Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20170921

Deal, but he wont reveal his decision, apparently fought even to his own secretary of state and this morning, there are some major developments in this russia probe from both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Is the investigation getting closer and closer to the white house . Weve got the reportert from both those papers who broke those stories and President Trump has continually said hes done more in the first months of his presidency than practically any president in history. But a new poll out this morning shows people dont quite agree with that. I guess it depends on what you mean. We begin with the latest on Hurricane Maria, though, now, lashing the eastern Dominican Republic with its destructive category 3 winds. All yesterday, the storm pounded puerto rico throwing the entire island of 3. 5 Million People into darkness. The island is also without water and Cell Phone Service t. Monster hurricane smashed into the already struggling u. S. Territory as a category 4 storm, flooding homes and according to officials there, 70 of homes on the im had their rooves ripped off. Joining us from san juan, puerto rico, nbc news correspondent Tammy Leitner. Tammy. Reporter good morning. You know as the sun comes up here in san juan, residents will give some of them their first look at the devastation and it is heart breaking. Were standing outside of a bank and can you see that the doors just completely blew off the bank t. Shutters are twisted, mangled messes here. From what weve seen, this is what it looks look, pleas after place, businesses with the rooves ripped off, streets that have become rivers. The freeways are completely flooded. Many of them impassable because of the streets and the downed power lines. But one of the biggest problems is, they still dont know the extent of the damage. We spoke with the mayor, who was very emotional. Lets go ahead and listen to what she has to say. Im 54yearsold, ive never seen devastation like this one. The puerto rico and san juan we knew yesterday is no longer there. So we have to reconstruct, rebuild, reinvent. We have to be resilient. And we have to push on. If not with our bodies, with our hearts and our souls. I am concerned we may not get to everybody in time. And that is reporter obviously, shes very emotional. Because at this point we really dont know the extent of the damage. Not until officials are able fly over the island and check some of the more remote parts of puerto rico. Places we visited in the days leading up to the storm, where there is very little Running Water still from irma, where people live in tin and wood houses. So theres still a lot to be seen of what type of damage there is. Back to you. Thank you very much. Lets go straight to meteorologist bill karins with a check on the storms latest track. Bill. Good morning. Typically, after huge storms like this it takes twotothree days to get a proper assessment of how bad it was and the damage is. We are 24 hours after that. We will get more pictures today. It doesnt help the whole island doesnt have power a. 50 miles wide, lashing the Dominican Republic t. Story overnight was the torrential rains would not stop over the island t. Entire island, which is 100 miles west to east is under a flash flood warning. The Weather Service says catastrophic flooding continues on the island because of the heavy rain. We are starting to get a few images in, a few pictures of the hardest hit areas. This is down towards where the eye made landfall. This gentleman was trying to find if he had valuables left in the house. You see the concrete structure, the base, it was fine. He obviously lost a wall off the roof. Structures behind it, lost roof, roof damage. This is the issue we will deal with. People dont have anywhere to live. They cant stay in these structures, let alone the water and food issues in the days ahead. This is also in the same area, look at the trees, all the leaves stripped. More rooves damaged. This is in san juan, this is an Apartment Building with obvious structural damage. A lot of water was still in the streets in the areas. This will be recedeing today. Today will be about clearing the streets. It will be about getting help to the people that need it the most and power lines and power problems will be the biggest issue. Broken power poles, firefighters trying to clear the way for the rescue cruise. Thats what today is about rescuing. No more damage in puerto rico from winds today, the wind damage is done. Thank you very much now to the urgent scene in mexico, where crews race against the clock to try and find survivors intur u buried we nieto the rubble in the wack of that 7. 1 earth quack. Officials say the death toll has been raised to at least 230 people, 100 of those deaths coming in mexico city alon. Crews have been desperately searching for those trapped in collapsed buildings, listening in silence for signs of life. In the capital cities, rays of hope amany id the destruction after 52 people were rescued from the rubble of a building there yesterday. Elsewhere in mexico city, a much more grim scene as teams have been working throughout the night to free a young girl trapped beneath the remnants of her school. Officials say 21 children and four adults were killed when that building caved if, during the middle of classes on tuesday afternoon. Joining us from mexico city, nbc news correspondent Steve Patterson who is at that school. Steve. Reporter mika, the entire focus of this nation is right here. This is the school where 21 young Elementary Schoolage children were killed after that earthquake struck. I want to show you whats going on here. People right now are searching for some glimmer of hope. They have found it. But the operation right now is dire. It is a race against time. They believe that young girl is trapped somewhere back in that debris pile. You see crew members and rescue workers on top there. They are looking, they are focused. They are searching and pulling out piece by piece by hand, pieces of this debris that has crushed and crumbled when that school collapsed. It was a fourstory building. It just folded on top of itself, trapping and killing those 21 Young Students and then four other teaches and administrators. They do believe that 12yearold girl again is inside there and also because theyve identified her location, shes given them some sign that she is alive. According to local officials, they believe there are other heat signatures inside there, meaning that there may be more people trapped inside alive that they may be able to rescue. As we have been mentioning all morning long, it is entering 48 hours, there is a sign of hope. There is a lot more to be done here on scene. Steve patterson, thank you, we will be following these natural disasters all morning long. With us now on the set of morning joe, we have ms nbc contributor mike barnacle, ms nbc news contributor Mark Halperin. Capitol hill correspondent casey hunt in washington and a lot to get to this morning. A lot to get to. Weve got the daily news, actually, this is quite an interesting headline. I want your papers, bob mueller is uncle sam. Oh. Theres that. A lot of stories on russia developing. President ial politics and polls showing the president s numbers actually have been moving up over the past couple of weeks. And then i just got to say the inexplicable coming from republicans on capitol hill again. The donors, all i can say the donors must be extraordinarily persuasive because they have moved to put their lands on the burning stove again and theres just no reason, but theyre doing it. What is it, the third time . Fourth time . Ive lost count. Its sad for the country. Its a big waste of time. Its sad for the republican, themselves. Senate a ma jeter leader Mitch Mcconnell said the latest effort to repeal and replace obamacare will be on the floor again next week. Republicans are fighting for the 50 votes needed to pass the budget reconciliation period that ends a week from saturday. After that 60 votes are required to aphiladelphia to a filibuster. But critical republican senators, like alaskas Lisa Murkowski still if doubt. Reporter are you ready to support it . Nope. Reporter why not . Because i am doing the Due Diligence that ive committed to doing yesterday. What i have had an opportunity to do is to sit down with my team, who sat down with hhs, and we are fer eting out lots of numbers and we are continuing to do that. Well, first of all you meet with hhs, you better be at your local aviation airport, to meet every plane that comes in, to see if hhs is on a private plane. Well get to that late zpler they need their comfortable travel, those members of the administration. Theyre into luxury, unlike the rest of america. Only four or five times a week. But they will make America Great again. Senator mccain continued to calm for a regular order to consider the Health Care Bill and President Trump reacted on twitter to another republican opponent of the bill yesterday tweeting, rand paul is a friend of mine, but he is such a negative force when it comes to fixing health care. Yesterday evening the president spoke about the bill from republican senators Lindsey Graham and bill cassidy and fended his producesstration with the process. I believe that Graham Cassidy really will do it the right way. There is tremendous support from republicans, certainly with 47 or 48 already senators and a lot of others think of it positively. Mike pence has been working on it, our Vice President has done such a great job for health care and knows health care so well. I thought one on one i would go to the oval office sit down on my desk and there would be a Health Care Bill on my desk to be honest. It hasnt worked out that way. I think a lot of republicans are embarrassed by it. Oh my god. A couple days ago, first of all, he doesnt really know whats in the bill. He hasnt known whats been in any of these Health Care Bills. Hes just wanted anything to sign. And it makes you wonder, what would have happened if sevenandahalf, eight months ago they had started with a process and theyve had regular order and they had marshalled through the process regularly instead of drafting something quickly, having two or three people do it. Shove it down everybodys vote throats and have the president say he leaks it and the president says its a mean bill, et cetera, et cetera, if they had done at this time right way this reminds me, mika, one good thing she tells the women and the men who are these comptist itself, when it comes to success, there are no short cuts and you have a senate, Mark Halperin, that has been taking one short cut after another short cut. They havent gone 32 another order, they havent had hearings. They said we have an idea, we will reorder onesixth of the economy without going through the right committees, without really letting the members know whats inside the bills, without getting scoring from the Congressional Budget Office and without knowing what the impact is of our reordering onesixth of the economy from washington, d. C. Now, that is something that head monday berke would have called radical, something russell kirk would have called radical, something in his time paul ryan would have called radical, something that Mitch Mcconnell would have called you cant reorder onesixth of the United States economy without a committee hearing, without regular order without a cbo score. Without being a dangerous radical. And i dont understand how they think they will get away with that and how some of my friends and they are flendz friends, thats why it hurts so much, are getting on tv and lying every day to the American People. Lying through their teeth about whats in that bill and whats not in this bill. They also dont have the support of any major segment of the Health Care Industry. There you go. Which is important of the grass roots of the country. On the politics of this, theyre actually today closer to getting a senate vote, a Successful Senate vote and house bill than they were yesterday according to congressional people i talked to. So this could happen. But the substance of it is, is really problematic to the party. Theyre doing many of them, theyre making many of the same mistakes president obama made in passing health care, first and foremost in being honest and who will impact and that will pass and if it does pass, that will be a huge problem. Isnt it over the course of a year . We were talking about health care hearings and Health Care Committees and votes and we were talking about that for six, seven, ache, nine months, where they were actually going through a process. I hate it. The result. I didnt it to pass. I was upset it passed. But they went through a regular process. There is a hay, lets go from secret, write a bill as fast as we can. Dont tell anybody whats in it. Shove it down the American Peoples throat. I want to read you two tweets to your point right now from may 4th 2017. Are you ready . I appreciate the apparent progress on Health Care Reform in the house. I will admit i am concerned with a process. The bill has not been scored. Three hours final debate should be viewed with caution. Whose tweets were those . Senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina. Wow. That was him talking about the process fourandahalf months ago, now hes leading this process in the exactly the same way it was conducted in may. Now wants a vote on it next week without all that regular ord you talked about. Mike barnical, nobody knows whats in this bill. Whats so stunning about this ill just say this, what is so inhumane about this is, there are people who depend on ped cade on sort of health care that we are talking about, about the guarantees that have been given, that are going to be stripped away and have that process, have those hearings. Let the senators, let the congressmen hear who is going to be hurt by the bill, instead of seeing this in story six months after a bill passes and i promise you, republicans, heres once that will pay in the end. You think im being a son of a bitch right now . No you should listen to me, you will end up paying horribly in the end. I dont know what pressure you think you are under right now. Wait until you go back to your voters supporting this bill. It is, its inhuh pain . Joe the mystifying thing about this is, we could have taken this block off and shown 134g when we were talking about the same issue in may or april or june as mark pointed out, into the single legitimate medical group, hospital association, Doctors Association is behind this. We dont know whats in the bill t. Cbo hasnt scored it. We have senator after senator after senator on this program. We ask questions