Was called on the cross, and then the Second Coming of god, of course, borrowing from the Second Coming of christ, and then after that he the chaser was donald trump declaring i am the chosen one. And what really punctuated it in case you are just listening in the car is his look to the heavens while he said it, he turned and looked up to god as if to thank him for choosing him. What that really did for me, joe, is remind me alec baldwin in malice wow, so good and underrated eddie murphy movie the golden child. Thats a great movie. Im glad we started our show with it. Two i havent seen and never will. Welcome to morning joe. It is thursday, august 22nd along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, White House Reporter for the Associated Press john vennel mere, White House Correspondent for pbs news hour Yamiche Alcindor and historian author of the soul of america and rodgers professor of the presidency at Vanderbilt University jon meachum. So we are about to get to not only some of the president s more outlandish remarks, Jonathan Lemire, we are also talking about a back and forth, a cleat and utter lack of discipline, a complete unmooring, the likes of which we have actually yet to see in the trump presidency. Ive alluded to the article that you wrote a couple weeks ago that even people close to donald trump say that his management style has become even more erratic, even more disturbing, even more unmoored. Of course, the atlantic the same week wrote an article saying, believe it or not, as bad as you think its been, it is actually getting much worse. Gene robinson said it yesterday. There is this realization that every time we think that donald trump has reached the bottom in terms of competence, in terms of emotional stability, it does get worse. His policy pronouncements this week have just have been the stuff of fifth graders, whether you are talking about cashmere or other other Foreign Policy crises that have been around for decades. It is quite evident he knows little to nothing about. It has been even for this president a particularly scatter shot week or two where i think all of us in washington have been suffering from whiplash. As a brief aside on the video clips that brought in the show, we do lose points, though, for the inclusion from something from the star wars pre kwals, but i was happy to see Indiana Jones and the last crew said there. I wouldnt allow it. People around the president , even aides to him have been left baffled as to where he stands on a number of things the last couple weeks. Just to tick a couple issues, weve heard him go back and forth on the economy as fears of a recession have grown here at least or if not a full blown recession, signs that the economy is slowing down. He says were not going to do payroll taxes, then he floats payroll taxes, then tax cut and then saying there is no need because the economy is strong. He has been badgering the Federal Reserve to move on the Interest Rate again. He floated and dismissed the idea of indexing Capital Gains through inflation. These are things where the back and forth leads to the very instability that has rattled the markets, but its not just that, its on obviously guns in the wake of the shootings in texas and ohio, and in particular on background checks where he has changed position a number of times in the last week including seemingly walking away from it after a conversation with the nra and even greenland which has become an amusing story here, but at the same time when denmark rebuffed his advances to try to purchase it, he then canceled a trip to europe to visit denmark and hit more traditional allies while doing so. Hard to tell at this point, but there have been moments in this presidency i think we could even probably trace a pattern where this president behaves like this because Something Else is going on on the inside thats upsetting him and hes deflecting from, but it really has been a week of whiplash inducing policy shifts coming from President Trump and its only thursday. Its exhausting. While the president is no stranger to reversing course on policy positions, this week he has contradicted aides, allies and himself multiple times when it comes to issues such as gun reform, tax cuts and his interest in purchasing greenland. According to the New York Times, some former Trump Administration officials in recent days said they were increasingly worried about the president s behavior, suggesting it stems from increasing pressure on trump as the economy seems more worrisome and next years election approaches. As the times points out after passing off advisers who displeased him at a record rate in his first two and a half years in office trump now has fewer aides around him willing or able to challenge him, much less restrain his more impressive instincts. Yesterday trump attacked the Prime Minister of denmark calling her nasty. He doubled down on his support of russia reentering the g7. He repeated an antisemitic trope and also referred to himself as the chosen one. So here is President Trump yesterday tripling down on his belief that russia should be readmitted into the g7, this time expanding on his false claim that moscow was expelled from the group because Vladimir Putin hurt president obamas feelings. Sir, you said russia was kicked out of the g8 because they outisnt that righted you said russia was kicked out of the g8 because they outsmarted obama. In fact, it was because they an mentioned crimea. You know that, theyre still there. So russia outsmarted president obama, they took over during his term, not during mine, crimea. They are still there, why let them in now. They took over crimea. If you would stop being an organ of the democrats, you