He is an unbelievable politician. I love the president. I know hes picking up about 300,000 followers a day, god bless him. People love him. It has been a very successful Life Experience for President Trump to be President Trump. Thank you. The newly minted White House Communications director communicating his love for the president on friday Anthony Scaramucci. Also hit the sunday shows and jumped into the dangerous waters of trying to manage a message in the middle of a president ial tweet storm. Were going to see how he d meanwhile, just off this morning, Jared Kushner is said to answer questions today from staffers of the senate intel committee. But he just released a very long statement detailing his encounters with russias ambassador and kremlin linked lawyer. Were looking through it right now. John is reading it. Can you give us a nugget yet . Its very long. Its quite long. Jared kushner seems to be saying here the following things, one, i was in charge mostly with contacts with foreigners and foreign governments and foreign contacts during the campaign. Almost all of those were in response to incoming calls and emails not me reaching out to those people. He gives an account of when he first met kissly as at the Mayflower Hotel. He says briefly meaningless. Then he gives an accounting of the meeting that is in contention which he essentially says i dont know what it was b i showed up a little bit late. They talked about adoptions a little bit and i didnt really want to be there and no big deal. Again that, is a very, very rough account. It is many pages long. Im still absorbing. This was just put out moments ago. I guess theyre preparing for this meeting but also potentially preparing this all night. Good morning, everyone. Its monday, july 24th. Its always action packed on morning joe. Joe has the morning off. With us we have analyst for nbc news, john heilemann, associate editor of commentator magazine, clint watts, former White House Press secretary to president obama now msnbc political analyst, josh earnest. And nbc news capitol hill correspondent casey hunt joins us and David Ignacious is with us as well. President trump put his message out on twitter sending 19 tweets from his personal account alone. And among the ten he sent 8 30 on saturday morning was this one. While all agree the u. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is leaks against us. Fake news. The president s lawyer had denied any accusation of pardons as nonsense. After the Washington Post reported trum Health Care Plan asked advisors about pardoning powers. A member of trumps outside legal team continued to make that argument yesterday. The new Communications DirectorAnthony Scaramucci said the president had discussed the issue with him. We have not and continue to not have conversations with the president of the United States regarding pardons. Pardons have not been discussed. And pardons are not on the table. Im in the oval office with the president the last week. Were talking about that. He says he brought that up, he said, but he zdoesnt have to b pardoned. There is nobody around him that has to be pardoned. He was making the statement about the power of pardon. Why is he tweeting about pardons . Well, i think the unfortunately he may have had a conversation in the oval office or somewhere about it and then people rush out to leak that information to people. Its very unprofessional and very harmful. I think that the gist of that leak basically or that tweet, i should say, is that hes not going to pardon anybody. He just doesnt like the fact he has a two minute conversation in the oval office or in his study and people are running out and leaking that. All right. Josh, first of all, how is Anthony Scaramucci doing . You can see how what a careful dance it is. It is a careful dance. I think we learned and hopefully anthony learned on sunday morning the difference between being an outside advocate for the president of the United States on Cable Television and being responsible for managing the entire messaging operation of the white house. Its a real problem when youre out there saying Something Different than either the president is tweeting or the White House Press secretary is also taking on television on just a different channel. Remember, they had conflicting messages as it relates to whether or not President Trump would approve of and sign this russia sanctions bill that is making its way throughout congress. And i would say you have to pace yourself in that job. I mean, you know from being in the position of press secretary the incoming is unbelievable. This president could change on a dime in the middle of your speaking on tv is what we learned over the past six months. One way or another, look, there are a variety of things that made shawn spicers job really hard. Certainly one of them is constantly income a position and being worried about being undermined by the president without any warning. On twitter. And the question really is shawn spicer never had the kind of relationship with President Trump that mr. Scaramucci clearly has. And so the question is what kind of how will that affect the dynamic of his ability to lead the operation . And how effective will anthony be in using some of that good will he has with the president to give sarah a better shot here. Anthony scaramucci had quite a career before this job. And it was not necessarily connected with trump. I will say his tone appears to be i just hope he hasnt taken any type of loyalty oath. I mean, i dont know if that ever really exists. But there certainly was discussion of that. David, im going to go to you. Im curious, we have a lot of other things to talk about with