Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 20190828

And is raising some new ethics concerns. And in less than 25 hours, we will know how big the next democratic debate stage will be. Well take a deep dive into what will be a do or die moment in the president ial race. The 11th hour on a tuesday night starts right now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Im Steve Kornacki in for brian williams, who has the night off. Day 950 of the trump administration. And the president is furiously battling the perception of a white house with no strategy and no direction. Trump made no public appearances today, but we did hear from him quite a bit on social media as he jumped from one topic to another on his twitter feed, underscoring what the Los Angeles Times describes as quote the scattershot focus that defines his stream of consciousness presidency. Among the things on trumps mind, quote i have gotten to know president ball sin narrow well in our dealings with brazil, hes working very hard on the amazon fires in all respects doing a great job for the people of brazil. And no bedbugs at doral. The radical left democrats upon hearing that the perfectly located for the next g7 Doral National miami was under consideration for the next g7 spread that false and nasty rumor. The g7 was a Great Success for the usa and all lame stream Media Coverage bore no relationship to what actually happened. And this, wow, yet another big storm heading to puerto rico, will it ever end, Congress Approved 92 billion for puerto rico last year an alltime record. In reality, Congress Approved less than half that. Less than 14 billion reached the island by the end of may. The federal reserve, the president continues on twitter, loves watching our manufacturers struggle with their exports to the benefit of other parts of the world, has anyone looked at what almost all other countries are doing to take advantage of the good old usa . All that on top of what we heard from the president over the past ten days. Greenland, i dont know, it got released somehow. Its something we talked about. Denmark essentially owns it, and strategically for the United States it would be nice. The fake news, of which many of you are members, is trying to convince the public to have a recession. Lets have a recession. I am the chosen one. Somebody had to do it. So im taking on china. I have confidence that in the end, kim jongun, who ive gotten to know very well, will do the right thing. China called last night, our top trade people, and said, lets get back to the table. So well be getting pack to the table. I have good feelings about iran. I have good feelings that it will work. It would be better to have russia inside the tent than outside the tent. Do we live either way . Yes, we live either way. Is it politically popular foe mr. To say that . Possibly not. I do nothing for politics. Meanwhile at home, there are new signs that trumps trade war is taking its toll on one of his key voting blocs. The New York Times quote American Farmers have become Collateral Damage in a trade war that mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by chinas unfair trade practices. More than a year into the trade dispute, sales of american soybeans, pork, wheat, and other Agricultural Products to china have dried up. Farm bankruptcy filings in the year through june were up 13 from 2018, and loan delinquency rates are on the rise. Earlier on this network, the head of the National Farmers union described members fears. More and more farmers are coming to understand that, listen, what this president is doing is harming our reputation. And its literally going to take us decades to get some of these we may never get some of these markets back. Amid all of this, theres other news involving the president. The Washington Post reports that attorney general bill barr has booked a 30,000 Christmas Party at trumps d. C. Hotel. The paper also reports on trumps new directive to fast track a border wall, and he wants it black, and he wants it by election day. Quote trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 president ial election that he has directed aides to fast track billions of dollars worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land, and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project. He also has told worried subordinates he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly. Here for our leadoff discussion on a tuesday night, robert costa, national plit ka reporter for the Washington Post, moderator of Washington Week on pbs. E. B. Stoddard, columnist and associate editor at real clear politics. Thanks to all of you for being with us. Robert, let me start with you. Its not your story, your paper is reporting, though, we just quoted from it, the president apparently feeling some urgency to show tangible progress on this border wall by election day 2020. Obviously the signature promise of his 2016 campaign. Behind the scenes, how big a concern is that for trump, that so little progress has been made in 2 1 2 years as president . Inside the white house tonight, theyre bracing for a fall where the u. S. Mca trade deal may not even be brought to the floor for a vote, where a china trade deal may be long away on the horizon. So theyre trying to look at executive authority as a way to try to galvanize that republican base, the president s core voters for 2020. And thats why theyre going to put an emphasis this fall as the Washington Post reports tonight on what the wall is up to, where the progress has been made by using executive authority. E. B. , you talk about bedbugs, brazil, puerto rico, in terms of twitter. That was how the president was communicating tonight. He was sort of all over the place. Is there a strategy here . Is there