about this bill. They really dont know whats contained in the bill. They go right to blocked grants. If you take a look at the list of blocked france, what it does, its astounding the number of states that voted for Hillary Clinton. Theyre talking points. I saw a republican senator last night say the same thing five times, i trust my people more than i trust a bureaucrat in washington, d. C. I trust the people in my state more than i trust the faceless bureaucrat in washington, d. C. Great. Awesome. We have been saying that since the ice age. I get it. It doesnt apply here. The bottom line is they will vote on something that will seriously disrupt the economy, onesixth of the economy, more importantly will seriously disrupt hundreds of thousands of people in this country. Multitudes of families in this country without knowing what theyre voting for. And will create hurt the most. State by state chaos. You have to rebuild basically 50 marketplaces over a couple of years. Casey hunt, we saw you in that Lisa Murkowski sound pooit in hot pursuit getting answers from her. What is different from this bill than the last one for her . Whats the selling point from senators cassidy and graham to someone like Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins who said i cant vote for this because of the rollback of Medicaid Expansion and things inside. Why would they change this too im . Reporter ill tell you what this is about, guys, its not about process. Its about politics. Very pure and simple politics. Its pause all of these members of Congress Went home. They talked not just to people if their districts, but to their big donors, maybe they dont like the president. But they look at congress and they say, what the hell are you guys do something are you not doing anything and the money started to dry up a bit. Its scared a lot of people and its kind of changed the fundamental mood on capitol hill around it. Leadership didnt want to get back into this. They wanted to basically prove themselves to all of those contradiction on tax reform. There was a lean of thinking that said, look, we can go, we can build a big tax reform bill and do what we want. Theyll forget about what happened on health care, but the administration seized on the plan from Lindsey Graham and bill cassidy. One of the things i think we should make sure to focus on the substance, will you asked about the policy in this bill. They are working hard to try to cut deals for the alaska senators, for example to get them on board here. But there is something in this bill that would not interest some of the previous iterations. That is a pretty big loophole for people with preexisting conditions. Thats what jimmy kimmel has been talking about. He has gone back and forth over whether cassidy is a liar. This bill states to ask people not with preexisting conditions to have to not layout their plan to cover those people. But there is no guarantees in there that the insurance that those people ends up would be affordable. It will be like trying to buy a porsche. It would be available for them to buy for a lot of money if not affordable. Lets be clear, casey, just to make sure, that everybody understands this debate thats going back and forth, there is no federal garp tee of Affordable Health care for people with preexisting conditions and the cassidy bill. Is that correct . Reporter states would initially have to do that. But any state could apply for a waiver to that requirement and in order to be granted the waiver, they have to ask the health and Human Services department, say, hey, we dont want to have to do this this is how we think we will cover those people that might lose it. But they dont have to follow through. All a state would have to do would be to call and get the secretary of hhs on a private jet. They have phones on them. His are probably, good, have the phones on there. And so they call him and lets face it. He and his department are going to give a waiver to any state that wants a waiver. They are hostile. To those productions and have been hostile from the very beginning. Theres a lot of risks for people here. I think thats why youve seen, jimmy kimmel has gone emotional and public about it. There is a reason why. Its very uncertain, because it would depend very much on the state in which you live. Would california ask for an exemption to this . Probably not. But it could create some Serious Problems for people that live if states that do want to get rid of these requirements and special health preventative care, maternity care, they can ask for a waiver from those kind of things. Lets be clear, casey, there is, i know we have to go to brake. Mike will Say Something real quick. But i get it. Its really important to say, there is a waiver and the guarantee the protection it was a passed if 2009 for people with pre visiting conditions to be able to get Affordable Health Care Insurance will no longer exist. That guarantee will no longer exist if this bill passes. Correct . That is my reading of this bill, joe, it will become a decision that is state by state and dependent on these waivers and depending on the states you go through. For senator bill cassidys, to help him out here. Its not a personal attack to say that what you are saying is fought true. Its called the difference between telling the truth and telling people a lie. Actually, you can call it a lie. Its not a personal attack. Its not personal. Personal would be tweeting it to someone that they were bleeding from a facelift. Okay. That would be personal. But lying to the American People about health care, people are so tired of you. And theyre tired of washington. And theyre tired of that . Who would ever go casey. Please. Stop lying. Reporter dont lie. Casey, it your understanding that this bill is better for the Insurance Companies than what exists for them now . Reporter so thats an interesting question, mike. Not necessarily. They, the Blue Cross Association actually came out and said they warned people saying, hey, this could undermine coverage for pre existing conditions. One thing this bill does is get rid of the individual mandate to buy insurance and the employer mandate to provide it. So that to a certain extent is problematic for Insurance Companys business models. Right . Because that potentially examiners that they lose t. Reality here too is we dont know everything about whats in this bill yet. It started out as about 140 pages. Theyre cutting deals behind the scenes. Some people say its getting as long as three pages. I havent confirmed that yet. There is still very many up in process. There is no reason why Lisa Murkowski voted for the last bill. No reason why Susan Collins voted for this bill. There is no reason that john mccain voted against the last bill, would vote for this bill. There is certainly no reason rand paul would. Hes fought financial to. Such a negative force. Yeah, thats what the president said about him. But, yeah, it just, it makes absolutely no sense. We bought the to go to break a. Quick wrap. One reason they vote for it. Its their last chance to fulfill the partys promises. It has reached the president s deck the president will then be faced with signing or vetoing a bill that will not fulfill the deals he made as a candidate. It would make am liar. It will make him look bad. Whether hes focused top details or not. In that tweet he has, i think he will struggle to violate the things he said he would do . Why wout would anybody trust him at the beginning of the answer, casey reported the men went home to their districts and heard from dofors no not nurses, not doctors. Not patients. And so now theyre coming out and in Lindsey Grahams case doing something he didnt leak doing a couple months ago which is to rush this through and suggesting at the . You see what Lindsey Graham is dock. Sometimes if i ever got in trouble, i would get if trouble for what i say, i would get if trouble for saying things like this its just so obvious that Lindsey Graham is feeling the heat at home for a thousand Different Reasons and so we have to come up with a bill that he can run around and say, oh, you know, i had this great idea to take all the power back to the states, repeople and replace obamacare. I almost, you know, i almost said a word i shouldnt say on air, its such bs. Its such bs. And republicans you worry about your donors, youre worried about special Interest Groups instead of listening to patients, instead of listening to voters, instead of listening to doctors, instead of listening to nurses, instead of listening to people who are on the front lines of keeping persons healthy. It is actually if this bill passes shameful and im quite confident that john mccain will not want to be remembered for doing something leak this, that blows up regular order, that says the hell to the marine people the hell to everybody, were going to cower at the feet of ourselfish fat greedy donors. No on that note this morning, we will be joined by republican senators jeff flake and ron johnson. Well ask them why theyre supporting the latest plan to take down obamacare . Plus, President Trump is looking to tip the scales in Alabama Senate primary. He backs the sitting senator, but steve bannon doesnt. The Washington Post bob costa has more reporting on that, the gop and what it may mean for the midterm. First, well talk to two of the reporters who broke the latest round of the headlines surrounding the investigation into russia and the president ial election. Well tell you where bob mueller is drilling down next on morning joe. Hes going deep. 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Thats taken off. Can you stop there, seriously, that is, you know, because, everybody used to love watching perimason, i watched the rerun, right . Nobody really breaks down on the stand and says, oh my god, i did it, i did it . Nobody does that. But donald trump mike barnical, its the final scene in every perry mason tv show, except he did it in the oval office on his own when the Russian Foreign minister and the Russian Ambassador to the United States was there. He literally laid out the case for obstructing justice. To continue with the perry mason analogy, hamilton berger who is the District Attorney wouldnt even have to ask a question. Right. Just let the guy talk. Hes talking himself special counsels office made a request from the white house, donald trump jr. Is meeting with russian lawyer in the summer of 2016 the Washington Post reports mueller asked the white house for any email do you means that relates to Paul Manafort, according to two sources briefed open the q. The paper says less than two weeks before trump accepted the republican president ial nomination, his Campaign Chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to russian billionaire oleg deripaska, who is closely aligned with the kremlin. Get this. Go hes closely aligned. Thats the first thing ronal reagan did. Manafort who wrote to a gobetween, if he needs private briefings, we can accommodate a. Spokesman for manafort confirmed to nbc news the authenticity and said they had been turned over to a congressional committee. But as the paper notices. Isnt that something james baker did when he was running a campaign for britiezhnev, if he wants a briefing on what were doing in western iowa. Its a tradition, bob straus withining johnsons campaign in 19 skating, he had ho chi minh on the phone all the time. These were pro active emails, reaching out, saying, hay, if you want to know whats going on, well accommodate you, why would you do such a thing . Thats what bob mueller will be interested in. Who in the world would think there was collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia if you are saying, hey, you want to get sla vlad or the phone. There is no information that briefings took place and a spokes woman for deripaska dismissed it as a culting scheming consulting scheming. He was at the campaign at the xhig. So not a consultant but actually chairman of president ial campaign. All right. Lets get to richmond, virginia. New york times reporter Michael Schmidt who broke the Mueller Probe story and staff where irfor the Washington Post carol lennoc who had bilines for the trump investigations on her paper. Lets start with Paul Manafort. Just a consultant, just a lonely consultant, this is just scheming, so they say. Tell us what in the world, what was the prelude to this extraordinary offer . Reporter so, are you right, its a startling offer. It is fought a typical thing for the chairman of the president ial candidate for the Republican Party to say, hey, be i the way, im trying to figure out a way to use my prominent role in this president ial race to make some money. And that is essentially what Paul Manaforts emails suggest. Paul manafort was in a lot of debt. He appeared to be a person who is looking to be repaid several outstanding bills from various foreign nationals, including this very Prominent Russian billionaire, one of the most el withthy men in russia and a person who was very much angling to find a way to get into the United States. Hes been denied visas to do. That hes been trying every way he can, Political Consulting pressure, pr, to physical out how to fet a visa so he can travel into the u. S. And. Cant he just invest in one of those buildings that jerrys sister is talking ab . That might be a good way in. I think he found a pretty prominent advocate if Paul Manafort who said we cannot accommodate you. Id like to help you. Its a very strange place to be as a leader oafter this campaign where your interests appear to be and how to get some money from a russian billionaire while are you running this office. Michael schmidt. You got the front page piece in the New York Times today about the muellers inquiry into seeking do you mean itself on the trump firings. What does it tell you what bob mueller is up to . We suspect this is going to be a wide and deep investigation. But what more did you learn from that request . You are right. We did suspect that mueller was looking at things related to trumps time in office. We really didnt know details about it and what we learned here was sort of the scope of bit at least the breath at least of what he is looking at. Its stuff of trumps handling of flynn, handling of comey, how the white house responded to these questions about the meeting their Company Officials had in 2016 with russians promises derogatory information about hillary. It struck us so many things the president was directly involved in, that turned out to be pivotal in his presidency are things that mueller is, indeed, interested in. And we had some details about that. We thought that was significant. So what do we expect to find inside those, to the extent