continue to stoke anger, fear and suspicion to cultivate dark conspiracy theories about those they cast as the enemies of the people. like the liberal jewish activist george soros who they characterize as an evil puppet master and the desperate migrants, women and children trump describes as an invading hoard. and the free press the president insists over and over is hell bent on destroying the real america. with me msnbc contributor and now former republican strategist steve schmidt, co-host of the words matter podcast, which is an apt title. how did we get here? well, however we got here, we re here. and where we are is at an unprecedented place in american history. we have never had a president of the united states do what this president is doing. he is stoking a cold civil war in this country, and it has turned hot on the periphery. this man bowers, what he said was when he went in, he said, i can t sit by and watch my people
one who drove his car into counter protesters and murdered 32-year-old heather heyer. you had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was very violent. not all of those people were neo-nazis, believe me. not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. now, that rhetoric has really not changed, and even in the wake of last week s violence. the president and his allies continue to stoke anger, fear and suspicion to cultivate dark conspiracy theories about those they cast as the enemies of the people. like the liberal jewish activist george soros who they characterize as an evil puppet master and the desperate migrants, women and children trump describes as an invading hoard. and the free press the president insists over and over is hell bent on destroying the real america. with me msnbc contributor and now former republican strategist steve schmidt, co-host of the words matter podcast, which is an apt title. how did we get here?
he regretted some of the things he said when he answered. i don t blame him for being upset. his family has been attacked. his children have been attacked. he s been attacked unmercifully and apparently with no corroboration of the allegations, so i would be pretty ticked off myself. as a matter of fact, i think he was pretty circumspect. i don t blame him for the way he behaved, for what he said. reporter: and craig we ve talked to a lot of voters like terry and many of them say they think brett kavanaugh deserves a fair chance to sit on that bench. others here have been calling and protesting and sitting in, and they say this is not the time for senator collins to put this man on the bench. morgan, thank you. that was a fascinating conversation. thank you so much for that. still with me msnbc capitol hill correspondent garrett haake, former rnc chairman, michael steele and garrett let me come back to you here. we spent some time looking at susan collins. let s talk about joe
associates are shaping the v.a. this is on top of the gaggle of former around current white house officials under fire for lavish spending because who could forget scott pruitt or tom price? then there are those in trump s orbit who have been charged with lying to investigators. his former campaign chairman, his former deputy campaign manager, his first national security advisor, his former foreign policy advisor. as msnbc s first read puts it this morning, the party of trump has a corruption problem. will the voters care? back with me msnbc contributor steve schmidt and joining us is msnbc political analyst elise jordan. they are the mosts of the new podcast words matter, which debuted this week. congratulations on the cast. thank you very much. thank you for that wonderful intro. of course. i can t wait to listen to it. so i could have gone on with that intro. there were things we left out. that s what s remarkable about this. there were a ton of things we left out. we could have
it s appropriate. we are checking that. if it is, certainly we will pursue it. our big question today is will the president s words today give senator corker s push even more momentum. joining me msnbc contributor hans nichols, mark landler, white house reporter for the new york times, an david fromm. yesterday we were on the air when the president tried to wipe away everything that happened in helsinki with the addition of one word. the would not instead of would. he went on twitter after that. he has been on twitter all this morning. he is asked point blank today if russia is still meddling, and he says no. what s going on? does he not know what his own director of national intelligence has said, or is he just blatantly defying him? katy, the interesting thing about president trump saying no there is that gina haspel, the head of the cia, was in the room. when we look closely at that cabinet, those cabinet officials, she was in there. she has real-time intelligence