a broader strategy that unites all of his pronouncements, all of his action in this. I think robert is right that they are desperate to show some kind of progress on whatever they can. He will return to the immigration issue, no question, because hes been trying to act on that through executive orders recently about food stamps and flu shots and all sorts of things to limit what is provided to families at detention centers. I expect a lot more on immigration. This wall thing is fascinating though, because the Washington Post did not put the impeachable offenses that this story reports on into the headline. He is directing lawbreaking and dangling pardons and thats an impeachable offense. The interesting thing about this story is that don trump jr. Tweeted a video yesterday. They are trying to convince their supporters a new wall has been built. It says, the wall is finally being built. Theyre frustrated all the new wall is refurbished preexisting fencing. Theyre trying to convince people that there actually is new border fencing because they feel that the voters are getting restless about this. And donald trump admits in this in this reporting shows he thinks its going to be seen as a defeat and embarrassment. Theyre desperate to show new wall. The storys not surprising but directing lawbreaking and dangling pardons to do it is going to be a huge problem for him. Karen, again, the other big story here, the president on twitter tonight making some headlines. But the last few days in public at the g7 summit over in france, the headlines, of course, were largely made by the president. Im curious, so much attention to what he said, again, on various topics over there. The g7 itself, this is an institution that goes back decades. Has it been changed by President Trump . I think that they certainly that was the case with the first two meetings that he attended where there were big blowups, there was a lot of concern that they couldnt go on. I think this time president macron of france basically just decided from the beginning that he was going to avoid any chance of conflict. There would be no communique. There would be no big meeting on climate change. There was a smaller meeting on the last day that trump didnt attend. That was the subject that had blown him up before. And i think he went out of his way to flatter President Trump. Everyone was just sort of committed ahead of time that they would not allow anything to explode at the meeting. And that they would smile and go about their business. Not expect any big deliverables. And hopefully get out of it unscathed. Robert, we also mentioned there at the top the condition, the sort of reality for American Farmers a year or so into this trade war with china. Given the importance of sort of the agricultural rural constituency for a lot of republican politicians, not just the president in 2020, for a lot of folks in his party who have been going with him on this trade war, at least not standing up publicly and opposing him on it, how much latitude does the president have with his party, how much farther can he go without getting something tangible from china . The question of whats tangible, your word, is really whats up for debate inside of the Republican Party. When im talking to top lawmakers inside of the house of representatives and the senate, they say they encourage, broadly speaking, the president s trade war. They want to have a confrontation with china. But would they accept a watereddown deal that maybe had china agree to some soybean agreements, some purchases of different ayear, early 2020, something that wasnt wide in scope or hardline against china . Theres a lot of appetite for that among my republican sources who say, a watereddown china deal would jump start the market, would reassure farmers, they dont need to have some kind of grand china deal on trade. A. B. , you were mentioning the issues raised by the president s reported comments on the wall. Theres also the president in the last couple of days saying publicly hed like to have the g7 at trump doral next year. Also news tonight that his attorney general, william barr, is going to be having a 30,000 Christmas Party there. Apparently they are saying they have clearance, barr does, from the dojs ethics officials on this. But still, pearns there, i imagine, could raise some questions for some folks. You know, i was surprised to see senator rubio, who has stood up to the president now and then when he does the wrong thing, i guess hes from florida, and hes supportive of this for miami. But this is another potential probably definite violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution that the president took an oath to defend. And hes just you know, hes not shy about this. He wants to promote his businesses, play golf at his resorts, do business there, and many business dozen business at the trump hotel. Bill barr might do it because its convenient, its near the department of justice. But this is the thing you work hard to avoid doing so even the appearance doesnt raise these kinds of questions. Speaking of that, the president just on twitter tonight is back at it saying, basically, hed like to have the g7 at trump doral next year. What are the prospects of that actually happening . I think as far as the president s concerned, its a done deal. And you saw even though he and his press conference yesterday said, you know, were thinking very seriously about it, weve looked at a lot of other places and they just are not good enough. The white house then came out and tweeted its own confirmation that thats where it was going to be. Today you saw a lot of people, including those who have planned the previous summit g7 summits that have been held in this country saying, wait a minute, it may have all