Down likely from either the u. S. Or iran. And war of words. Jon stewart firing back at Mitch Mcconnell after the Senate Leader questioned stewarts slam on congress for not compensating 9 11 First Responders. Weve never failed to address this issue. And we will address it again. I dont know why hes all bent out of shape. Im not bent out of shape. Im fine. Im bent out of shape for them. These are the first heroes and veterans and victims of the great trillions of dollars war on terror. And good day, everyone. President trump is ready to kick off his Reelection Campaign in florida tonight using his twitter account. The president will be accompanied by the first lady, other family members and the Vice President. The president still faces problems and lags behind all of the leading democrats, especially joe biden in head to head matches at this early stage. The majority of registered voters in our latest poll are expressing uneasiness about four more years with trump in charge. Well be talking to two contenders here this hour, Bernie Sanders and Michael Bennett. Monica, first to you in orlando. Youre seeing a fired up crowd already. Theyve been waiting, theyre anticipating. Orlando is a great venue for him. What are you hearing when you talk to people down there . Reporter thats right, there are actually already thousands of people out here at what the campaign is calling 45 fest. Its a special event here theyve set up outside the venue for tonight where the campaign is expecting around 20,000 of the president s most loyal supporters here as he kicks off his election. He has been basically running already for reelection for the last two and a half years, but tonight hell make it official. I talked to a lot of supporters here who arent just from florida, but also some of the neighboring states. Its interesting to hear about their progression from why they supported him in 2016 to now. Take a listen to what a couple of them had to say earlier here. Hes just for our freedom. We dont want socialistic policy. We want to be free. Reporter any frustrations . None at all. None at all. I hope we have the next four after them and after that i hope his son runs. Excellent job. You guys need to back off and leave him alone. Reporter whats the main reason youll vote for him again . The man reason . Because hes one of the best president s weve had for a very long time. He doesnt lie. I know yall say he does. He doesnt. Reporter any concerns about the democratic opponents and what kind of matchup he might face . They dont have a leg to stand on. Reporter so, andrea, there you have it, thats the mood from some of the supporters. There are still eight hours to go until the event tonight. Its 86 with a feels like temperature of 94 with scattered showers for the afternoon. These are the diehard supporters and are hoping to hear a lot of the same messaging theyve heard from the president tonight. Thank you for those interviews and the weather forecast. Its going to be hot politically as well. Monica alba in orlando. Charlie cook, where do things stand now . The woman said he doesnt lie. The one thing thats indisputable are the misstatements, the lies from president , his team about observable things. But that is not what his die hard supporters youre seeing are hearing. Im not going there. But i think the folks that monica interviewed are absolutely representative that the trump base is fired up. He has no problems within the republican party. The challenge for the president is there are more people that are equally adamant that are never going to support him. He doesnt look good with the swing voters in the middle. Theyre fired up and unified on his side but Everything Else doesnt look so good. The three states that were determinative for whatever reasons, and we can debate those reasons, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, if the democrats hold those states, regain those states, the battleground looks favorable for the democrats. They have to really screw up. Youre right. Hillary clinton got enough votes to win and they just werent in the right places. In those three states, something was in the water in 2016. In 2018, it certainly wasnt. Republicans went in with two governorships. They came out with zero. They came up short in the senate races and had a tough night in the house of representatives as well. Polling, he averages 42 job approval rating. If the election were held today, yes, he would President Trump would at least lose those three, if not the 27 other states that he carried. And Hillary Clinton would is well ahead in all 20 of her states. Let me share joe biden would be ahead of the 20 states Hillary Clinton carried. And in fact, some of the other contenders as well. As large as the democratic field is, someone is going to rise to the top, if not joe biden, somebody else. And well have some of the other advantages that at least most of the democrats seem to have against the president. One of the things you wrote recently online is that the 2020 Trump Campaign is sure to be vastly more sophisticated and financed than the Dumpster Fire organization. The democrats have to come up with a narrative, have to come up with proposals. There are several warning signs in this field of democrats. Well see this sort out a little bit. Most likely next week in the debate. Yeah, i mean i think that its a big field and who knows who comes out of it. But the fact that not just joe biden, but Bernie Sanders runs well ahead of the president and that people that voters dont know so well like elizabeth warren, Pete Buttigieg run evenly with the president. Thats a warning sign. I think if democrats get too i wouldnt get ahead of their skis on issues. I think democrats are in better shape if they let this be a referendum on President Trump. If this is a referendum on democratic socialism, if its a referenda on other things