you know and can share . What specifically is bob mueller looking at . Thats the thing we dont know. What mueller is looking for is emails between white house officials in the leadup to the comey firing. Sort of talking about, well, what was the president thinking. Hes trying to understand one giant answer, why did the president fire comey . Why did he fire flynn . There are notes that officials have that talk about that reveal what the president was thinking. Why the president was doing what he did. So what the white house has had to do, its had to go through its males, its notes, everything, to come up with documents to give to muller. There are questions whether there is privilege issue, whether the white house will hand over all these things, ty cobb the lawyer the president hired to hand him these things that sort of leaned forward on this and wants to hand over as many things as possible. He thinks the more he gives to mueller the more likely they are to quickly clear themselves. Lots of incredible detail, legal detail in your story today. I want to take you up to 30,000 feet, to the point that people have long suspected but fleshed out today in their reporting, which is, does the independent counsel have reason to believe that flynn or manafort have things to say about the president that they would trade in exchange for leniency . Reporter well, clearly bob mueller think there is is a reason to lean on both of them. You can see in our reporting and the times reporting the pressure being brought to bear on both men, indeed, there are people that believe the special count sell has learned quite a bit from the former National Security adviser Michael Flynn. Whether or not either of those men have great inappropriate sight into the president s possible knowledge about russian interests in his campaign is still to be seen. I have heard lots of our sources say that they believe flynn had a lot more personal oneonone contact with the president and also with his soninlaw, Jared Kushner and was much more connected with both of them in terms of their discussions about meetings with foreign officials and a transition and even in the campaign. But the striking thing is i like that you want to focus on the 30,000 feet t. Striking thing about flynn and manafort is we now see evidence that both of them were figuring out how to use this campaign to make some money and that again makes you feel leak both of them were vulnerable to doing things for someone besides the u. S. Government or u. S. Candidate. Absolutely. Michael, thanks to the post and the times we know a lot of content. What does this latest round tell you about the pace of bob muellers investigation . It seems like hes moving very quickly. I think whether or not mueller would admit this there is a fair amount of pressure on himle to resolve the as soon as possible. This has cast a big cloud over the white house. There are significant questions. This is certainly dogging the president. If there is nothing there, i believe people believe the president is due to sort of be cleared. But if there is something there, i this mueller feels that i have to move with a fast pace. We had a story by my colleagues a few days ago how aggressive mueller is. He executed this search warrant on manaforts apart in july. They were taking pictures of muellers suits. They picked a lock. Its a very aggressive move and shows that theyre moving at a strong clip and a fast pace. All right. Washington post and the New York Times Michael Schmidt. Thank you for your reporting. Just a side note. Willie geist and i do not judge anybody who are trying to get money from russian billionaires and ole gar accounts, wed like to own a soccer team. Coming up on morning joe you cant do it, though, in the middle of a president ial campaign when are you running a president ial campaign, can you . Unless you thought you were going to lose. You dont think this gold man sax job has come in . You keep saying that, at some point, russian billionaires. Okay. So lets move on now. Okay. Coming up on morning joe, secretary of state Rex Tillerson weighs in on the iran nuclear deal. But he doesnt have much to add. Thats ahead on morning joe. All right. Casey hunt, a lot going on. What are you looking at on the hill today . So one thing i just want to put on your radar that i think we should keep an eye on Going Forward is i think the pressure is ramping up on a lot of these republicans to not get too far away from President Trump ahead of the midterm elections. You are seeing a little of it in the Health Care Debate. I am hearing it more and more behind the scenes, bob corker coming out, doing, not a certainly a public making up with the president and going over, meeting with him at the white house. I dont think he will be the only person who will be making those kind of efforts and i think what you are seeing with health care and donors putting more pressure on republican, not necessarily to be in the president. But to be seen as doing something and having a functioning government where they control the white house and congress, i think thats actually going to push Congressional Republicans and the president closer together and that we may see more of that for the next six months than weve seen of these divisions so far. All right. Whats happening in alabama can be very interesting, too, the president all the way in for Luther Strange, if he wins down there. It certainly sends a message to other republicans to be closer to the president of the United States. So, you know, we have a lot to talk about. Did you see the first ladys speech on bullying . Shes against, shes into this cyberbullying thing as far as wanting to stop people from Cyber Bullying. Apparently not a lot of in the white house. Still ahead the morning joe this. Africa has tremendous business potential. I have so many friends going to your countries trying to get rich. I quality you, theyre spending a congratulates africa on helping a lot of his friends go there and get rich. Stop. Believe me. Were not going to stop. Were going to play that for you. Were also going to tell you the name of a few of the new african countries this is real. All of this. It happens. I mean, i dont know. Seriously . The republican marley, bob marl marley. He has his own republic, right . bell mnemonic vo do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night. We get a gift for mom and dad. , and every year, we split it equally. Except for one of us. I write them a poem instead and one for each of you too that ones actually yours. That one. Regardless, were stuck with the bill. To many, words are the most valuable currency. Last i checked, stores dont take words. Some do. Not everyone can be the poetic voice of a generation. I know, right . Such a burden. The bank of america mobile banking app. The fast, secure and simple way to send money. There was an unbelievably scary moment in the bronx yesterday where the yankees were playing the twins. Play stopped in the fifth inning after a young fan, a little girl in the stands was struck in the head by a 105 Miles Per Hour line drive off todd frazier. Frazier had tears in his eyes during the incident. The toddler was attending the game with her grandparents. Her father and grandfather told reporters last night it was too early to tell if she would need surgery, but shes doing all right and asked that we keep her in our thoughts. The netting is the question. It ends at the home plate side of each dugout. They were extending the netting after a similar incident occurred. I suspect this will go up around all ballparks. The good news is she is going to be okay according to her dad and grant parents. You know whats scary . We go to fenway. Im always worried about my kids on the third and first baseline. Theyve extended the netting to the dugouts, but there was that horrific story last year where the bat went and struck the woman. It can be dangerous down there. Arent they going to get to a point where they put the netting up all the way . I think the biggest factor is the number of people staring at their cell phones while theyre sitting there, not paying attention. One other note on that horrific incident yesterday, youre not going to meet a better human being playing baseball than todd frazier. And the mets have the netting all the way down. I think all these teams are going to follow suit. It doesnt stop from a foul ball with a popup. The balls are going 105 Miles Per Hour. She is going to be they say shes going to be okay. Coming up and on a much lighter note, the pennant race as good as its been. The yankees and red sox just keep winning. Its so funny. Well be talking about nonstop, and its like the yankees wont lose and the red sox wont. Well win the game, ill go to bed before the red sox game, and youve won 8 out of 10. Nobody wants to lose. Okay. Were going to go to break now. Coming up, senators jeff flake and ron johnson. Well go back to the two major disasters, the search for survivors in the deadly earthquake in mexico. Plus the hurricane that plunged the entire island of puerto rico into darkness. Morning joe is coming right back. I count on my dell Small Business advisor for tech advice. With one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. Youre more than just a bathroom disease. Youre a life of unpredictable symptoms. Crohns, youve tried to own us. But now its our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. 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In guinea and nigeria you fought a horrifying e bowly outbroke. Hey, there. Joe scarborough here along with mika brzezinski. I think he meant zanbia. Mark halperin with us, and also jonathan lameri, and robert costa. Great table. You were at the Rex Tillerson briefing yesterday where his response was i dont know. Right. Didnt exactly now what was going on. Whats going on . The president yesterday unplanned announced during his meeting one of his earlier on the sidelines, he reached a decision on the iran deal. We asked. He said ill tell you later. We know the president likes to build suspense. Its his Reality Tv Show background. Later in the day we then see secretary tillerson who gives us a briefing, telegraphs that the president , again, made up his mind but has not shared it with him. He did not realize this was going to be an announcement yesterday. He said theresa may asked whether he would tell her what he decided, and his answer was no. Coming up, the talks with the democrats, President Trump seeing some improvement in the latest round of polling. A new poll shows the Approval Rating at 43 . Thats three points higher than august. 52 of americans disapprove with the president s job rating. The numbers identical to Politico Morning Consult poll finds the president with a net negative rating in single digits, 40 approve, 49 disapprove. The wall street journal poll found 70 of americans support the recent deal with Democratic Leaders to provide Hurricane Relief and keep the government open for 90 days. Mark halperin its phenomenal. We knew it was going to be a big number. But 71 . Its a 70 30 proposition. You have all these people on the far, far, far right basically doing what steve bannon did forever. And it matches up with exactly what weve been saying around this set for eseven and a half months, that the president is playing to 30 and working to engage 70 . Guess what. He reversed that when he stopped listening to the most extreme voices on the far right on talk radio who make money by whipping up their base and so whats happening . His poll numbers are going up . We knew the president was enthused by the News Coverage of the deal. That 71 number will get in front of him. Hell see it as reinforcement that thats the mood of the country. Its hard to get 71 yes on anything given how polarized things are. The other thing that relates is all the congressional leaders, pelosi and the democratic Republican Leaders have low approval numbers. Although the president is low by historic standards, he is the king of the hill. He is the most popular of the leaders in washington. And this number, i think will reinforce that he has the leverage and the freedom to make more deals. You remember the tweet from congressman steve king after the deal where he said the base is gone. Theres another poll that came out yesterday, the monmouth poll. This is trump voters asked how they feel about him working with democrats. Only 8 said they disapproved of him working with democrats. 75 in the poll said he was working the right amount with democrats or he should work more with him. In total, it was 85 that thought he was doing the right thing by getting something done. Hes in Good Standing with them. Steve king tweets out hes going to lose his base. Ann coulter says he should be killed. He should be impeached. Mike pence should be president of the United States. Sean hannity declared its over, exclamation point because he was working in a bipartisan way. Of course, we said on the show, as weve said forever, only because were right, that he should work with democrats. That this americans are sick and tired of washington being seen not working, and they will move to somebody that can make republicans and democrats work together. The president has been playing the lowest common denominator, playing to his lowest 30 , just 30 , mika. Hes reversed the equation. He has. Mika, lets go through the numbers. People are driving. All right. And pretty good. Still voters dont seem to agree hold on. The screen, 83 of republicans are approving of the president from eighty. Independents have jumped to 41 now. Democrats up 2 . Okay. Voters dont seem to agree when the president says hes accomplished more. He hasnt. Well, you have to look at it from a different perspective. Perhaps hes created more divisiveness than any other president , and just 33 think hes accomplished either a great deal or a fair amount. 66 believe hes accomplished only some or very little as president. And on issues, 41 approve the president s handling of the economy. 36 back his approach to north korea. 