the hotel rooms, it may have the ballrooms, it may have the golf courses and the restaurants as the president explained, but its located very close to miami airport, it is in a neighborhood that is largely warehouses, places that would be very difficult to secure. Previously theyve closed down the airport. Youve got seven, used to be eight, seven leaders of the world meeting there, and most of their cabinets involved. And so in previous for previous summits, theyve closed down the airports. Theyve cleared all the surrounding area. And thats just very, very difficult to do around doral. The president also had on twitter tonight, he had 2020 on his mind. He attacked this might be potentially interesting here. He attacked Elizabeth Warren, democratic president ial candidate, he said they do stories so big on elizabeth poke hon mass warrens crowd sizes adding many more people than are actually there, yet my crowds which are far bigger get no coverage at all, fake news. Robert costa, i guess what im curious about, the president s decision to go after Elizabeth Warren. Obviously hes been attacking joe biden quite a bit lately. Does that say anything about how the white house, how this president is viewing the democratic race . It means hes taking her candidacy seriously. I remember as a reporter back in 2015, traveling with President Trump, he paid close attention to all of his republican rivals, their crowd size, hed talk about his crowd size. It was not so much policy debate, it was about asserting himself as someone whod draw huge crowds. When he see a democratic contender dwraug thousands, over 10,000 in places, that is something that perks the head of this president. Someone who pays attention to celebrity populism, crowds, as much as he does to political issues. A. B. , just given the reality of american politics, Democratic Party politics today, if youre Elizabeth Warren, youre trying to win the democratic president ial nomination, getting attacked by President Trump might actually help you in this moment . Absolutely, that he sees her as a potential threat. He also took the bait and started tweeting about the three stooges, he calls them, the people running against him. Hes upset about joe walsh. I think that was joe walshs goal by the end of this week, former congressman running against the president in the primary, to get him to start barking at him on twitter. So hes taking the bait. This is exactly after a friday when he tanked the markets in a chaotic, turbulent, and largely negative g7 where he was really doing the marketing of Vladimir Putin. What republicans do not want him to be focused on, other peoples crowd size. They want him to be focused on policy and assuring farmers and everything else. So the tweets today were extra special. Okay. A. B. Stoddard, robert costa, karen deyoung, thank you. The government tries to shore up its defenses against election databases russians compromised in 2016. Will it make a difference in 2020 . Later, Congress Moves forward obtaining President Trumps tax returns. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a tuesday night. Ts and if you make the switch youll see what we mean. Tide purclean, because its made with plants. Tide purclean, gets stains out his pants. Tide purclean, it has nothing to hide. Its made with plants and has the cleaning strength of tide. The first plantbased detergent with the cleaning power of tide. A. B. Stoddard, robert costa, the 11th hour just getting er, the 11th hour just getting its been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. Luckily denture breath will be the least of his worries. Because he uses polident 4 in 1 cleaning system to kill 99. 99 of odor causing bacteria. Polident. Clean. Fresh. And confident. The Intelligence Community is launching a new effort to combat russian interference in u. S. Elections. This time the department of Homeland Security is warning the kremlin may turn to ransomware in 2020. Reuters were first to report the u. S. Government plans to launch a program in roughly one month that narrowly focuses on protecting Voter Registration databases and systems ahead of the 2020 president ial election. Ransomware attacks hold Computer Systems hostage until payment is made. A Technology Official telling reuters quote a preelection undetected attack could tamper with voter lists creating huge confusion and delays, disenfranchisement, at large could compromise the validity of the election. Officials say this new dhs program will run parallel with local, state, and private sector efforts to try to keep Russian Hackers out of american voting software. Attacks that were attempted back in 2016. Here with us to talk more about it, frank feglusi, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence. Clint watts, former fbi special agent, distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and author of messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians, and fake news. Clint, speaking of the russians, potentially, according to this reporting, anyone else who has some desire to interfere perhaps with american elections, ransomware is a potential avenue for doing so. Describe exactly how that would work and what could be done to stop that. Yeah, there are two parts. If you remember back when we looks at the end of the Mueller Report, the first part people were worried about was changing votes. Be actually getting in, changing the Voting System so that the count came out different. Thats actually much more difficult to do. What the russians did last time around and what could be even worse this time is going after those voter rolls. The way they could do that is by using basically offtheshelf ransom wear that any cyber criminal uses or other variants which they have used in attacks that have been