know, you would let me answer the question. I will answer it very easily, its a very simple question. The fact is president putin totally outstarted president obama on crimea and other things, including the red line in the sand, all right . He outsmarted he made a living on outsmarting president obama and frankly because of it obama was upset and he got obama out of what was the g8 into the g7. They were taken out because putin outsmarted on crimea, on the red line, on other things, totally outsmarted obama. Obama was upset. They took him out. I think russia should be a part of it because were looking for world peace. So obviously, willie, he thinks if he keeps repeating obama it will be a smoke screen to some of his lowest information voters. Who knows, maybe they didnt even know the news that Vladimir Putin invaded a sovereign country and then annexed part of that sovereign country and in so doing violated Nuclear Agreements that actually were extraordinarily it was an extraordinarily dangerous, serious move and then, of course, they were responsible, russia was, for shooting down a commercial aircraft, killing hundreds of civilians. We could go on and on. Of course, he also invaded georgia several years before. But i guess donald trump thinks if he keeps bringing up obama, obama, obama, maybe his lowest information supporters will look past the fact that hes actually doing Vladimir Putin and russias bidding, just like he did at helsinki when you said he thrusted an exkgb agent more than he trusted marks military and americas intel community. Yeah, this is an easy one, there are facts that are easily learned. The president either doesnt want to learn them or isnt aware of them, which would be surprising. He does have a National Security staff presumably that talks to him from time to time. But Peter Alexander asked a direct question, which was grounded in fact, and when he followed up the president of the United States said, stop being an organ of the democrats. Is that all you got . Stop being an organ of the democrats. If you cant answer a direct question based on the facts of why rufgts was kicked out of the g8, thats pretty pathetic. Yamiche alcindor, you cover this white house very closely. Is there someone left in that white house who perhaps the first time he said this the first time he made that up could have said to him here is why russia is no longer in the g8, and if so, who is that person and why arent they saying things to him now that could influence what he says in public because its not going well for him right now. In short theres no one in the white house that is interested in challenging the president on facts because the president those why russia was kicked out of the g8. Its pretty clear why russia was kicked out of the g8 but hes reflecting and he uses the word obama when hes upset, backed against a corner, when he wants to make a point to rile up his base. We saw the president also use a bunch of other misleading information. Not only was he deflecting and completely lying when it comes to why russia was kicked out of the g8, he also talked about the nra and said Wayne Lapierre the head of the nra wants to close loopholes on background checks when its very clear on the nras own website they say we are against expanding any type of background checks and they take issue with the fact that loopholes even exist when even though in this country if there is a gun sale between two private citizens you dont have to have a background check, which means people can buy guns at gun shows, buy guns on inn loo. What the president was doing yesterday was really throwing back all the things that he has heard throughout his presidency, which is that he is an agent of russia. I mean, the idea that the fbi opened up an investigation to make sure President Trump wasnt an agent of russia must really still be bothering him because he is now making the case that president obama was the person who was being outsmarted and now i asked him a question yesterday very directly are you talking to the victims of Mass Shootings about what they want in gun laws . He refused to answer the question. Instead he said mass shooting victims that i visited in the hospital love me. It is all about President Trump yesterday. God, hes horrible. Jon meachum, lets just go down a list here that i was just writing down here. So and ask if theres any parallel in American Government regarding a president , a commander in chief, ceding so much to an adversary and getting nothing in return. He ceded syria to russia, saying they were welcome to go in, its the first time that russia has been in the middle east since 1973, it is causing so many problems regarding the management of syrias terrible government, with irans expansion plans, trying to move towards israel as much as possible. He ceded afghanistan to russia this past week, saying he wanted to get out and if russia wanted to go in, they were welcome to go into afghanistan. Of course, ceding objections to russia entering the g8, of course, again. Russia it wasnt barack obama, it was the entire American Government that was shocked, rightly, by russias invasion of crimea, by the annexation of crimea, by the shooting down of commercial aircraft. And, of course, refusing and perhaps the most disturbing and inexplicable problem is donald trump continuing to refuse to listen to his military leaders, refuse to listen to his intel chiefs that he appointed, the fbi director, the cia director, the National Director of intelligence, we can go down the list, the department of Homeland Security director saying russia is threatening american democracy. Russia is trying to undermine american democracy, mr. President , do something about