27 support his stand on health care and some of his weakest approval marks surround his use of twitter and his response to the deadly events in charlottesville where only one in five approve. Lets keep the numbers up. If youre listening to the radio, you will be, i think, like me, heartened by these numbers. His lowest approval is his response to charlottesville. Race relations 25 . Health care 27 . Changing d. C. , 35 . Border security immigration 39 . Those are pretty low numbers. Again, high marks for working across the aisle. For a bipartisan deal, and you wonder whether republicans in the senate are going to see this and get this and actually come up with a Health Care Plan that all americans can embrace. Right. Its a testament to the power of trying to do things bipartisan. Its also showing that the trump base is the trump base, not the Republican Base. These are people who are going to stay with him. Who its the coulter personality. They feel like hes the leader. Theyll go with him. The idea of his famous line id go into fifth avenue and shoot someone and my base would be with me. Working across the aisle is not far from shooting someone j but for some Republican Base voters, the idea of working with nancy pelosi is horrifying. For them, theyll trust him and say with him when he does Something Like that. Think about that. Just think about that. The same republicans that mocked the Mainstream Media for not getting trump space didnt get trump space. Right. They said its over. Hes finished. I mean, themp ty were the ones were clueless. I wrote about it in the Washington Post. Its not about policy. Its about his personality. And if he can get republicans and democrats working together, he will have done something that nobody has done well this century. 8 of trump voters object to him working with democrats. That leaves 92 who have no problem with what hes doing in terms of working with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. Bob costa, let me ask you. No we know President Trump responds to positive affirmation from his voters or from a poll. We remember his Campaign Speeches where he carried around the polls in his front pocket and read through them on a stage. Whats this portend for the future . Does he look at the numbers . Does he look at the results and say this is the way to do business . Im going to reach across the aisle and invite schumer and pelosi to the oval office more often . Another part of this story that we have to put into our calculation as we answer the question is the president s work with the republican establishment and whether the base will tolerate that as well. You think about his efforts in the upcoming Alabama Senate primary runoff. He supported the establishment favorites, Luther Strange, the election is on tuesday. If that goes in a different way, theres some rconcern inside th white house, will it tilt the president away from his current work with democrats, his allegiance with the current establishment. And theres the unpredictability factor. Thats why no one is making a sure fire bet into the approach will continue. Thats what i dont continue. The president has this big bump, and now theyre reverting back to what got him 35 Approval Ratings. This Health Care Bill will have about 18 approval across america. Once again, hes playing a game of sub trux instead of addition. If he blew this up tomorrow and said you know what . Were not going to do it this way anymore. This is how barack obama did it. Only had democrats voting for all his bills. Im not that kind of president. Were going to bring republicans and democrats in and do it the right way. Were going to get a Health Care Reform plan for all americans. Can you even begin to imagine the numbers for that proposition . That would be 80 20. There was specific legislation in the senate he could have gotten on board with that was bipartisan. The problem he has to stop listening to the republican senators who say i got a good idea. It only has 17 Approval Rating. How many times can you fall for the republican politicians tricks in washington . Because the inside game is theres a moment in the next few months when paul ryan will have to turn the floor over to pelosi and let the democrats provide the votes for something, whether its tax reform or whatever it is. When that moment comes, it will be a crisis within the Republican Party. Donald trump can say all he wants that thats the way he would like to do things, but it doesnt mean you can pass something out of the pass. Thats the issue. You can pass anything out of the senate that way, but not the house. If its a bipartisan plan, youll find democrats doing whats in their best interest and vote for it. Except paul ryan will have turned the floor over the nancy pelosi. Say what you want, but it happens. Thats whats happened for 240 years. It just stopped happening like five or ten years ago. Yeah. This whole idea, and it is pure insanity, that we only pass bills that our party votes for . Thats crazy. Like, that thats a new phenomenon. And an idea that theres not bipartisan. Democrats ran around screaming contract on america, contract on america. Guess what. They didnt want to vote for that stuff. But so much of it was so popular. A lot of times you get 50 of the democrats voting on a plan that they claim to hate, but they couldnt say no. You give them a dill, willie, an offer, thats too good to refuse. But now were in an era of reconciliation. Were not even talking about 60 votes. Youre lucky if you can scrape out 50 votes and have the Vice President break a tie. Thats not overwhelming for a measure that has 17 or whatever it is. The president cast his lot with Graham Cassidy. He said hes pushing senators to vote for it. If this bill does not become a law or clear the senate, where does it leave the president as hes gone in again and again with republicans on health care . It leaves the president in a difficult position, because the clock is ticking. I wont get into the details but on september 30th, thats the deadline for passing this kind of Health Care Legislation with a simple majority. October on, 60 votes to stop a filibuster from happening. What the president is trying to do is show the effort. Thats what my sources tell me. Same with the republicans in congress. Theyre trying to show the effort to the base. Theyre trying up to the last minute to get some kind of legislation through. But behind the scenes, there is a lot of concern about the politics of all this. And theres a thought that maybe leader mcconnell brings this bill to the floor, lets it take a vote. If it fails, it fails. The party moves on. But they want to show the party that they care enough to move forward one more time. Bob, if they do that, thats, again, a 33 its not even a 33 prop tiosition. This will have a 17 Approval Rating. The president will buy something with a 70 disApproval Rating with the American People. You know him. We know him. He looks at these polls. Can we not expect just for his own selfinterest that hes going to be moving more toward a bipartisan approach because his poll numbers are finally going up . They are. And when it comes to the senate bill, hes not deeply engaged. Hes encouraging the bill on twitter. But its really the senate gop, senator graham and others calling up senator murkowski saying will you be the vote on this. There are deep reservations on part. They could be more of a factor on this than President Trump. President trump is the person who said he wanted universal coverage. He wanted universal Health Insurance for people not really getting into the details of what that meant. But he really continues to give the ball over to congress when it comes to how to handle and carry this forward. All right. Robert costa, thank you. Thank you, bob. By the way, willie and i tomorrow night, is beckham coming . He cant come. We got a carton of cigarettes. Thank you bob. Who you going to have on tomorrow night . Were working out the panel, but stay tuned. Well talk about health care. Always keeps everyone guessing. Bob is that your way of asking us . No, i dont think so. Come on any time. Glad to have you. So cute. Thats a no. Okay. Now to the latest with Hurricane Maria which is lashing the eastern Dominican Republic now. Its a destructive category 3 winds. All yesterday the storm pounded puerto rico throwing the entire island of 3. 5 Million People into darkness. The island is also without water and no Cell Phone Service. The monster hurricane smashed into the struggling u. S. Territory as a category 4 storm flooding homes and according to officials there, 70 of homes on the island had their roofs ripped off. That is such joining us from san juan, puerto rico, tammy lightener tammy. Reporter good morning. I want to give you an idea of what 155 Miles Per Hour winds can do. It rips trees out by their roots. It peels roofs off buildings. Shattering glass, and this is only in this one black area that were looking at. Weve seen roads that have turned to rivers. Freeways that are impassable because of water and trees and downed power lines. There is no power across the entire island of puerto rico. Theres no water in a lot of places. Today the coast guard is coming in to help. Theyre bringing supplies. Theyre bringing personnel. The military is bringing in helicopters. There is weeks and weeks if not months and months of work ahead. And the amount of damage is still unknown. Tammy, thank you. Thats really a terrible scene. I dont think we can even begin to imagine it. I remember after katrina, driving supplies over to mississippi and louisiana, and theres no power. It was extraordinarily hot. There wasnt hot. People from our church would come up with bolttles of water. People would run out and youd hand them water as quickly as you could. We were coming from florida. Wed go to the local store, in into publix, buy all the water we could, theyd have crates. Wed do that every day, and every day we went over there, there were always people there that were in desperate need of supplies. You cant this is devastating . You cant do that with puerto rico. You cant drive over with puerto rico. 70 of the homes have had their roofs ripped off. No power. Its going to be sweltering heat. And t even the small its even the small things you dont think about. Young babies. We saw young babies three days in in the United States of america Walking Around in threeday old diapers because nothing was getting in, nothing was getting out. All the super markets were shut down. I mean, the scale of devastation in puerto rico, we saw it with haiti. I know puerto rico is more developed than haiti, but this is just a terrible crisis. Well be following the response and also looking at what happened of course its a terrible crisis, but the recovery from the crisis is going to be so, so challenging. Lets go to mexico where a rescue crews are racing against the clock following the deadly magnitude 7. 1 earthquake. Officials say the death toll has climbed to at least 230 people. Crews have been desperately searching for those trapped in collapsed building, including a schoolhouse. The scene of immense loss. Joining us at the scene of that search, miguel almaguer. Miguel . Reporter good morning. The Elementary School is a heart breaking scene. Its where dozens of bodies have been recovered and dozens of lives have been saved. Theyre calling the school the miracle in the rubble. First responders say theyre looking for a little girl who has identified herself as frita. They can hear her talking to first respondersed in building thats pancaked down to one floor. That little girl tells them there are other children still buried alive inside that building. First responders have been here at the Elementary School since that earthquake. Theyve pulled out dozens of children including two little girls yesterday. It is a focus of this search all across this country. First responders pouring into this area to try to help some of the youngest victims. Miguel almaguer, thank you. Of course well be following this throughout the day on msnbc. Still ahead, the latest on the russia investigation including that bob mueller is interested in about any white house document that has to do with Paul Manafort, first jeff flake joins us. Hell ask him why hes supporting the new republican Health Care Bill before the cbo can even score it. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Can i get some help. Watch his head. Im so happy. Whatever they went through, they went through together. Welcome guys. Life well planned. 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The name to remember. Its a warm blanket. Its a bottle of clean water. Its a roof and a bed. Its knowing someone cares. Its feeling safe. Its a today thats better than yesterday. Every dollar you can spare helps so much more than you can imagine. Please donate now to help people affected by hurricane harvey. Your help is urgently needed. Nobody wants me to talk about your other senator who is weak on borders, weak on crime, so i wont talk about him. Nobody wants me to talk about him. Nobody knows who the hell he is. Well, we kind of want to talk about him. Lets talk about him. Lets do it. Hes here. Why not then . That was President Trump talking about republican senator jeff flake at a Campaign Style rally in phoenix at the end of august on his home turf. Senator flake joins us now. Last time he was here he discussed his isnt it true book. Youve got a reader. A loyal faithful reader. A 15yearold little girl of mine reading your book in kentucky, and hes fascinated by it, a big supporter. I appreciate that. After that arizona rally, i felt like is like harry potter, he who should not be named. Right. How is your relationship with the president right now . Its frankly, whether its a democratic president , republican president , i support them when i believe theyre right. I worked with president obama on cuba policy. President bush, i agreed with him on most things but opposed Prescription Drug benefit. I work for the people of arizona. Ive worked with the president on what i can work with him on and ill oppose him on things i think hes wrong on like nafta, for example. Poll numbers have come out. It suggests youre 842 behind in primary primaries next year. Right . It is. Are you facing that sort of rejection from people in the Republican Party . Off year polls are always incumbents are always down. The polls are probably accurate. Its just that theyre not very relevant right now. When you run a Campaign Like mccain two years ago had similar poll numbers. He was going to lose by double digits to a generic general opponent. In the end you run a campaign and it comes out differently. Lisa murkowski ran as an independent and won. Would you consider that . I am a republican. Ive been a lifelong republican. I think ill stay where i am. Lots of luck with that. Weve going to talk about the republican Health Care Bill now. It seems like this is the last thing you would support, not because of whats actually in the bill but the process is radical. No cbo scoring. No regular order. Once again, a couple people scribbling down a bill and shoving it in your face saying if youre a member of the tribe, youll vote for this. Ive heard people say that were simply responding to donors out there. Some people may be hearing from donors. Im hearing from when i go home every weekend, one thing i do is go to the gym every morning. Ill get on a stationary bike, and somebody will get on right beside me, because im trapped there. They say we love morning joe. After they tell you that, what do they say . Its 6 00 a. M. Youre already off the air. But what they tell me is i had insurance. I lost it. There are 183,000 arizonans who are paying the fine to the federal government because they cant afford care. Many of them if not most of them, had insurance before the Affordable Care act came along. 