connected to them in places like ukraine. What the idea would be is they would send out messages essentially to parts of the Voter Registration process. This could be across any of the 50 states. When someone in one of those local governments mistakenly clicks on it, it would seize that data. It would essentially block that out, decrypt it, so that they cant access the voter rolls. It would either require a payment or in some cases may not ask for payment at all, essentially takes those vot errols and destroys them. Imagine if youre heading into election day and you dont have those voter rolls, you dont know who can vote, you dont have access to them. It would almost bring the voting day to a halt, depending on which locality got struck by it. And frank, the scale of what clints describing there, 50 states, but within the states youre talking about hundreds of cities, towns, precincts, potentially, where these records are going to be kept. Practically speaking, how do you defend against what clints describing . Well, its interesting you mention the thousands of municipalities involved in this. Because theyre being hit right now. We have several states and little municipalities in the country right now who are literally being extorted for their own data at town hall. So this is part of whats driving, in addition to the Mueller Report findings and the fact that the russians did this in 2016 and waved at us and said, we can get into your town hall Voter Registration, we now have a realtime problem where towns are being held hostage. This is where the federal government needs to step in, and they are, at least now, and theyre saying, you need backup systems, standalone systems, constantly backing up, making the backup database secure, so that if it goes down youve got a backup system. That costs money. Weve heard Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell say, im not supporting the concept of the feds coming in for security on elections because i think elections are about the states. Well, lets play out the boston case scenario. The state, the town, key swing states, they get hit, they look to the federal government for help, the federal government says, were not helping. Now we dont know what that election outcome is in key precincts on election day. Clinical, we know from 2016, the russians were very interested in meddling with the u. S. Election. So obviously youre talking about Something Like this potentially in 2020. All eyes on russia. But is there anyone else, any other country, any other actor around the world, we should be keeping an eye on here . It could be anyone, steve. I cant state that enough. Weve been focused on russia, as we should be. But when you look at these ransomware attacks, oftentimes we dont even know where they come from. Thats the brilliance of it from cyber crime perspective is you dont know who the actor is whenever they execute it. And that malware, the ransomware thats being used to target these cities, can be copied and used by any number of actors. It gives ability for any country essentially that might want to provoke the United States, or even lay a claim or some sort of attack that might look like russia, or even a criminal or a domestic actor, that wants to try and sow confusion or stop the vote, to have the ability to do a psychological attack on this country when were most vulnerable. We have just gone through 2016. Imagine in 2020 having issues again even when we knew this far out. I have to say dhs has done a good job about notifying on all of this. But look at what theyre dealing with. Theyve got to go to 50 different states to get this done. They have, as frank said, no more resources to get that action done. They need that money from the senate. They havent been able to get that bill through there. Frank, clint says dhs is doing a pretty good job on this, that youve got the president , though, over the weekend, making the case for bringing russia, bringing Vladimir Putin back into the g7, saying hed like to have Vladimir Putin come to the United States next year at the height of the president ial campaign to be part of the g7 summit here in the United States. Those two messages, the signal being sent by dhs, the public signal being sent by the president , how is that interpreted in moscow . Well, its interpreted as a green light. Essentially what the senate is doing, what the president is doing in their posture, is saying, look, were not going to touch this. If youre going to do it again, were not going to step into this. So as clint said, its not just russia we need to worry about. Irans doing this china certainly has the capability of doing this, and your independent hackers can just mess with the election. So its got to be a coordinated federal budgetary item to secure our democracy by preserving a free and fair election, and were not there yet. Frank and clint are staying with us. Coming up, as we just mentioned, President Trump says Vladimir Putin would be welcome in this country next year. Why is the kremlin refusing to let u. S. Senators into russia . The 11th hour back after this. T moving into our new apartment. Why dont we just ask geico for help with renters insurance . I didnt know geico helps with renters insurance. Yeah, and we could save a bunch too. Antonio fetch computer antonio . Ill get it. Get to know geico and see how much you could save on renters insurance. man n go home. woman banjo sorry, it wont happen again. Come on, lets go home. After 10 years, weve covered a lot of miles. Good thing i got a subaru. avo love is out there. Find it in a subaru crosstrek. avo get 0 during the subaru a lot to love event. 