it, and yet this president and Mitch Mcconnell refuse to do anything about it. Add all of those up from syria to afghanistan to the g8, to the ignoring of the crimea invasion, the annexation, all the treaties that were broken when that happened, i mean, add all of that up, jon, and what type of picture does it paint . As gloomy as at any point in the history of the country in terms of a president s conduct of our policy toward a foe and or a rival, depending on how you want to characterize russia. One of the great mysteries of the age to me continues to be how the party that was so vital to the defeat of soviet totalitarianism has decided to support a president who is enabling and being in many ways complicit with the totalitarian heir to that system. Jon, quickly, on that point its interesting that you have the republican leader of the house of representatives who accused the president before he got the nomination of being paid off by russia. Kevin mccarthy told a caucus, the republican caucus, that he believed that donald trump was on the take and had gotten money and been paid off by russia. Im sorry, go ahead. No. No. And i think this is what the founders in many ways were concerned about. One of the big issues in philadelphia in the 1780s was how do you keep a president or a legislator, too, but mostly a president how do you keep them from being influenced by a foreign government. A lot of the safeguards were about that. Jefferson and hamilton part of their voracity was hamilton thought jefferson was too close to the french and jefferson thought hamilton was too close to the british and that was an essential story at the beginning of the republic, which was ferociously partisan, which was difficult and was one of the things we forget about in america which i think is really interesting in terms of the russia question now, even now, is we see ourselves as this continental nation with a destiny for good or for ill, depending on where you are, but nobody living in 1790 knew we were going to be a continental nation. And if you are a european power, if you are france, spain, britain, russia on the other side, from the Pacific Northwest side, you have this vast new world and you are not going to try to exert your influence . Its a it is remarkable we dont look more like central or south america and part of that is we did have every possible persuasi persuasion, every possible party, we had generations of leadership that insisted on a certain kind of american territorial and even ideological integrity. I know it was imperfect, this is not a manifest destiny homily, but i honestly cannot remember unless you go back to the fears of the founders of one another i dont remember a president who seemed as so clearly a willing agent of a foreign government. And, joe, when you add all of what jon meachum just indicated and just take the collective tapes from the past three or four days, from sunday onward of the president s statements and his press availabilities with marine one behind him, he uses that as a stage where he can say pretty much anything he wants, respond to anything he wants at whim, weve seen collectively a remarkable portrait of instability and incompetence on parade from the president of the United States, talking about events that are current, that are dangerous, that are affecting the lives not only of american citizens but are affecting our relations with countries around the globe. I was speaking yesterday with someone who spoke with the president earlier this week, he received a call from the president to talk about the economy and this person was telling me that the conversation was remarkable and that the president of the United States received absolutely incoherent talking about the current economic trends. Trillion dollar deficits, the president was talking about things that ought to be done, attacking the fed and talking about as if it were december of 2008 and january of 2009, talking about crazy, crazy implementation of things that are beyond bizarre. This is the president of the United States. Weve seen the videos this morning of his behavior and his rhetoric. This is, i think, getting worse by the day. Well, it is definitely. Weve noticed that when the pressure is on him, he gets worse, at times incoherent. That happened during the ramp up of the Mueller Investigation, at critical times in the Mueller Investigation we would see this. After the Mueller Investigation passed, we noticed a little bit less of that, whether its the economy or Something Else thats going on right now, there is no doubt that with pressure on him he does seem to be more incoherent based on people who work around him than he has been in some time. You know, willie, we talked about this earlier this week. The republicans dont other than Kevin Mccarthy who said that the russians paid off donald trump, the republicans for the most part dont like the theory that donald trump is beholden to russia and trump apologists in the media get very angry whenever somebody suggests that and part pushing back and its the antiantitrumpism that they have hidden behind for years to keep their subscription rates up or to try to just stay afloat. I do wonder at the end of this week what is the republican explanation for a president who has ceded syria, ceded the middle east, who has ceded afghanistan now and said go in, take over, we will get out, against the advice of every single military person, of every single general, ever every single admiral, every single Foreign Policy expert that has helped america become the most powerful country in the history of the world, and the fact that hes doing nothing to protect american democracy. What is their explanation . If they dont like that donal