Color. Senator jackson lee will join us live. But it all started with a series last sunday, the president suggesting a Minority Group of democratic congresswomen should go back and help fix the totally broken and crimeinfested places from which they came. Heres how the week unfolded from there. As far as im concerned, if you hate our country, if youre not happy here, you can leave. Send her back send her back send her back i started speaking quickly. It really was loud i disagree with it, by the way. But quite a chant. I felt a little bit badly about it. Those people in North Carolina, that stadium was packed. It was a record crowd and coy have filled it ten times, as you know. Those are incredible people. Those are incredible patriots. The Associated Press reports that the double flipflop you watched play out there was reminiscent of the president s response to the violation in charlottesville back in 2017. Quote, he initially blamed violence on both sides of the altercation after a wave of bipartisan condemnation and scathy cable news coverage, he issued a cleanup statement at the white house days later. Yet after watching the response to his reversal p. He doubled back to the original position during a wild translatotrump tower news conference. Earlier today on cue he doubled back to the socalled squad, tweeting i dont believe the four congresswomen are capable of loving our country. In other words, here we go again. With that i want to welcome in my panel on set, washington chief for vice news, shawna thom i. Msnbc political analyst robert costa, former poll cy adviser to mitt romney and fellow, long hi chen and reporter for politico, tim alberta. Also author of american carnage on the front lines of the republican civil war and donald trump. Congratulations on the book. Great to you have on the program. Its obviously chockful of news and memories im having trouble reliving but going through one at a time. I want to start with you because this, in many ways, wa played o played out over past week is everything you write about in this book, the divide in the Republican Party, tilt in populism as the president s allout embrace of the president s Political Tool and strategy. How do you see, frankly, this ending for the president . It seemed like the plan is take this all the way through november of 2020. Obviously if youre going to isolate one week of the Trump Presidency as a pretty clean microcosm of the entire political ascendsy of the last four years, this would probably be it. Your opening package captured it pretty well. Weve seen this movie before. Its all gotten predictable at this point. Not just what the republican says and does or republicans on the hill or in many cases doesnt react to what the president says and does. When you think about donald trump race baiting, when you think about him egging on his supporters and trying to halfway walk it back saying i dont know, i didnt mean noor to happen or i wasnt comfortable with that and he sort of goes right back to the well again, he understands what the boundaries are. And in todays Public Discourse and boundaries, he sets the boundaries. Nobody challenges him and if they do they fall quickly like flake, sanders, amash, et cetera. So theres nobody pushing him until november of next year which means we have a very long six months in front of us. And the president seems to want to make these four women the faces, the faces of the Democratic Party. Yes. And by doing that, he creates a situation. I totally agree. I think race is now the issue du jour of this election. And it was in some ways in 2016. But also i feel like all of us around this table and a lot of people were so confused by the donald trump phenomenon in 2016 that we didnt quite grasp what we were getting into. He thinks its a winning thing. I dont think this comes out of a master plan for him but i think his team thinks its a way to win a little bit. For democrats, the issue is does it make people mad . I think him talking about race in this way gins up his supporters. We saw that with the send her back chant but it gins up democrats, makes them he more galvanized. If and you have more people mad, that makes people vote. Thats the issue we will be grappling with, does it help republicans more or actually help democrats more to have that situation . Bob, whats your take on that situation . It challenges democrats as well. Democrats on capitol hill say the president s comments are racist. They do not like his abuse of power in their words in terms of refusing congressional demands. Theres a growing call for impeachment among democrats. House Speaker Pelosi is trying to keep her party in check, run against the president on health care, the economy. Have Robert Mueller testify this week. But shes going to keep dealing with these growing calls as the president continues to make action and make statements that are incendiary. And whether she can keep her party on a certain strategic path is an open question, especially as president ial candidates continue to try to say it is time to open those impeachment proceedings. And today we saw obviously excuse me, this past week we saw the focus on impeachment tie together everything, which is race related, which we had not previously seen. You had worked top adviser to mitt romney, who has been one of the questions who has spoken out against what the president has talked about, although he too has taken criticism for not specifically framing it as a racerelated issue. But is there is there a world where there