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You two are going to have such a great trip. Yeah, have fun thanks to you, we will. Aw, stop. This is why voya helps reach todays goals. All while helping you to and through retirement. Um, you guys are just going for a week, right . Yeah thats right. Can you help with these . Oh. Um, were more of the plan, invest and protect kind of help. Sorry, little paws, so. But have fun send a postcard voya. Helping you to and through retirement. Rodney you know what my favorite part really is is when i greet students when they come in. Because i know what great things we have in store in the classroom. Marisa when they come into my classroom, theyre able to really get in touch with who they are. Rosanne my favorite part of teaching has always been this opportunity to make a difference. Ever every student has the right to quality education. No matter what neighborhood you live in. Rosanne we are cta. Ever we are cta. Marisa we are cta. Narrator because we know quality Public Schools make a better california for all of us. Two u. S. Senators who have been critical of russia have now been banned from entering that country. Republican ron johnson of wisconsin and democrat chris murphy of connecticut say their visa requests were denied ahead of a bipartisan congressional delegation trip. In a statement senator murphy called it quote a perilous moment for our two nations fragile relationships, saying its a shame that russia isnt interested in dialogue. The russian visa denials come as Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to President Trump arguing against russias reentry to the g7. As politico sums it up, russias barring senators and schumers letter taken together heighten the already fraught relationship between congress and putin. Back with us, frank fig losezy and clint watts. What does russia think it can achieve with this . Well, i think, first of all, this should be a reminder to all of us that we have adversaries in the world. We may not like to hear it. And the president may not like to acknowledge that. But we do. And weve gotten into a scenario where the president s Foreign Policy strategy, so to speak, of embracing dictators and adver sierras, whether its north korea or russia, is not working. Because as he does that, they continue to feel emboldened to do things like this. And now International Travel of elected officials is impacted. And we have no standing to fight back because this president , our president , has actually blocked entry for people. And weve heard reports today that people are being blocked from attending school, including harvard, because they cant get back into the United States. Were in kind of this escalated cold war that no one wanted to get into. Clint, just given the friendliness that President Trump has shown towards Vladimir Putin, is it surprising at all that a member of the president s party, ron johnson, is one of those being denied admission by the russians . Yeah, its one of the more surprising things because you just watched the president here with the g7 basically going to bat for Vladimir Putin. Essentially skipping over all the bad behavior, whether its ukraine or interference on our own election that our president would advocate for putin to be back in the g7, to be the g8, is not only just frightening, its a bit ridiculous. Then to watch putin essentially snub his own party. You know, its been seen already that hes trying to divide democrats and republicans. Thats been putins strategy from afar. Now hes even dividing people of his own party. The gop, with senator johnson. Inside the United States, from the white house. And im really interested to see how the president will handle this, because he would then again, weve seen him say the u. S. Intelligence community doesnt know what theyre talking about, weve seen him take putins side in terms of election interference in helsinki. Is he going to actually go and fight for his own party, the gop . I think this will be a remarkable moment to see if theres any line where the president will take a firmer stand against russia. Frank, on this question of the g7 and the line the president right now is taking, encouraging, saying hed like to see russia back in the g7, make it the g8 all over again from russias standpoint, is that a priority for russia . Has that been something theyve been pushing for . Oh, they need to be that player on the world stage. They need to be and want to be in that room at what would then become a g8. Understand the strategy here. What were going to watch play out is whether trump decides to align himself with russia on these issues or whether hes more aligned with the gop, his own party. They are forcing his hand. And we could actually see a scenario where trump becomes tighter and digs in when it comes to joining at the hip with russia than actually aligning with his own political party. Clint, this question of, again with the g7, if the president were to push forward with trying to have putin come next year, perhaps, forget the issue of russia join organize not, what would the reception from the other leaders there be . I think it would be Strong Negative and to the point where they would question why they keep the g7 going. Lets remember what the longrun goals of russia is. Its to advance themselves on the world stage and push the United States down. They have a zero sum view of the world. So could you imagine, you know, President Trump is advocating for putin. Hes actually driving a wedge between himself and his own alliances, the European Union and nato. To the point where i oftentimes wonder if those alliances would hold at all with the United States anymore based on the president s behavior. This is longrun damage. Not only would putin showing up in the United States for that g7 g8 summit be just devastating for morale, but it could be a wedge breaker where it really isolates