the outcome may not be good. But they need to keep it a referendum on the president. Charlie cook, thanks so much for that. Perfectly teed up now for our next guest. Thanks to monica in orlando. Vermont independent senator democratic president ial candidat candidate Bernie Sanders joins me. The president has been tweeting ahead of his big announcement that next week i. C. E. Will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have found their way into the United States. Now our reporters have not found any new plan on the books. This sounds like the same game plan before the 2018 midterms to fire up his base. Your reaction to his tweet and to his using this rhetoric on immigration right now . I think youre right. I think this is a political statement to his base. Frankly i think its an outrageous statement. Its not what our country stands for and its exactly what demagogues always do. Hell not talk about the healthcare crisis. Hell not talk about wealth inequality. Hell not talk about Climate Change. But he will try to divide the American People up. Hell go after minority people, in this case undocumented people who have very little political power. Thats what demagogues always do. Thats why trump must be defeated. You know, when we look forward towards the debates, the president on twitter today he may or may do this hes talking about live tweeting while you guys are on the debate stage. Whats your reaction to that . Well, im surprised he has the time to tweet. I thought hed be watching some fox tv program. Look, he can tweet all he wants to tweet. But let me just say this, you have a president , who despite what one of his supporters mentioned, is in fact a pathological liar. Hes a racist, hes a sexist, hes a homophobe. He is is a religious bigot. This is a president who is also a phony. Who told his supporters in 2016 hed stand with the working class of this country, and of course he lied. I suspect tonight in his speech hell not tell them he tried to throw 32 Million People off of healthcare. His last budget called for a trillion and a half cut to medicaid. Billions in cuts to social security. He told his supporters in 2016 his tax plan would not benefit the wealthy. He lied. 83 of those benefits are going to go to the top 1 after ten years. At the same time, he views the stock market as the index of how good the economy is. So do a lot of americans. Theyre not looking at the internal problems, the wage despairsti dispari disparities, but a lot of people, his supporters are saying the stock market is up and business the Community Seems to be supportive. How do you combat that . I tell you how the powers of incumbency and hes raised so much more money. In this sense, i think its not just his supporters. This is very often what media does. The stock market is up, the economy is good. Heres a fact. That right now today the average American Worker is making in real inflation accounted for dollars, despite huge increases in technology and productivity the same amount of money he or she made 45 years ago. That sound like a good economy . Today what were seeing is a younger generation. Everything being equal. The millenials. Theyll have a lower standard of living than their parents. Today what were seeing is that over the last 30 years, the top 1 have seen a 21 trillion increase in their wealth. The bottom half of americans have lost 900 billion. Massive income and wealth inequality. Tens of millions of parents living paycheck to paycheck. Those are the issues ill talk about during this campaign and those are the issues the average american understands. I want to ask you about iran. Were seeing increasing tensions. Secretary pompeo is going to be speaking from sent com. Iran is threatening to break out of the nuclear deal for the first time in 14 months, even though the president withdrew from it. We see these hits on the tankers. They say theres intelligence, the brits agree with the u. S. This was iranian proxyied. What do you do right now where iran is arguably acting aggressively, even whoa, whoa e whoa in reaction to the u. S. Policy making. Just a couple of points. First of all, what is absolutely necessary is an objective investigation as to these incidents. The destruction or the bombing or attacking of oil tankers in the gulf of oman is not acceptable. We need to investigate it. You dont accept let me just ask you dont accept the declaration from the secretary of state . No, it dont. It needs to be an objective investigation. As you know the japanese in fact, the owner of the tanker that was attacked disagrees with trump. But heres the main point i want to make. If you look at the recent history of this country, i think we understand that the two worst Foreign Policy disasters were based on lies that came from the white house. You remember the socalled gulf of tonkin incident that led us to increase military involvement in vietnam. I could speak that was my generation. 59,000 brave young men never came home from that war. Tens of thousands died, committed suicide, got into drugs when they came home. That was based on a lie. Then you look more recently at the war in iraq, which i oppose because i did not believe cheney and i did not believe john bolton. I did not believe the bush administration. Again, based on a lie that Saddam Hussein and iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Let me just say this, ill do everything i personally can as a United States senator to stop the United States attacking iran. If we go into a war with iran, this will be an asymmetrical war which will go on and on and on. There will be never ending wars in the middle east. It will make the war in iraq look like a cake walk. So we have got to do everything we can to bring the antagonists, saudi arabia, which is a brutal dictatorship, together with iran. Bring them together. Use the power of the United States to work