, oh, my god, theyre all so intimately connected. I think whats happening in doj. Whats happening in the department of justice. So not only the dojs stuff around affirmative action, but the stuff around tougher sentencing laws with regard to drug offenses. There is a general consensus in this country, just as there is a general consensus with regards to climate change, that the Justice System in the United States is deeply, deeply racist, profoundly racist. And there were efforts to address it and what were seeing is what theyre rolling that back and that will have devastating implications for communities across this country. Thank you both for shedding a spotlight on the policies today instead of just the rhetoric. We appreciate it. And it looks like Vice President mike pence has Just Announced donald trump. Again hes signing a Defense Authorization bill that was named after john mccain. Quite a bit of hypocrisy there considering that the president has trashed john mccain repeatedly and said a man who spent years in a prison as a prisoner of war was not a war hero. Anyway, lets listen to the president. Thank you, everybody. Its a great place, ive been here before. We love this location. We love this base and most particularly the people that are working so hard here and so effectively. So i want to start by saying at ease. Just relax. Do you have seats . You can sit down, come on. If you want to stand, you can. Well just get one big standing ovation, right . Sit down. Thank you. Thats pretty good, everybody has got a seat, thank you very much. I want to thank our wonderful Vice President , mike pence, and say a special hello to the incredible patriots of ft. Drum and the tenth Mountain Division, special people. Thank you. A few moments ago, i witnessed your extraordinary capabilities firsthand during an artillery raid demonstration, so id like to begin by applauding the tenth Mountain Division combat Aviation Brigade along with the third battalion six field artillery. I hate to say this, but nobody stands a chance against you folks. Nobody stands a chance. Im here today to sign our new defense bill into law, and to pay tribute to the greatest soldiers in the history of the world, the United States army. Thank you. Thank you. The national Defense Authorization act is the most significant investment in our military and our war fighters in modern history, and i am very proud to be a big, big part of it. It was not very hard. You know, i went to congress, i said lets do it, weve got to do it. Were going to strengthen our military like never, ever before and thats what we did. I want to say very strongly there is no better place than right here at ft. Drum to celebrate its passage. No better place. After years of devastating cuts, were now rebuilding our military like we never have before, ever. Because we know that to survive and having that survival of our freedom, it depends upon the might of our military. And no enemy on earth can match the strength, courage and skill of the American Army and the American Armed forces. Nobody is even close. They never will be. Were grateful to be joined today by many of our nations top military leaders. Id like to recognize deputy secretary of defense shanahan whos with us. Please, mr. Secretary. People ive heard about all my life, very prestigious title. I always loved the ring, the joint chiefs of staff, right . Thats got a good ring. Anybody in the audience going to be a member of that some day . I think so. Raise your hand. If you think youre going to make it, raise your hand. Go ahead. Come on. Oh, come on, thats all . Only a few . I dont know. I want to thank general dunford, general millie, general neller, admiral richardson, general goldfein, general engall and vice admiral ray. Thank you all for your leadership. Youre magnificent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. A very special thank you to the commanding general of the tenth Mountain Division, Major General walt piett. What a special man. Walt, i want to thank you. Where is walt . Where is walt . Wallet, thank you very much. Thank you walt is back on american soil after deployment in iraq, and i just want to welcome you home. You have tremendous respect. I have great, great admiration and respect for you, walt, thank you very much. I also had the chance to meet Division CommandSergeant Major jason rork, along with tenth Mountain Division soldier of the year, michael lima. Where is michael . Soldier of the year. Michael. Pretty good. And thats soldier of the year, michael, out of how many . How many . Thats a lot of soldiers. 18,000. You want to work for me . Thank you, michael. Thats a great job. We would not be here for todays signing ceremony without the dedicated efforts of the members of congress who worked so hard to pass the national Defense Authorization act. Id like to recognize congresswoman Elise Stefanek whose district elise. She called me so many times. She said i dont want to take her call. She wanted me to do here. I said i wont be able to, well have to change a lot of scheduling. But that didnt suit her, she didnt stop, and here i am. Here i am. Elise, come here. Come here, elise. Thank you, mr. President. It is truly an honor to welcome you to ft. Drum, home of the historic tenth Mountain Division, the most deployed unit in the u. S. Army