the United States on a world stage and sends us off into our own after decades and decades of being the worlds leader and being the unify ier of all these countries, all these democracies around the world, it could be a further sign and maybe even a death blow to these things that have protected us for so many years. Clint watts from oslo, norway, with that twosecond delay we managed to navigate deftly, and frank fig losezy, thank you for joining us, appreciate that. New poll numbers are hours away and one democratic hopeful has a lot at stake. Im going to go to the big board and explain. Unstopables inwash scent booster downy unstopables sir, youre a broker. What do you charge for online equity trades . Uh, ill look into it. phone rings lisa jones lisa on phone hey carl, what are you charging me for online equity trades . nervous chuckle lisa and do i get my fees back if im not happy . Like a satisfaction guarantee . Ugh. Schwab lisa oh right, im calling schwab. Thanks, carl wait, lisa lisa. Are you getting low costs backed by a satisfaction guarantee . If not, talk to schwab. A modern approach to wealth management. All right, well almost exactly 24 hours from now, 11 59 p. M. Tomorrow night, that is the deadline for candidates to qualify for the next democratic president ial debate. That debates going to be in midseptember. The deadline to make it on the stage tomorrow night. Now here is where we stand because there is a lot of suspense in these final 24 hours and change. First of all youve got these ten candidates you see right here. These ten candidates have qualified for the debate. What does that mean . There were two criteria for this. You needed to raise 130,000 individual donations. All of these candidates cleared that threshold. The other thing you need to do, you have to hit 2 in four different polls that are recognized by the dnc. 2 in four different polls. All ten of these candidates have managed to do that. Remember what weve seen in this debate so far on the democratic side, the maximum on stage, ten candidates. So right now thats only one stage of candidates, right now, if nothing changes in the next 24 hours. Youre going to have one stage, one debate, one night, every candidate on stage together. No more of this twonight business. Now the question is what happens over the next 24 hours or so . Because in addition to these ten, there are three candidates who you might call on the bubble. Meaning they have qualified for one but not two of those criteria to get into this debate. Take a look here. All three of these tulsi gabb Marianne Williamson all three have hit the donor threshold. Theyve raised the individual donations. The question is can they get up to four polls at 2 . Right away what do you see . Tom steyer, one poll away. That means tom steyer has 24 hours for one more poll to come out with steyer at at least 2 in it. Gabbard would need two. Marianne williamson, shed need three in the next 24 hours. Well, guess what we know, though . There are at least two that we know are coming out tomorrow. The quinnipiac poll, 8 00 a. M. Eight hours from now, about 8 19 from now, the quinnipiac poll is coming out. The dnc counts that poll. If tom steyer is at 2 in that poll, tom steyer is in the debate. If Tulsi Gabbards in that poll, shes one poll away from making it. She could get her fourth poll in the usa today suffolk poll coming out tomorrow. Tom steyer, two shots. If in either one of these polls he can hit 2 , he can join the candidates on the debate stage. Tulsi gabbard would need 2 in both polls. Marianne williamson, there really isnt a scenario for her unless there are more polls coming out tomorrow. Realistically speaking the drama is around tom steyer, maybe Tulsi Gabbard too. Its a question, are you going to have a onestage debate for the first time . Or are we going to have another one of those multinight affairs . We will know 24 hours from now. Raise youre hand if youre being outspent in the 2020 president ial election. Anklre m. Uh. The mobile app makes it easy to manage your policy, even way out here. Your marshmallows. Get digital id cards, emergency roadside service, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa oops, that cheeky little thing got away from me. My bad. Geico. Its easy to manage your policy whenever, wherever. Can i trouble you for another marshmallow . Want to freshen your home without using heavy, overwhelming scents . 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Really. That was easy. Yup. Plus, with twohour appointment windows, its all on your schedule. Awesome. Now all you have to do is move. That thing. [ sigh ] introducing an easier way to move with xfinity. Its just another way were working to make your life simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. As we just mentioned, tom steyer needs 2 in just one more poll approved by the dnc tomorrow. If he gets that, he qualifies for septembers debate. As you might have realized, tom steyer is already all over television. The billionaire former investor has been spending heavily on tv ads to raise his profile after entering the race last month. As of today steyer has spent 12 million on advertising. That far surpasses anyone else in this campaign, including the incumbent, President Trump. Shane goldmaker of the New York Times is out with a new report. He writes, the Steyer Campaign has floated a 100 Million Campaign budget which is more than the top five candidates for the democratic nomination raised in the Second Quarter combined. You underestimate my brother at your own peril, said jim steyer, who is one year older. Jim said when tom considered runs for california governor or senator, Kamala Harris and gavin newsom, now governor, would use him as a back channel to find out about his brothers