80 of them are making less than 50,000 a year. Does this bill fix that . And if you say it does fix that, how do you know it really fixes it . Because its being rushed through . One thing it does fix is it relieves that fine that theyre paying. These people are paying a fine thats a total of about 39 million from those 183,000 people. And they still dont have any insurance. After paying the fine. Theyll no longer have to pay that fine. Thats what the socalled skinny repeal would have done as well. This doesnt fix everything with obamacare. It cant. Were going to have to do that with a bipartisan bill. This is the first step. And i can tell you there are people in arizona and elsewhere who need relief that. There are 15 counties in arizona. In every county those who are buying on the exchange are paying more fair their Health Care Premium monthly than a mortgage. If youre a typical family of four, youre paying more for your Health Care Policy than a mortgage. And most of them cant afford to use them because the deductibles are so high that they have to pie 30,000 out of pocket before it kicks in. To joes point, have you read the current bill youre about to vote on . Ive read a lot of it. Were all looking at it. How long is it . I dont know the current number of pages. There are provisions in there. Ive heard it said it will be a race to the bottom, and that the states can ultimately deny coverage or allow Insurance Companies to deny on preexisting condition. If theyre able to de facto, they wont be able to. Joe understands well, in 1986 with welfare reform, it was said, all right, you turn this over to the states, its going to the race to the bottom. People will be dying in the streets. It wasnt the case. They respond to political pressure as well. Senator, does the bill address the issue you just raised . It does, but ultimately in the end, i think it does allow them to apply for a waiver to do that. But in reality, is any governor, is any state legislature going to deny coverage based on preexisting condition . Yes. I dont believe they will. In the past, maybe, but not anymore. I dont believe thats the case. They have to respond to political pressure. You can say right now that this is not a constitutional guarantee for preexisting condition coverage, therefore, congress could at moment deny the coverage. That could be said now. But congress is not going to . Cht. You said accurately some arizonans are worse off than before the Affordable Care act. And some are better. Who will be worse off if your bill becomes law . Anyone. Be honest with your constituents. Some will be worse off. Describe who they are. What we have right now, onethird of arizonans are covered by our version of medicaid. Arizona and some of those people will be worse off. Theoretically. We dont know. How could they not be . We have a governor who looked at it and said please, pass it. Because we have for flexibility. Answer my question. The governor may not have somebody at home who has terrible disabilities who can only stay at home because of what medicaid provides and there are going to be cuts there. Well, one thing we have now is a situation where with medicaid, were running this program at medical inflation plus one or 2 . Thats a very definition of unsustainable. You cant do that forever. You have to have changes. Why dont you have a bipartisan bill . Thats what i dont understand. I would love to have a bipartisan bill. I know you agree with me. I have seen you through the years. You dont like when people get in the back room and scribble down bills and throw it out there. Shouldnt they have done this isnt john mccain right . This should be done through regular order with a cbo score. Why cant republicans in the senate do that . One thing we had a crisis coming now. Like i said, we have 200,000 arizonans who cant afford coverage and are paying the fine. Second in january of this year you could have said that in january. Why cant you start now and have regular order and get it right over the next six months . The regular order has been i agree with him when he told us the other day that there is no imminent solution here. Theyre not getting support from the democrats. Wed love to have it. And were going to ultimately have to have it in january. The fines that will be imposed against employers, employees are already being fined when they dont have insurance. But the employers have gotten off the hook so far. Starting january, the bills will go out from the irs. 90,000 businesses will receive a bill totaling about 5 billion. Thats going to hit hard, and thats going to hurt businesses. Joe mentioned the senator mccain. He cast the deciding vote to defeat the last health care proposal. Have you spoken to him about this . Are you lobbying him . Were speaking on it. Obviously were concerned about what our governor says and our state legislature. He has his own franchise, and i tell you, i admire the heck out of him. He does. Its a big one. It is. And he has spoken eloquently every day in our lunches or wherever we are meeting together. Hes talking about getting back to regular order. He sees it in the Armed Services committee. Hes a chairman. He works the process well. We have to do something here. Arizonans are hurting now. All right. Jeff flake, thank you so much. You brought a guest. Your wife is here. Yes. Sheryl . Is it sheryl . On book tour. How did he do, sheryl . He did great. Okay. Perfect. All right. Ahead well talk to another republican senator supporting the Obamacare Repeal bill. Ron johnson of wisconsin. More morning joe in just a moment. I cant wait for her to have that College Experience that i had. The classes, the friends, the independence. And since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, im glad shell miss when you have the right Financial Advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise [ airplane bell chimes ] you should be serving youre c. I. A. . American made is the first great film of the fall. How about that. And now, its Rotten Tomatoes score is sky high. Shoot the gringo it gets crazy from here. American made. Rated r. I needed something more to help control my type 2 diabetes. My a1c wasnt were it needed to be. 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Laura brown, willie geist will be there. Willie geist . Yes. Youre going to show up. Ill be there. What are you going to talk when we go and all the other powerful women go well have workshops, conversations, talking act negotiating, health and wellness in a real way, not just drink a lot of water. Personal value. Finances and managing the different stages of your career and your personal life. Okay. So in these events you have grow your value contests . Yes. Were announcing a new one. Everybody loves this one. This is my favorite thing. So were announcing right now the grow your value bonus competition, the next one. And this right here right now is an official call for entries. Three finalists are going to be chosen. Youll get professional coaching and styling and a chance to pitch your value live on stage for a 5,000 bonus. Its easy. Im applying. Not you. Simply tell me your value in a video as effectively as you can in a minute or less, and send it in to the contest. You can do it in selfie mode. Talk right to your phone. This is a good exercise. Tell me why you deserve a bonus. Why you have value. What you bring to the table. Communicate it effectively. Weve look at your message, whats behind it, how you present id it, and well help you improve everything about that pitch. I urge every woman to make a video and send it in. Its a first step in learning your value and learning how to communicate it effectively. Once again, join us on october 30th in the audience. Learn more about all of this and buy tickets go to knowyourvalue365. Com. Did you get that . Knowyourvalue365. Com. I already sent in my video. Well have to delete that one. Why . Im sure its lewd. Its like straight out of a video that ted cruz would like. Thats not what we want. Knowyourvalue365. Com. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. For raising the bar here. Up next, you have to go back to 1929 to find a time when democrats were in worse shape than they are now. Thats bad. Thats kind of bad. The new issue of Time Magazine asks can anything save them . Thats next on morning joe. At ally, we offer low rates on home loans. But if thats not enough, we offer our price match guarantee too. And if thats not enough. We should move. Our home team will help you every step of the way. Still not enough . Its smaller than id like. Well help you finance your dream home. Its perfect. Oh, was this built on an ancient Burial Ground . Okay. Then well have her cleanse you house of evil spirits. Well do anything, spiritual chatter seriously anything to help you get your home. Ally. Do it right. Bp developed new, industryleading software to monitor Drilling Operations in realtime, so our engineers can solve problems with the most precise data at their fingertips. Because safety is never being satisfied. And always working to be better. You dont let anything lkeep you sidelined. Come on thats why you drink ensure. With 9 grams of protein, and 26 vitamins and minerals. For the strength and energy, to get back to doing what you love. Ensure, always be you. You for four years. You named it brad. You loved brad. And then you totaled him. You two had been through everything together. Two boyfriends, three jobs. Youre like nothing can replace brad. Then Liberty Mutual calls. And you break into your happy dance. If you sign up for better car replacement™, well pay for a car thats a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. The legislation we passed was full of things that still need to be fixed. It wasnt perfect. But it was better. And so when i see people trying to undo that hard progress for the 50th or 60th time with bills that would roll back protections for Older Americans or people with preexisting conditions, the anc cancer survivor or child with asthma for whom coverage once again would be almost unattainable, it is aggravating. And all this being done without any economic or actuarial or plain common sense rationale, it frustrates. Former president barack obama speaking in new york city last night saying it was frustrating to have to mobilize so often to protect obamacare. They have to mobilize because democrats control neither the house or senate. The new oissue of time analyzs the states of the parties. Joining us from washington, michael duff. Michael, everybody is so obsessed with donald trump. I think the more vexing question and the question that i havent heard a single democrat answer i think at least to my liking in a convincing way is whats happened to the party, why have they lost over 1,000 legislative seats over the past eight years . Why have they lost over 60 seats in the house, and why are they in the worst shape than theyve been in since 1929 . It really is like the 1920s. Lowest number of governors, lowest number of house members and about 1,000 state legislative seats theyve lost over the last decade. Part of the reason is theyre defending their gains. They built a big welfare state and now theyre protecting it from erosion which is whats happening probably this week or next week in the senate with health care. The story gets at the different splits inside the party as with the republicans in 2010, were now seeing democrats split done left and center on health care, on taxes, on tech, on trade, and even on weather to do deals with President Trump himself. You know, michael, im a Firm Believer in the pendulum effect of politics. I remember the election of 1964 when the Republican Party was dead. Theyll never come back. Its all over for them. They came back with a roar in less than four years by electing a president. But what impact do you think money has had on the difficulty of both major parties in they their tendency to spend most of their time, elected officials, raising money, separates them from the real needs of their constituents . A good example is how the party is split about Silicon Valley and technology. The party likes the money that the valley has given them in huge quantities since about 1988, 1992, but the partys constituents have issues with what technology is doing to the workplace, to jobs. What its going on privacy, and the liberal left is concerned about what technology is doing to what we know, information, fake news, the kinds of things that happened in the election. The party takes money and the leaders take money from those guys but theyre much less comfortable with the policies and the things that are happening as a result of the technology. Michael, did you find any democrats who had ideas about turning this around that seemed good . Almost an impossible question from Mark Halperin. I was glad im not flake a minute ago. There is this incredible debate going on i think about who is going to step up, whether its from the left side of the party, the Bernie Sanders and elizabeth warrens, the kamala harriss, Sherrod Brown versus some of the more moderates, tim ryan, joe biden and the Party Leadership in the form of schumer and pelosi. The party is punching a little above its weight here. In general i think it might benefit from going to that workshop noyourvalue. Com. It might be time for them to hit that. I seriously agree with you. Thats knowyourvalue365. How does Hillary Clinton play into all this and the book tour . I think a lot of the attention was focused on what she thought Bernie Sanders had done to her or to the party or changed it. I think whats past is prologue, mika. I think well see some of the same things take place as they roll into 2018 and 2020. A lot of people have criticized sanders into stepping up, the onesinglepair things. Some people criticized sanders for a time that would do thgive lift to the Graham Cassidy member. That that teed up the whole Health Care Debate when obama said i thought it was done. Only 50 or 60 times they tried to kill it. This looks like it might have a good shot of passing. Some democrats blame sanders for helping to put that back on the table. That split in the party she wrote about continues. Hey, michael. Its jonathan la mere. What are you seeing from democrats beyond being the party thats not trump, what are