you, but what you thought about the president s tweet about pardoning. I felt the fact that he confirmed that there had been a discussion as reported last week with his aides by saying my pardoning powers are absolute, clearly told us that he is extremely agitated about this investigation. He then called it a phoney russia witchunt. He isnt able in his own mind to get free of it. It nags at him. He has i had soninlaw going to testify this morning in a crucial bit of testimony which were still trying to unravel what he wants to say. I thought the tweet showed us that president , however much he talks about governing and getting back to his agenda, is himself personally preoccupied. Hes trying to get order out of the chaos of his white house with scaramucci. Good luck with that. The initial day scaramucci was disagreeing with his own press secretary. Its clear that the splits in this administration and this white house, in fact, go much deeper. These are really now quite bitter rivalries. The white house chief of staff is clearly undercut by at pointment pointhe appoint ma appoint. Of scaramucci. So its a white house that really is the cracks are showing more now. I agree. Ill talk more about this later. But Anthony Scaramucci has a huge opportunity here to do the right thing. I feel like hes missed a few opportunities in ee raisirasing tweets and love for the president. How about love for the country . How about because i love the country and i want to do the right thing and leave it at that . I feel this repettive obsession with saying he loves trump is concerning although it is just the beginning and we will see how it plays out. Clint, with the testimony that is happening today, Jared Kushner releasing a huge statement. Were pouring through it. What are your big concerns heading into this week . I think what i want to know with kushner is if you remember back, its hard to remember all the revelations. We were talking about a secret Communications Channel with russia. Why would we need to set that up . Why would kushner need to set that up . If i was in the intel committees that, is the top thing i drive on. The other one is the financial connections. Whether he has personal connections or not, how much debt, how much money transactions, what kind of real estate deals do we have with this country . Theres an account as you get deeper into this statement by Jared Kushner, theres an account of that matter. His version again, ill summarize. His version is meaning with kislyak in december, a meeting he claims kislyak wanted, asked for repeatedly. He did not. He said he didnt have time to schedule it for about a week. Finally got on the calendar. He went. They talked. Kislyak told him that he wanted, he, kislyak, had information from russian generals about the situation in syria that he wanted to convey to the incoming administration. And he, kislyak, asked if there was a secure line into the transition that they could use in order to convey that information. Kushner and Michael Flynn who was also in the meeting replied to him that, no, there is no such secure line. At which point kushner says he then asked is there a secure line that you might have so we can have this conversation . He then claims kislyak said no and that was the end of the conversation. Just reading you the kushner version. This all came out in the past hour. So were doing our best to get through it. Clearly Jared Kushner is looking to clear his name and move on. Today kushner expected to answer questions from staff of the Senate Intelligence committee as we mentioned investigating russia. The interview will be conducted behind closed doors and kushner will not be under oath. That june 2016 meeting at trump you to we are donald trump jr. And a russian lawyer expected to be at the top of the agenda. As weve been saying just in this morning is a copy of the statement to congressional investigators. Hes expected to say that trump jr. Invited him to the meeting but at that time he did not know who else would be there. And didnt read the entire email. The only concern about that is the subject line was pretty clear. The first word was russia. The first word was rush yachlt a rifd at the meeting a little late. When i got there the person who has since been identified as a russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on u. S. Adoptions of russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well spent at this meeting. Looking for an excuse to leave, kushner says he emailed an assistant to call his cell. He claimed there were ten minutes or so and that he had never met with the russian attorney before that meeting nor has he spoken with her since. Kushner could also face questions over transparency. We learned late friday that his financial forms were revised to include almost 80 assets that were omitted in previous disclosures. Kushner has also had to update his security clearance forms several times to include previously undisclosed meetings with foreign nationals. Hes expected to tell the congressional panel, i did not collude nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on russian funds to finance my Business Activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my sf86 form. Above and beyond what is required. Hopefully this puts these matters to rest. Casey, anything else standing out to you . Im just trying to wrap my head around this entire statement and what it means in context. I would say that this is essentially the chaos and sloppiness defense. Essentially Jared Kushner is explaining away point by point all of the concerning things and we just ticked through some of them. And offering his version of events that essentially makes things that