plans. People like gavin and kamala, they were always afraid of tom. Here with us to talk about all of this, Eliza Collins, politics reporter covering the 2020 campaign for the wall street journal. And the aforementioned shane goldmaker, National Political reporter for the New York Times. Shane, let me start with you. Big day tomorrow for tom steyer. If he does not reach that magic number in either one of those polls and does not make the debate stage, what does that do for his campaign this. For starters the odds are against him in those two polls because the ones he has qualified in are those early states where those ads have been running. Iowa, south carolina, New Hampshire, nevada, polling in those states have showed him well over the 2 mark. But nationally hes still at that 0 to 1 because thats not where most of these ads have been running. Given the fact that reliably in nonqualifying polls hes been above the 2 mark. But for now he continues an unabated campaign of continuous television, facebook, and google ads. Fun moment, i was around the state fair with him and somebody sees him and just like doesnt always, hey, its the youtube guy. This person is running for president for weeks and hes already getting recognized, Walking Around the state fair of iowa. 12 million can buy you something, at least. Eliza, hes an interesting candidate to me. If he does get into is they debates, at least, because of the money, obviously. But it seems the message, you talk about somebody with his background, billionaire investor, you might think would have more of a Mike Bloomberg kind of message. This is somebody running on impeachment, running on a very aggressively liberal agenda, backed by potentially 100 million. Right. And as shanes reporting notes, he believes that he is actually the outsider here. Hes saying that some of the other progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are the establishment. Because they are from washington. Bought tom steyer actually earlier this year had been thinking about running for president , and basically said, im not going to do it. And then a few months later came back and said, well, actually, i am. Part of that was because he didnt feel that the candidates were taking basically his message, one of those being trying to impeach the president and running with him. So he said, im stepping in, ive got the money, im going to try to run on that. Part of tom fires name i. D. And his huge lists of potential donor taz he can tap into came from his push for impeachment and for environment and climate. And hes been pushing these things for a long time, for years, and collecting names of people interested in these topics. And now his campaign is renting out those email lists and tapping those same people for donations, basically saying, tom steyer was heading up these efforts, now hes running for president. Shane, you mentioned its the early states where the ads are running on tv where he is popping a little bit in the polls. Not really seeing it nationally yet. What are the other Democratic Candidates what do they think of him . What do they think of his candidacy right candidacy . How are they reacting to it . Theres two real impacts. For one, anybody whos planning to have a really immediate ya a yayiaheavy campaign their plans have been scrambled. If youre mayor pete and collected tens of millions of dollars and spent very little of it maybe you could do a huge set of ads in january, guess what, youre not going to have the airwaves to yourself and youre not going to outbuy tom steyer. Thats impact number one for future plans. And impact number two is its something they dont know yet, will he go negative. Will he run ads that attack these other candidates . And when i was spending time with him in iowa i talked with him about the fact he flies commercial, which i thought was interesting. Right . He can certainly afford his own plane. And his eyes absolutely widened at the thought that other candidates were flying on private planes across the campaign trail. You could almost see him envisioning future attack ads on this exact topic. He asked me a whole series of followup questions. Like who . How can i look that up . Is this Public Information . And he said, look, he absolutely will consider running any kind of ads, hes in this to be competitive. Thats a major variable potentially to keep an eye on. Liza, in terms of the frontrunner in this race, joe biden, youve seen two different polls come out in the last day offering two different trajectories for his candidacy, one putting him back in third place actually, a point behind warren and sanders, the other putting him comfortably in first place, still low 30s, doubledigit lead. What is the mood around his campaign right now . Certainly there have been some issues on the campaign trail with him up in New Hampshire over the weekend he was in keane, New Hampshire, seemed to refer to it as vermont. Its raised some questions about at 76, 78 on Inauguration Day whether hes fully up to this. Whats the mood around his campaign right now . His campaign is certainly pointing to that poll that has him higher up and dismissing the other poll as political campaigns tend to do. They like polls when theyre good. They dont like them when theyre bad. But this really shows that his lead, he is the leader in most polling, is tenuous and it is not as strong as people may have believed early on in his campaign. He has had a series of gaffes. But he is still the frontrunner. So i think his campaign is taking this seriously. More seriously than they may be saying in public. And theyre Going Forward and trying to get him out. Weve seen him out with an ad today talking about his personal story and the loss of his wife and daughter and his son later on. Basically