exists a Republican Party that is not completely tied up in race baiting, race tweeting, supporting what the president is doing . It may be a world far, far away. I think the challenge is you have trump as this figure and you compare the response post charlottesville to the response after this you see how much the president s managed to consolidate support within the Republican Party and probably consolidated support of his own situation. The development of donald trump as the leader of the Republican Party, the spokesman for the Republican Party, the person who stands in most voters minds as the representative of the Republican Party, i think thats a process we have seen kind of play out over these last couple of years. Now this is where we are. The question Going Forward is whether the strategy is going to have any utility for the Republican Party beyond 2020. I think it might be a Winning Strategy for 2020. I think theres a set of circumstances and scenarios where he grows the voter base that he has amongst, you know, lets say working class white males or working class white americans. Thats not necessarily a Winning Strategy beyond 2020. The question is do you sacrifice 2024 and beyond for 2020 . And the answer right now seems to be yeah. All eyes right now or on senator romney. The former governor sitting in the u. S. Senate. Governor Wells Campaign has not gained traction. Are you trying to push mitt romney into the president ial race . Im not trying to push anybody in. Critics out there of President Trump are waiting to see what somebody of romneys stature does as all of this public criticism continues to mount, senator romney and others have to make a choice. Are they really going to stand by this president in 2020 with these tweets, with the policies on immigration and so much else . We have pretty much evidence they wouldnt, shawna. Also we talked about shortterm gain versus longterm gain for the Republican Party, shortterm gain is what we are seeing Mitch Mcconnell do. Aside from walking a strange line about the president s words, put a bunch of judges in. The judges on the Circuit Court and district level, more conservative than the judges have ever been before, are basically what the longterm game plan is for someone like senator mcconnell. The ninth circuit is way lester than it used to be because mcconnell pushed a lot through. If it works and that leaves mcconnell in the senate is, thats a good thing for him. However in the end the changing demographics of this country, the fact there will be more latinos here than ever very, very soon, this is a longterm losing strategy if you make black and brown people base lick the enemy. Just a point about the base mobilization strategy we hear so much about, and obviously to shawnas point earlier, sure, you run the risk of energizing and mobilizing the democratic base. If youre donald trump, it can be counterproductive. But we have a new swing voter. Its the upscale, traditional suburbanite that are culturally more liberal than others and we think culturally conservative. We think of him mobilizing his base in michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania, the election will not be won and lost there. The president for every one base voter he may be mobilizing in green bay, wisconsin, he prreal has to worry about an affluent republican voter in Waukesha County who probably pulled the lever for republicans but we know they pulled it for a democrat in 2018. We know that from the election last year in philly and other places. So he has moeb worried about mobilizing the base and alienating others in the suburbs. Yes, its interesting. During a meeting with Republican Leaders the morning after the president s rally in North Carolina, multiple gop members reportedly told Vice President mike pence they were disturbed by the send her back chant and asked pence to relay the message to the president. Meanwhile, here was pences on this, this morning on face the nation. The president wasnt pleased about it, neither was i. The president han been very cle has been clear about that. Were also not pleased about four members of congress but this is as close as anyone has ever had in american politics. This could all go away with one simple word or phrase or something. You have a chance to stay it right now. Dont do it again. Is that your message . Major, the president was very clear. Was he . That he wasnt happy about it. If it happened again, he would make an effort spo teak out about it. He will make an effort . Thats what hes already said. I think we were pretty clear at the top of the show in illustrating the president was in fact not at all clear, not at all clear about how he approached this. But, shawna, what they are trying to do and what some democrats i have talked to behind the scenes suggest they think perhaps theyre doing effectively is using this to push people farther into the camps that they are already in, and my question based on what tim was saying too is do those independent swing voters, do they still really matter if this is what were talking about or not . I think all of the voters matter. Yes, i think independent swing voters do matter. If mike pence isnt willing to and i dont know what Major Garrett was trying to do was get him positive apologize or what phrase he he wanted him to say but if hes not willing to engage honestly with this, the exact same voters youre talking about can see that. Theyre college educated. They can see between the lines. They can see how uncomfortable it makes him and it