you seeing from them to rally a positive forward thinking message . I think theyre trying to wrestle particularly on trade to try to get past the old we just dont want to do trade deals, we want to protect the rights of workers. There clearly is a split there that theyre trying to close. You see some beginnings of a conversation about immigration in the party. People asking the question are we just too far to the left on that . Thats not a consensus view. But you begin to have that question raised which wasnt being raised six months ago, a year ago, and i think daca, that has probably set that conversation back a little bit. Well see what happens. Its going to be very interesting. I dont think anybody around your table thinks theres going to be tax reform ever. But there might be tax cuts, tax relief at the end of the year, maybe early next year. The democrats will have to decide if theyre for lowering rates or not, getting rid of preferences on mortgages and state and local taxes or not. Those are fights to come, but theyre coming. Theyll probably split on those, too. I think were seeing again a kind of fracturing of the party like we saw with the republicans in the Tea Party Era in 2010 and 2011. New issue of time is out now. Michael duffy, thank you very much. Well get live reports on the deadly earthquake in mexico and the hurricane that has 100 of puerto rico in the dark. Well go to our correspondents in the ground in both disaster zones, plus two reporters behind two big front page stories involving the russia investigation this morning. The New York Times Michael Schmidt and Washington Post carol len nick. Morning joe is coming right back. Whats the story behind Green Mountain coffee and fair trade . Lets take a flight to colombia. This is boris calvo. Boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. All for a smoother tasting cup. Green mountain coffee. Every year we take a girls trip. Remember nashville . Kimchi bbq. Kimchi bbq. Amazing honky tonk . . I cant believe you got us tickets. I did. I didnt pay for anything. You never do. Send me what i owe. Ive got it. I mean, you did find money to buy those boots. Are you serious . Is that why you dont like them . Those boots could make a unicorn cry. Yeah, tears of joy. The bank of america mobile banking app. The fast, secure and simple way to send money. A Nations Technology will determine its power. In its economy, in medicine, in science and in National Security. One company designs and builds more supercomputers than any other. An american company. Hewlett packard enterprise. Leading the way to discover. To innovate. And to protect. Hewlett packard enterprise. A National Asset in supercomputing. Kevin, meet yourkeviner. Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin kevin kevin trusted advice for life. Kevin, hows your mom . Life well planned. See what a Raymond James Financial Advisor can do for you. [fbi agent] youre a brave man, your testimony will save lives. Mr. Stevens . This is your new name. This is your new house. And a perfectly inconspicuous suv. You must become invisible. [hero] ill take my chances. Good morning. Its thursday, september 21st. To say this is a busy news morning is an understatement. The devastation and destruction left by Hurricane Maria is extensive. The entire island of puerto rico is without power this morning. Officials say it could take six months to restore electricity. Well go live to san juan and show you where the hurricane is headed this morning. In mexico rescue workers are trying to find survivors in the rubble, children potentially still trapped under a collapsed school. Well go live to the scene there. In politics, the republicans lastgasp attempt to repeal obamacare is set for a vote next week as the debate rages on over whether or not it actually protects people with preexisting conditions. President obama is speaking out on that. There is news on the iran nuclear deal. President trump says hes decided if hell pull out of the deal but wont reveal his decision, not even to his own secretary of state. Major developments in the russia probe from both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Is the investigation getting closer and closer to the white house . Weve got the reporters from both those papers who broke those stories. President trump has continually said hes done more in the first months of his presidency than practically any president in history. But a new poll out this morning shows people dont quite agree with that. I guess it really depends on what you mean. A lot to get to politically this morning. A lot to get to. Weve got the daily news actually this is quite interesting. I want your papers, bob mueller as uncle sam. A lot of stories on russia developing. President ial politics. Ive got to say the inexplicable, coming from republicans on capitol hill again. The donors, all i can say is their donors must be extraordinarily persuasive because they have moved to put their hand on the burning stove again. Theres no reason. But theyre doing it. Is it the third time . Ive lost count. Its sad for the country. A big waste of time. Really sad when Republicans Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnells office said the latest effort to repeal and replace baurk will be considered on the senate floor next week. Here we go again. Republicans are fighting for the 50 votes needed to pass it. After the 60 votes are required to avoid a filibuster. Critical republican senators like alaskas Lisa Murkowski, still in doubt. Are you ready to support it . Nope. Why not . Because i am doing the Due Diligence that i committed to doing yesterday. What i have had an opportunity to do is sit down with my team who has sat down with hhs and we are ferret iing out large numbe and were continuing to do that. You better be at your general aviation airport to hire a private plane to see if the secretary of hhs is on a private plane. They need their comfortable travel, those members of the administration. Into luxury like the rest of america. Only four or five times a meek. But theyre going to make America Great again. Senator john mccain continued to call for regular order to consider the Health Care Bill. President trump reacted on twitter to another republican opponent of the bill yesterday tweeting, rand paul is a friend of mine but he is such a negative force when it comes to fix health care. Yesterday evening the president spoke about the bill from republican senators Lindsey Graham and bill cassidy and vented his frustration with the process. I believe that grahamcassidy will do it the right way and is doing it in the right way. It has tremendous support from republicans which i believe were 47 or 48 already senators. A lot of others looking at it very positively. Mike pence has been working on it. O i thought that what i want, i would go to the oval office, sit down at my desk and there would be a Health Care Bill on my desk, to be honest. And it hasnt worked out that way. I think a lot of republicans are embarrassed by it. Oh, my god. First of all, he doesnt really know whats in the bill. He hasnt known whats been in any of these Health Care Bills. Hes just wanted anything to sign. And it makes you wonder what would have happened if 7 1 2, 8 months ago they started with a process and had regular order and marched through the process regularly instead of drafting something quickly, have two or three people do it, shove it down everybodys throats and have the president say he likes it and the president says its a mean bill, et cetera, et cetera. If they had done it the right way this reminds me, mika, we were in philadelphia a couple days ago. And mika has know your value. One of the things she tells the women and the women who are in these conferences, when it comes to success, there are no shortcu shortcuts. You have a senate, Mark Halperin that has taken one shortcut after another, havent even had hearings. This is the third time they said, weve got an idea, were going to reorder onesixth of the economy without going through the right committees, without really letting the members know whats inside the bills, without getting scoring from the Congressional Budget Office and without knowing what the impact is of our reordering, onesixth of the economy from washington, d. C. Now, that is something that edmund burke would have called radical, something russell kirk would have called radical, something that william f. Buckley would have called radical, something in his time paul ryan would have called radical, something that Mitch Mcconnell would have called you cant reorder onesixth of the United States economy without a committee hearing, without regular order, without a cbo score, without being a dangerous radical. And i dont understand how they think theyre going to get away with that and how some of my friends, and they are friends and thats why it hurts so much, are getting on tv and lying every day to the American People, lying through their teeth about whats in this bill and whats not in this bill. They also dont have any support of the Health Care Industry which is important, or the grass roots of the country. On the politics of this, theyre actually today closing to getting a Successful Senate vote and successful house vote than they were yesterday according to congressional people ive talked to. So this could happen. But the substance of it is really problematic to the party. Theyre doing theyre making many of the same mistakes president obama made in passing health care, first and foremost, not being honest about whats in the legislation and who it will impact. That will make it harder to pass. If it does pass, it will be a huge substantive problem for that. Wasnt that over the course of a year or something . We were talking about health care hearings and Health Care Committee votes and we were talking about that for six, seven, eight, nine months where they were actually going through a process. I hate it, the result. I didnt want it to pass. I was upset when it passed, but they went through a regular process. This is like, hey, lets go in secret, write a bill as fast as we can, dont tell anybody whats in it, dont let the Congressional Budget Office score it and shove it down the American Peoples throat. Ill read two tweets to your point. May 4, 2017. I appreciate the apparent progress on Health Care Reform in the house, i will admit im concerned with the process. A bill finalized yesterday has not been scored, amendments not allowed, three hours final debate, should be viewed with caution. Whose tweets were those . Senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina. That was him talking about the process 4 1 2 months ago. Now hes leading this process in exactly the same way it was conducted in may now and wants a vote on it next week without any of that regular order you talked about. Now to the latest on Hurricane Maria and the sheer devastation it brought to puerto rico. Well have a live report from san juan. First lets go to nbc meteorologist bill karins with a check on the storms latest track. Now lashing the coastline of the Dominican Republic. As we get more daylight, well get an idea on what areas were hit the hardest in puerto rico. You can see the eye of the storm still a category 3. Dominican public being brushed by the storm, turks and caicos, same for you. The rain bands continued over puerto rico, some gauges reporting over 20 inches, one rain gauge is reporting over 36 inches of rain in 24 hours. Thats as much as houston got in three days. The flooding is catastrophic right now and theres flash flood warnings from one end of the island to the other. Here is a different view of the satellite. Theres the eye, theres the Dominican Republic. The bright white is the top of thunderstorms still sitting over central portions of puerto rico. Theyre not done yet. The storm will barely skirt turks and caicos, then off the southeast coastline. Were happy to say it wont be directly impacting the u. S. Lets turn our attention to puerto rico to correspondent Tammy Leitner. Now that we have more daybreak, what are you seeing . Reporter i can tell you im seeing a lot of destruction, bill. Theyre saying theyre starting cleanup. If you take a look around me, this is going to take a long time. Quite honestly right now, the rescue missions are what is going to take precedence. Theyre having a very hard time getting to some areas of the island. Theres no power across the entire island. Theres very little communication. What ive heard from a lot of people, even the rescue crews that have been brought in, theyre not hearing from the other Emergency Operations center as to where to go. Theres not a lot of communication right now because everything is down. Bill . The cleanup in front of you is unimaginable. Youre in san juan. We cant even picture what the people are going through in the rural areas. Thank you, Tammy Leitner reporting from san juan. This is where the eye made landfall, guy yam ma. Wooden structure house. This gentleman looking for possessions. Trees snapped, more roof damage. People will need shelter, water and food. This is far away from the big populated cities to the north. Thats obviously well have more pictures and images and stories throughout the day. We want to turn to our other major story. That the deadly earthquake in mexico. Joining us is nbc news correspondent Steve Patterson. Youve been at the scene of the search for the missing students and faculty at the collapsed school. Any good news . Reporter none yet and it is crunch time for rescue crews here. Were nearing 48 hours since that earthquake, a crucial time in this search and rescue effort. 21 students, young Elementary Schoolers were killed when the earthquake occurred, fourstory building slammed and crushed on top of them, crushing those children, four teachers as well trapped inside that building. What theyre doing, theyve identified the young girl, 12 years old, somewhere trapped beneath the rubble. They found her location, found her vitals, confirmed those. Theyve identified what they think are heat signatures that are around that area meaning that there could well be more people. Theyre thinking um to five people are trapped inside there as we speak. The reason why its so slow is obvious. Theres human life. So they have to pull every piece of debris by hand and its a very meticulous, arduous and heartbreaking process that will continue as this goes on. Now its a race against time as were nearing 48 hours. Back to you. Nbcs Steve Patterson. I can only imagine what those parents are going through hour after hour. Well continue to update you of course on these two major developing and heartbreaking stories in puerto rico and mexico city. Joe and mika, back to you. Bill, thank you very much. Coming up, from the firing of james comey to Paul Manafort to the president eeps Oval Office Meeting with russians. Bob mueller is reportedly interested in all that. Well get the latest bombshell reporting next on morning joe. Oh, look. Another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works in just one week. With the fastest retinol formula to visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. 