may seem to be problematic simply the result of somebody overlooking something, of the chaos of the campaign in the case of the sf8 6. He said the assistant hit too soon because they misinterpret the his instructions and that resulted he is entangled in trying to explain yes didnt list the contacts. You just mentioned in that statement him wanting to leave the meeting with the russian lawyer. There was an email that was sent so there is a paper trail where he says can you please call me on my cell . Need an excuse to get away. He said thats because he walked into the meeting and immediately decided it was a waste of time, not that he decided there was something that was potentially problematic and that he needed to remove himself from the situation. And i will say from my reporting on how this is going talking to members of the committee privately, this is to a certain extent i think the opening that republicans who want to find a reason to defend the president are looking to give them. Theyre essentially saying, look, there couldnt be a collusion here because nobody was in any position to collude. Everybody was drinking out of a fire hose. So i think thats the direction youre going to see this go over the course of today. Clint, the sf86 . Yeah. One of my bigger problems with all of this is the sf86. That is your essentially your own personal testimony about your qualifications, you know, your history, work history. I just know from having worked in government, i probably have filled out a dozen sf86s in my career. If i made those kinds of mistakes, id be immediately flagged or, you know, held out for review. And probably rejected. And so i think thats a major oversight. And now were looking at someone who has been tasked we normous responsibility in this administration to solve what are supposedly many different Foreign Policy technical issues. We put it all to rest on this one person and now were finding out that this are hundreds of contacts, lots of Financial Disclosure forms that have not been filled out yet were putting this person in charge of this. So were reading a really long statement put out this morning by Jared Kushner who expected to answer questions from the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Staff today. Noah, you write in kmen taker yish kmen taker yishgs you write this, if the 2016 president ial election cycle demonstrated anything, it was that republicans suffer if a crippling lack of imagination. The ordeal should have established that the unprecedent the is not impossible. Even now republicans seem as though theyre trying to convince themselves that their eyes are lying to them but theyre not. The tempo of the investigation into President Trump is accelerating and the nightmare scenario is eminently imaginable. Only could Congressional Republicans overt disaster and then being clear about the actions theyre prepared to take if trump insti gates a crisis of constitutional legitimacy, they have to summon them publicly. If theyre so concerned that norms and tradition thats preserved the rule of law in this republic for 240 years are in jeopardy, they must say so. Know yashgs you kn noah, one more move like he fires mueller, Something Like that, are republicans ready to step up . Is that question youre asking . That is the question im asking. Im not sure of the answer. That New York Times interview suggested he threw kind of a brushback pitch at the special counsels office and in order to make a move against thash he has to move against the department of justice, suggest that rose enstein would have to fire mueller. If he is not so inclined, then he would have to ask for a resignation from the department of justice. Then we get into a territory where were talking about the 1973 analogy dont seem so hyperbolic anymore. Republicans are free to, very eager to criticize this president on background, on condition of anonymity. What will they do when it matters . David, on the russia angle, you had kellyanne conway, not sure why but she was interviewed talking about the russia story being just a joke or something. I forget her words. I dont really listen to them. But also Anthony Scaramucci talking about the president not sold on first of all, just characterize for us, do you it this russia story is a big story . I think it is one. More to the point, its a story thats being investigated by a special counsel highly respected lawyer robert mueller. He is now commanding the resources of the fbi, of a staff of top investigators and prosecutors that hes assembled. So its very real. Its an on going investigation. I last week was at a conference in aspen, colorado, where almost all of the top current and former National Security officials were in attendance. Almost every one of them said emphatically that they endorsed the conclusion of the u. S. Intelligence committee that there was russian meddling in the 2016 president ial election. Thats president something that President Trump even now is uncomfortable doing. In one of tweets over the weekend he referred again to the phoney russia witch hunt and scaramucci said in one of his interviews that when he talked with the president the president says it may have happened. It may not have happened. They may have done it. They may not have done it. Its still this ambiguous uncertain tone not reflected by any of his intelligence aides. So, yes, this is something that the top analysts of intelligence say is real, thats being investigated by our congress and by the special counsel. The president really stands alone in his insistence that this is a witchunt and phoney. Yeah. Im hearing from the white house as well that Jared Kushner is really working on trying to be trans