makes them uncomfortable too. Those swing voters matter. If youre talking about identifying the Democratic Party with these four women and is that a winning thing, if youre able to change the conversation, and i know senator pence and republicans on the hill were trying to change the conversation to socialism. This big, bad word that freaks people out and these four women, they can say they support it, then maybe that is also a Winning Strategy too. But i think thats precisely the point. The point is the more you associate were not talking about the people running for president by the write now. Were talking about four relatively younger members of congress brandnew members of congress. Who are defining the policy agenda for the Democratic Party right now. Opinion the extent to people in the midwest or wherever else view the policy agenda of the 2020 democratic president ial nominee as the policy agenda as socialism, as the policy agenda of these four, it puts democrats in a very difficult position. I think thats precisely what the republicans and president would like to do. But you have to think for every news cycle thats hung up on send her back and hung up on racebaiting tweets and general tone of xenophobia from the president and his Reelection Campaign thats a day not spent talking about medicaid for all and stripping Health Insurance from 150 Million People and not covering every illegal immigrant in the country with a health care plan, which barack obama was adamant he wouldnt do that ten years ago. So whether or not the republicans are personally discomfortable with the president s words because theyre personally uncomfortable with it, that they find him racist, questionable or otherwise, or think its political malpractice, for any of the above reasons, there are capitalists on capitol hill that wish he would stop with this act because they think its counterproductive. You watch them try to twist themselves into knots trying to turn the conversation about race into socialism. Because race is at the ton of this a top of this and cannot deny it, it is what it is, it seems like its not a good argument for them. It would be if it didnt have a good layer of racism over it. And some like mayor buttigieg . Some tried to make away to talk about faith to win over the voters on that front but the Vice President shows how difficult thats going be to be. As shawna said, he nominated conservative justices and fought against their attempts of the progressive view. We will have much more to come, the president of the council on Foreign Relations will join me, richard hoff, as tensions continue to rise. First, Robert Mueller is set to testify on capitol hill. Who better than preview the blockbuster hearings than joyce vance. She will join us next. Us next. To roadtrip with. But since he bought his house. Are you going 45 . Uh, yes. 55 is a suggestion. Its kind of like driving with his dad. What a sign, huh . Terry, can you take a selfie of me . Take a selfie of you . Yeah. Can you make it look like im holding it . He did show us how to bundle home and auto at progressive. Com and save a bunch of money. Oh, a plaque. He later navigated northward, leaving. Progressive cant protect you from becoming your parents. But we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. v. Especially when your easily distracted teenager has the car. The worst. 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Most americans in their busy lives havent had an opportunity to read that report and its a pretty dry prosecutorial work product. We want bob mueller to bring it to life to talk about whats in that report. Its a pretty damning set of facts. I have to say i didnt find the Mueller Report dry at all. But lawmakers are bracing for Robert Muellers testimony before the house intelligence and judicial committees echoing what chairman schiff said. A congressional aide tells nbc news committees are anticipating not everyones read the book, meaning muellers report, but people will watch the movie. Joining the conversation now former university of alabama law professor and msnbc contributor joyce vance. Joyce, its great to see you in person, no less, here in washington. Great to see you. What do you think theres been all kinds of speculation, obviously, about what were going to see from Robert Mueller but this is somebody at the end of the day who testified before congress. More than almost anyone else hes one of the top people in this regard because hes been in public life so long and top jobs so long. What do you expect to see him wednesday and how are democrats going to handle this correctly and how potentially could they handle it the wrong way . Im a big believer and always was a big believer as a prosecutor to listening to my witnesses and where they stood in court. Muellers made it very clear hes reluctant. I think particularly the democrats that will be questioning him would be will to remember that and realize hes pretty serious he will stick to whats in the report and thats good for the democrats. Because whats in the report is pretty damaging. This is an opportunity to move through it. I think its a little bit difficult because we will hear first from judiciary, and they will question about the obstruction piece and later from house intel when they talk about the russian connections. This is an opportunity, and like you i found it to be riveting but very time consuming. A lot of people have not had the time to read the report. This will be an effective cliff notes version. When it came