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There are several new developments surrounding the russia investigation. According to the New York Times, special Counsel Robert Mueller has asked the white house for documents about some of President Trumps most scrutinized actions since taking office including the firing of his National Security adviser Michael Flynn and fbi director james comey. The times sources white house officials who says mueller is interested in Oval Office Meeting with top russians officials. Documents described to the times in may saying he was not under investigation. I just fired the director of the fbi, a real nut job. Stop there. That is everybody used to love watching perry mason. I watched the reruns, but nobody really breaks down on the stand and says, oh, my god, i did it, i did it. Nobody does that. But donald trump, Mike Barnicle. Its the final scene in every perry many son tv show. He did it in the oval office, did it own his own, did it when the Russian Foreign minister and ambassador were there. He literally laid out the case for obstructing justice. To continue with the analogy, hamilton berger who is the District Attorney wouldnt even have to ask the question in this case. Just let the guy talk. Hes talking himself right into it. Special counsels office has made requests about response from the white house, and donald trump, junior, is meeting with russian lawyer natalia bell sky yeah. Asking for any email documents that relates to Paul Manafort according to two sources briefed on the request. The paper says less than two weeks before trump accepted the republican president ial nomination his Campaign Chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to russian billionaith billionaire closely aligned with the president. Get this. Thats the first thing that Ronald Reagan did. See if this concerns you at all. Man fort who wrote to a gobetwe gobetween, if he needs private briefings, we can accommodate. A spokesman confirmed to nbc news the authenticity and said they had been turned over to a congressional committee. Isnt that something james baker did when he was running reagans campaign for brezhnev. Is brezhnev wants a briefing about what were doing in western iowa its a tradition. Bob strauss, Lyndon Johnsons case, he had hoe chi m chi minh phone all the time. Reaching out, if you want to know whats going on, wed be happy to accommodate you. Why would you need to do such a thing . The question is, who in the world might think there might be collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia if youre saying, hey, you want to get vlad on the phone, well let him know what were doing. The paper notes theres no evidence in the documents that dare posh ka received the documents and the spokesperson dismissed it as little more than consultant scheming. Except he was the chairman of the next president of the United States campaign at the Republican National convention. So not a consultant, but actually chairman of the president ial campaign. All right. Lets get to richmond, virginia. New york times reporter Michael Schmidt who broke the Mueller Probe story and staff writer for the Washington Post Carol Leonnig who had bylines on two of the big headlines for her paper. Carol, lets start with Paul Manafort, just a lowly consultant. This is just scheming, so they say. Tell us what in the world, what was the prelude to this extraordinary offer. So youre right. It ooh es a startling offer, not a typical thing for the chairman of the president ial candidate for the Republican Party to say, hey, by the way, im trying to figure out a way to use my prominent role in this president ial race to make some money, and that is essentially what Paul Manaforts emails suggest. Paul manafort was in a lot of debt. He appeared to be aperson who was looking to be repaid, several outstanding bills from various foreign nationals including this very Prominent Russian billionaire, one of the most wealthy men in russia, and a person who was very much angling to find a way to get into the United States. Hes been denied visas to do that and hes been trying every way he can, Political Consulting, pressure, pr, to figure out how to get a visa so he can travel into the u. S. Cant he just invest in one of those buildings that jareds sister is talking about . I think he found a pretty prominent advocate who said we can accommodate you, id like to help you. Its just a very strange place to be as a leader of this campaign where your interests appear how to get money from a russian billionaire. Michael schmidt, you have a piece in the New York Times today about muellers inquiry into the trump firings. What does this tell you about what bob mueller is up to . We see this is going to be a wide and deep investigation. What more did you learn from that request . We did suspect that mueller was looking at things related to trumps time in office, but we really didnt know details about it. What we learned was the breadth of what hes looking at, trumps handling of flynn, handling of comey, how the white house responded to these questions about this meeting that their Campaign Officials had in 2016 with russians promising derogatory information about hillary. It struck us that so many things that the president was directly involved in that have turned out to be pivotal in his presidency are things that mueller is indeed interested in. We had some details about that and we thought that was significant. Still ahead on morning joe, senator ron johnson wasnt a fan of the process the last time republicans rushed through the Health Care Repeal plan. Whats changed this time . Well ask him straight ahead on morning joe. 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If what theyre going to do is steal money from my state to give it to another state that didnt choose to expand medicaid, i cant be in favor of that, injuring the people in my state. All right. Ron johnson is going to be joining us in just a moment. With us from washington, Jeremy Peters of the New York Times. Here onset, nbc news chief White House Correspondent hallie jackson. Good to have you both on board. Hallie, lead us in on the strategy with health care . Does it have a chance . Based on the reporting weve seen so far, it seems unlikely theyll be able to get these folks on board. Whats the strategy . The president wants something. The issue is its like a pingpong ball. He wanted tax reform. Now he wants Health Care Reform as well. If this iran deal situation happens, as our report says its likely to happen, congress is going to have to deal with that, too. Theres a lot. Is the president going to share about the iran deal. He didnt share it with theresa may when she asked. Secretary tillerson said she wanted to find out what the decision was but the president refused to share it. It was interesting he made such a big deal about that in this News Conference because its a little embarrassing. Does he want to rip up the deal or alter the deal . The promise was rip up the deal on day one. Now he wants to tweak the deal. A lot of things said on the campaign trail that didnt come to fruition in the last nine months of the administration. What we know is that the intention is to alter the deal at this point. Jeremy peters, whats the strategy with health care in washington. Wh there are certain ways they can try to make the bill sweeter for her. I no e that Lindsey Graham is working on that very hard, if my reporting Lindsey Graham has been going around expressing a lot of optimism. Its easier said than done. Theres virtually no cushion here. If you lose murkowski, thats pretty much it because youve already lost rand paul and there goes your 50 votes. I think theyll have to make it very appealing for her. Alaska is a very poor state, a lot of health care challenges, very medicaid dependent. Lets face it, this bill could gut medicaid funding. Mark . Let me ask you both, what is the white house strategy for prioritizing these items . Do they have them or are they letting congress decide how to take things up. The focus is tax reform and daca. Thats where they actually have specifics that are going to be rolled out over the next seven to ten days. Actually early next week youll start seeing dpaktly what the white house wants with tax reform, specific numbers on the corporate rate. Youll also see what they want to see in a daca package. Theres less discussion about health care because theyre letting congress with the ball here. Lindsey graham says he speaks with the president all the time. He was caught in that a. P. Report at the airport talking about how much he talks with the president. Thats true a. Hes answering questions about it. Behind the scenes theres a lot more work being done from the staff level on other issues. Jeremy, we were asking at the top of the show, why the switch including cosponsors on this Health Care Legislation like Lindsey Graham who was so concerned in may about rushing a bill through. Kasie hunt reported at the beginning of the show that a lot of them frankly went home over the recess, a lot of his congressmen and women and senators and were told by donors, we put you there to do something. We put you there to repeal and replace obamacare and that, in part, at least explains why weve seen a flip on some of these senators and why theyre going back in for another bite at this apple. Is that in line with what youve heard . Absolutely. Whats it been . Seven years and 60 votes to repeal this thing and they still havent been able to get it done. The pressure has been immense. Now, i will say that while ive heard that donors the fundraising has taken a lunch, a fundamental promise of republican governance. Give us the house, give us the senate, give us the white house, well do this. The failure to do that i think has been somewhat lessened by the fact that they have moved on to tax reform. For a white house and congress that have kind of bounced around, pingponged from one crisis to the next, this was looking somewhat manageable, these next few weeks and months. They were going to move on to an item that they agreed at least in theory they needed to pursue. Thats tax reform. Then all of a sudden you have donald trump throwing the hand grenade of daca in this. You have a budget that needs to be resolved or the government will shut down by december 15th. Now on top of all of that, y u ear go into deal with an issue that has vexed republicans since theyve taken control of washington. This is not how the white house or many of the outside groups that fund republican activities wanted this to go. They were really looking forward to moving on on tax reform. Meanwhile President Trump is headed to alabama. Yesterday he tweeted in part, i am supporting big Luther Strange because he was so loyal and helpful to me, adding alabama is so lucky to have a candidate like him, smart, tough on crime, borders and trade. Loves vets and military. Strange is trailing in the race. Bob costa reports in the Washington Post that members of the republican establishment waged a fierce effort to get the white house to support the incumbent with senator bob corker personally telling the president youve got to go, we need you there. So hallie, why is the president taking the time and effort and power of the presidency to this race . Backdrop, people in alabama love donald trump. This was done as a favor to Mitch Mcconnell to smooth things over with the Senate Majority leader, of course, within 24 hours of the president originally coming out and endorsing Luther Strange, he got word mcconnell had said what you could interpret as notsokind things about the president s grasp of his understanding about how things work in washington. There was discussion even among folks in the strange camp that maybe the president would go back on it. Theyre like, well, you know, i hope this thing sticks. I do think its fas naelting. This is a proxy war, whats happening in alabama between the steve bannon wing of the conservative movement and then the establishment as weve been talking about. In my conversations, you talk to folks who are close with steve bannon, close with the breitbart faction, theyre all in. You have seth gorka reappearing going to this rally today with slal. You have these people who are very fierce donald trump backers who are splitting with him in this particular race. Now strange is trailing. So if the president is not able to pull this out with visits, thats going to be a concern. Mike pence is going down monday, too. Hallie is right. The white house has put a lot on the line, President Trump has put his own personality credibility and capital on the line. Look at the opposition, the opposing side, sebastian gorka, slal and now leo gomer. These are not heavy hitters of the Republican Party. On the other side, the president , Vice President and 30 million from Senate Republican allies. This is a total mismatch. If donald trump and Luther Strange dont pull this out, it will be a huge blow to them and it will be deeply unsettling to Mitch Mcconnells leadership in the senate. Joining us from green bay, wisconsin, republican senator ron johnson. Senator, i understand weve got a wonky connection, so ill speak louder than usual. Thanks for being with us. We talk a lot about grahamcassidy. You, too, are one of the cosponsors of this proposed Health Care Legislation. Why do you think, senator, so Many Republican governors, people who will have to manage this if you send the block money to the states, have come out against it and why have so many major Insurance Companies come out strongly and said this plan is bad for people who need health care . Well, oftentimes people really dont like change. From my standpoint, theres an awful lot of governors that have come out in favor including Governor Walker because this will be hugely beneficial for wisconsin. Under obamacare, three states, california, new york, massachusetts, 20 of the population get 30 of the funding. Its unfair. If wisconsin were to get federal allocations based on population right now were getting 59 , under this proposal, 76 . A far fairer allocation. I truly believe governors and state legislators will do a better job managing health care in their states. Wisconsin didnt need obamacare. According to the department of health services, 94 of wisconsinites had