talking about health care and how its personal to him. And so hes coming out trying to be sort of on offense rather than defense, which he has been on a series of instances over the past few days. And i think part of that is polling. Theyre looking at the numbers and realizing that he needs to sort of harden up his lead if he wants to continue his frontrunner status. Eliza, what youre getting there gets to a big question about sort of the mood of the democratic electorate right now. What exactly hes looking for in the age of trump. Eliza, Shane Goldmacher both staying with us. Were going to talk about that when the 11th hour continues. When the 11th hour continues [dog barks] [dog panting] [dogs barking] [dogs growling] [dogs whimpering] vo the subaru crosstrek. Dog tested. Dog approved. [dog barks] the first survivor of alzis out there. Ase and the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Join the fight with the Alzheimers Association. You gotta start somewhere. Im a reporter for the New York Times. The when, the where bank statements, tax returns, its out, dozens of copy records of deeds and reports. 1995 showed that he was bleeding money. Go through it all, understand it all holy sh number by number, brick by brick. Thats when we realized. Thats fraud. I built this empire and i did it by myself. 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Back with us, Eliza Collins and Shane Goldmacher talking about the state of the 2020 race. The president we mentioned this earlier, he was on twitter earlier tonight. He has now drawn several republican primary challengers and he went after them tonight. Actually that was his attack on Elizabeth Warren right there but i can tell you what he said about his republican challengers. He said im at 94 approval in the Republican Party and i have three stooges running against me. One is mr. Appalachian trail who was actually in argentina for bad reasons. Mark sanford there hes referring to. Another is a oneterm bad congressman from illinois who lost in his second term by a landslide then failed in radio. The third is a man who couldnt stand up straight while receiving an award. I should be able to take them. Shane, it is interesting. We were talking earlier. These republican challengers need oxygen. Did trump just give them a little bit of it . Yes. I mean, donald trump is not known for his selfcontrol on these things. The whole hope for a joe walsh, for any of these other potential challengers, for bill weld, is that donald trump pays any attention to them. Right . His entire political apparatus has been trying to seal up the nominating process so these guys cant get delegates, so they cant make noise at the convention. He doesnt have to Pay Attention to them. But as he shows tonight and i think he will show in the future hes likely to spend some time and give them some of the oxygen they need. You used to talk about the rose garden reelection strategy. It doesnt look that way on twitter tonight. Speaking of the trump reelection campaign, eliza, there was also this that went out tonight and generated some attention from the trump campaign. A fundraising email here. Listen to this wording here. The president is calling on you at this critical time to remind aoc and democrats that this is our country, not theirs. And eliza, i should put that in the form of a question, i suppose. But that is so striking just given the controversy of the last month. Right. I mean, this really shows we saw the president talking about this group of women and saying they should go back to their home country. Of course they are all, you know, here legally. They are citizens of this country. And so it shows that they are doubling down. His campaign is continuing this attack. And they are basically trying to draw a line between this group of women who are progressives and trying to align the whole Democratic Party with this Progressive Group and saying that theyre out of line and really hes saying that theyre unpatriotic and unamerican. He was criticized soundly for this attack on those women earlier this month. Being called racist tweets. But the fact his campaign is now using this as a strategy to raise money shows that this is not going away. And shane, it does, it does seem to be an indication that this is a name aoc the group of congresswomen probably that will be invoked a lot by trump and republicans in 2020. Yeah, Donald Trumps political tactics from the moment he announced has been an us versus them and his current them is this group of democratic congresswomen of color. And it is in his interests apparently for him to continue to attack them. And look, ocasiocortez is also gaining traction from striking back. Today there was a curious moment where he was sending out this email. Her campaign was emailing out the fact that hed been texting about her. Look, it is unlike uncommon for a group of freshman congresswomen to get this much attention from a president seeking reelection. Its attention that duns look like its going to fade out certainly before election day 2020. Eliza collins, Shane Goldmacher, thank you both for your time tonight. That is our broadcast for this tuesday night. Thank you for being with us and good night from nbc news well, overall, this is getting worse, not better. 24 hours ago this time last night we were sort of trying to get our heads around the fact that the white house had actually announced that the location of the next g7 summit would be the president s private club in florida. The white house on its official twitter feed clipped the president talking about his Doral Golf Club thingy in south florida being the host for the g7, and the white house twitter account posted those remarks from the president online with this caption. President trump shares the