out a diplomatic solution, not a military solution. Youre going to be on a debate stage next week facing off for the first time with joe biden. Whats your strategy going against the frontrunner . Well, you promise not to tell joe . Promise not to tell. All right. If thats the case, look, joe and i are friends. Ive known him for many years. I thought he was a very good Vice President. But joe and i have a different outlook on the world. We have a different voting record. Joe voted for the war in iraq, i voted against the war in iraq. Joe voted for a lot of what i consider to be disastrous trade agreements, nafta, pncr with china. Cost us millions of good paying jobs. I helped lead the opposition against those trade agreements. Joe voted for the deregulation of wall street. I strongly opposed that. Heres what i believe in terms of 2020. Joe wants to beat donald trump and i want to beat donald trump and every democratic candidate understands how important it is that we defeat donald trump. I happen to believe that the only way we defeat trump is through a large voter turnout. You create excitement. You get young people and working people involved in the political process. The only way i know how you do that is you talk about the real issues that impact peoples lives. Healthcare is a human right. We need medicare for all l. We have to raise the minimum wage to 15 an hour. Weve got to make public colleges and universities tuition free and substantially reduce student debt. You want to get young people involved . Their generation is hurting. Theyre overly in debt. You got to talk about Climate Change in a bold way. Because the scientists tell us we have 12 years to transform our energy system. My view is we win when we bring out large numbers of people, when we tell the truth that trump supporters, about his lies. When we fight for criminal justice reform, fight for immigration reform, create excitement at the grass roots level. Thats how we win. I think those are the issues were talking about. As you know, many of the polls the last five polls that were out there had me beating trump by at least nine points. Sometimes double digits. We can beat trump if were prepared to talk about the issues impacting working people and get them involved in the political process. Senator, one of the candidates who is talking about issues more than anyone is elizabeth warren, your colleague. Also against wall street, against big business. Many of your issues, yet shes moving up in many of these polls and youve been losing some altitude. So elizabeth warren, does she have the formula, rather than you . Im not going well, you have to ask elizabeth warren. Elizabeth is a long why do you think shes being so successful . Some of the polls have me doing a lot better than l elizabeth warren. Polls, depending on the polls. One polls i would stress is the last five polls has us running far better than anyone else since biden. In one poll were running better than biden. If the American People are looking at the candidate who can defeat trump, ill hope theyll give serious consideration to our candidacy. Senator Bernie Sanders, its always a pleasure. Thank you so much. See you in miami. Okay, take care. Thanks, a lot. Coming up, tensions escalating as the pentagon announces 1,000 more troops are being sent to the middle east. Youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports, stay with us right here on msnbc. Stay with us rit here on msnbc. I dont keep track of regrets. And i dont add up the years. But what i do count on. Is boost® delicious boost® high protein nutritional drink has 20 grams of protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals. Boost® high protein. Be up for life. Right now, secretary of state mike pompeo is meeting with u. S. Commanders overseeing forces in the middle east at sent com in tampa hours after the pentagon announced its sending 1,000 more troops to the region. Today, irans president rouhani said his country will not wage war, but it is threatening to break out of the nuclear deal by ramping up nuclear fuel production. Iran has been obeying its limits. Joining me now is courteney cubey and Jake Sullivan, the former National Security advisor to Vice President joe biden and a Top State Department official under president obama. Welcome back. Youve been talking to the military, what are the 1,000 troops going to significantly accomplish . Is this force protection . What is their mission . Reporter yes, thats right. Its force protection. Its defensive. So this is in response to what the military sees as a continued stream of threats from iran. And attacks that they blame iran for. The most recent ones, the two tankers that were attacked last week. There have been a series of attacks against u. S. Ally, saudi arabia. Both by missile and uavs, drones. These are the kinds of troops who will come in to shore up these defenses against these attacks. Well probably see things like additional troops to patriot batteries, probably additional isr or intelligence gathering. Things they can use to stop, to thwart a possible attack. These attacks we heard from patron shanahan last night, we heard the attacks are ones theyre concerned about, both air, land and sea. Think about the threats weve seen. The tanker attacks at sea, in the air there are the drones and missiles that have been fired by the Houthi Rebels into saudi arabia and there have been missiles fired at u. S. Drones. At land, one of the threats we havent heard much about is from the shia militia groups in iraq. So these additional 1,000 troops keep in mind, this is a small percentage of the total force thats in sent com. These troops will be there for defensive and force protection, andrea. Thanks so much. Jake sullivan, when we look at iran, first of all questions, Bernie Sanders just raised as to the credibility of the intelligence or the way it