coverage, all or part of a year prior to obamacare, now we have 96 . Its true 200,000 people in wisconsin got coverage, but 100,000 are paying the penalty and going without coverage and more than 80 of them make less than 50,000 a year. Premiums have doubled nationally, doubled here in wisconsin, sometimes tripled. Obamacare isnt working. Senator flake pointed out youve got 90,000 businesses that will get notices in the beginning of october and have to pay penalties close to 5 million. I have a few things to get through here. Let me stop you for a second. You say people dont like change and thats why theyre resistant. We heard from christie, kasich who say we dont like the kind of change that takes medicaid coverage away from people, we dont like the kind of change that prevents people with preexisting conditions from getting the coverage they need or not being able to afford the coverage they need because the premiums and the prices go up so much. What do you say to people now covered by Medicaid Expansion who are worried that your plan would take away their health care, low income people . First of all, governors that took Medicaid Expansion arent going to want a fair distribution. I get that. There will be less money than they otherwise would have gotten because the distribution has been so inequitable. We are still spending vast amounts of money. I think the total reduction is going to be probably less than 4 in terms of spending over ten years. Well still spend close to 5 trillion over the next ten years. In medicaid, 2009 we spent 200 billion, this year well spend about 400 billion. Under obamacare, close to 600 billion. Well knock that down probably less than 4 in the future. In wisconsin, for example, we have traditional medicaid. I would argue that Medicaid Expansion which was targeted at ablebodied working age, childless adults where the federal government fully funded that. Ramping down contribution a little bit. Disabled, elderly and children senator, will not some of the people who enjoy coverage under Medicaid Expansion no longer have medicaid coverage. Will people who enjoy coverage under Medicaid Expansion be now denied coverage they have now . Will those people be covered in some way or left in the lurch . I will say not if governors manage their programs properly. What if we dont have enough money to cover that anymore. Medicaid expansion should be for a bridge to a job. I think thats part of a problem with any kind of entitlement. Im not sure its being used as a bridge to a job. If you capped enrollment in Medicaid Expansion, let everybody stay on, grandfather them, if they get a job, come back in and can always take it, through attrition, Medicaid Expansion would basically be reduced to about 20 of its current level. Again, Medicaid Expansion puts at risk medicaid traditional medicaid. Thats what we have in wisconsin. Thats why im in support of this bill, one of the many reasons. Do you agree governors, if your plan becomes law, will have to make choices they didnt have to make now. If they have less money, that means somebody gets less coverage or somebody gets no coverage at all. Can you say this morning on this can you say this morning on this show under your plan no one will lose their coverage . For example, Governor Walker will have more funding. Not as much as our population will indicate. But people will lose coverage . Benefit for the state of wiscons wisconsin. People will lose coverage under your plan . I cant guarantee that. You cant guarantee they will or they wont . Premiums have already doubled. Supposedly guaranteed coverage under preexisting conditions under obamacare, its not a guarantee. If youre one of those forgotten people bill clinton talked about, people busting it, 60 hours a week, premiums tripled, coverage cut in half. Unless you quit your job and have preexisting condition senator, i want to clarify. 5 billion in fines, premiums have doubled. This is unsustainable. Well have to continue to throw billions of dollars into a failing system which is one of the reasons the bipartisan effort ive been fully involved in great discussions, theyll continue. This puts us on a path to state control, more flexibility. Senator, i want to be clear in an answer you gave a minute ago because i think this is at the core of what were talking about here. Will people who currently have coverage, medical coverage lose it under your plan in the United States . Listen, millions of people lost coverage under obamacare. There are no guarantees other than the fact that premiums have already doubled, theyll continue to skyrocket. Well have to continue to throw money at a failing program. It simply doesnt work. Okay, senator. Lets try this one. This is a Pretty Simple question because im a Pretty Simple person. Mark, its a pretty complex problem. Thats part of the problem with simple questions, there are no simple answers. There have to be simple answers for the people who you represent. Here is one of them. Somewhere in wisconsin theres a family with a 9 or 10yearold child with Cystic Fibrosis currently covered under what you call the disaster of obamacare. Can you tell that family that their premiums under your proposed bill youre about to vote on, their premiums will not go up . Certainly shouldnt. They should be going down. Obamacare artificially doubled premiums nationally. So again, the state of wisconsin, well get more funding because weve been disadvantaged under obamacare funding scheme right now. In wisconsin, were going to do very, very well. I think other states will as well. Maine, they instituted guarantee they didnt repeal it. Premiums fell to a third. Covering people with preexisting and high cost conditions without skyrocketing premiums or collapsing insurance markets. Obamacare is a failed model, a faulty architecture. This will put us on a path to start fixing it. Senator, im begging you. Can you guarantee their programs wont go up. There are no guarantees under obamacare. I just pointed out individuals that are busting, that are working hard, dont get subsidies, theyre without coverage. Some of them have preexisting conditions, so there are no absolute guarantees other thanks if we dont do anything, 5 billion in fines, premiums will continue to skyrocket unless we inject tens of billions into a failed system. Thats a guarantee. Were trying to make sure that doesnt happen. Senator ron johnson of wisconsin, one of the sponsors of the grahamcassidy legislation under review in the United States senate. Senator, thanks for your time this morning. Have a good day. The same as with the Affordable Care act. If youre not going to be honest with people about the winners and losers of your legislation, if you pass it, youll have trouble. People are going to be surprised it turns out that not everybody wins. He had repeated chances as have other republicans who have come on the show in the last couple days. They cannot answer the questions. They cannot answer the questions. His response is i dont know. Does he know your example is a hard one to deal with or is he pretending its not . I dont know the answer to that. Nor do i. I just cant tell. Question two is the rush job on this. They have a week. They could use the same process in a year. I get it, that republicans feel obamacare is a disaster as you heard ron johnson say. Its been seven. What they need is a president who wants to bring people together and create something really constructive and good. They dont have that. Jeremy peters, hallie jackson, thank you very much. Well be right back. I was playing golf days ago. Love golf. I used to love golf. Wait, what, what happened . I was having a good round, and then my friend, sheila, right as i was stepping into the tee box mentioned a tip a pro gave her. No. Yep. Did it help . It completely ruined my game. Well, the truth is, that advice was never meant for you. I like you. You want to show me your swing . Its too soon. Get advice thats right for you. Investment Management Services from td ameritrade. When i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. I just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. My Insurance Company definitely doesnt have that. 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Willie jumped over the pit on a motorcycle. If youve been on twitter, mike allen, nobody is bullying him and hes not bullying anybody. If you follow did somebody say blood all over his face . No. If you logon it looks like that Cyber Bullying effort is, woulding now. Thank god, because Melania Trump did a speech about bullying. Maybe thats why nobody is tweeting about it. The cofounder of axios describes an exchange he had with former White House Press secretary sean spicer. Weve got the new spicy, right, Mark Halperin . Axios texted him about the fact that he took prodigious notes, interest to robert mueller. This could be a good story. So mike allen inquired. Thats what he does. Hes such a nice guy. And spicer reportedly responded, quote, please refrain from sending me unsolicited texts and emails. Should you not do so, i will contact the appropriate legal authorities to address your harassment. Is that his voice . I dont think thats his voice. Real subtle read. Thats how i read it. Per my text, please refrain from sending me unsolicited tebss and emails. Should you not do so, i will contact the appropriate authorities whats wrong with him . Talking about harassment. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Is there an email police in washington, d. C. . Maybe Leticia Baldridge . Perhaps, perhaps. Well be right back. Wait, isnt there more to this story . Theres a lot more. Throughout my career, ive been fortunate enough to travel to many interesting places. Ive always wanted to create those experiences for others. With my advisors help along the way, its finally my turn to be the host. When you have the right Financial Advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise oh, look. Another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair® works in just one week. With the fastest retinol formula available. Its clinically proven to work on fine lines and wrinkles. One week . That definitely works rapid wrinkle repair®. 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Its a little expensive, though. It is a little expensive. But why would you going to talk about bullying. Talk about bullying when your husband is the bully in chief and actually attacks people, especially women, about blood and their looks. I dont get it. Also wearing that puffy pink thing a couple days ago. Maybe they dont talk a lot or something, i dont know. Fortune is out now with a list of the most powerful women in america. Can i just say we love i love indra. She is great. Im obsessed with her. She opens up a lot. Number 50 with a bullet. Ann finucan. Actually the higher the number, the more powerful you are. That makes no sense to me. Why would you do that . So lets stop and talk here, okay . Uhhuh. Can we listen to leigh . Yeah. So she is our number two on the list. Number one is the ceo of general motors. Indr achl has steered pepsi through the food industry. Everything is getting interrupted but perhaps not as much as the food industry. She saw this ahead of time. Shes very clear to say not Everyone Wants all that stuff. Theres still a market for the bad stuff. Or some would say the good stuff, but go ahead. Exactly. And profits are up 16 last year. So shes really steering this company in a good way. So lets talk about mary barra. And this is a great example of women lead differently. When she took over, she expressed humility and more importantly shes turned the company around. The chevy volt is now the top selling nonluxury car and profits and revenue are up too. Sheryl sandberg we see, meg whitman, they seem to always be on lists like this. This is the 20th year of this list. In the beginning there were only a small handful of ceos. Now theres 26 ceos on the list. In the past, in the early years, it was, you know, a lot of women in advertising, fashion and Beauty Companies primarily. And now its the Biggest Companies in the world. Its leadership companies. Its lockheed martin. Its everything, ibm. Whos the youngest person on this list . It might be sheryl sandberg. Reese witherspoon. Shes our honorary. Was there any contentiousness about Heather Bresh being on the list . She steered the company through the epipen crisis and many thought that would have a bigger toll on the company than it did. Effective leader. Ann finucan. Tell us about ann. She is vice chairman of bank of america. She steers the environmental, social and Governance Committee so shes really leading the charge of b of as efforts of doing well by doing good. Shes steering to low income areas of cities and she has done a lot of lending to clean energy. So this is a big topic in business. Shell be speaking at our most powerful womens summit on that topic. Amy hood of microsoft is 45. She may be the youngest. Thank you, mark. Ann finucan also gives Mike Barnicle microloans every two weeks. She was also responsible for us having to put underneath Mike Barnicle in 2008 and 2009, my wife works for bank of america. Ginni rometti. The pressure is on her, but she has really expanded into new business like cloud, mobile, analytics, trying to right the ship there. I love it. You have some now, whats the criteria . The criteria, this is the most powerful women in business. Its four, the size and lehealt of the company, the arc of the womans career, the cultural and social influence of the woman and im forgetting the fourth one. But its good. Appearances on morning joe. Yes, number of appearances. But it was. How did you know that . I love it. Tell us about your conference. The conference is in a few weeks. We have a great lineup. We have mary barra, arianna huffington, diane von furstenberg. We have jewel, we have billie jean king, weve had mika before, we hope well have her again. And a lot of people. And by the way, number 47 with a bullet, nbc universals own bonnie hammer. Were doing a great panel on the News Business with andrea mitchell. Oh, very cool. I love it. That does it for us this morning. Thanks for having me. Congratulations on ten years, i forgot to say. Thank you so much. Were all so old. All right. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Thanks so much, mika. Good morning, im stephanie ruhle. Were taking you down to puerto rico. First light, puerto rico waking up to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The worst hurricane to hit that island in a century. Have you ever seen anything like this . Me . Never. Time is running out in mexico as rescuers comb through whats left of a school after that deadly earthquake in mexico city. Theres about 20 kids