her book has been making headlines, but has also brought criticisms, with accusations that she has withheld information about trump that was relevant to ongoing investigations about his actions. has she put profits before principles? and what is the responsibility of a good journalist? now, you ve been covering donald trump since the 90s, more than anybody else, perhaps, yet you say that he still remains a bit of an enigma for you. how is that possible? it s an interesting question, and thank you for having me. i think he s an enigma for almost everybody. i think that he is a man of a handful of moves, and you can identify what those moves are, and you see him use them over and over again, but it can be tricky to figure out which ones. and i think the biggest issue, and i write about this, is people want to read into his actions and read meaning into his actions. they re often pretty empty and they re often aboutjust surviving from one minute to the next. and exactly why he
Time, to borrow from star wars lexicon, there is a disturbance in the force there. Like, he is shaken. I mean, heres the front page of the daily news, Talking About Poor Donald. Of course, theyre talking about him coming off the forbes list. If you want to understand donald trump, weve said this from the beginning, just understand the money. The money. I still think a lot of these criminal investigations and the possibility of going to jail, too abstract for him. But him sitting there, the possible of losing his businesses, losing trump tower, having to pay 250 million he doesnt have, i think thats getting to him. Look at a clip of Attorney General in New York State that i think has just kind of had enough. This case was brought simply because it was a case where individuals have engaged in a pattern and practice of fraud. And i will not sit idly by and allow anyone to subvert the law. Lastly, i will not be bullied. So mr. Trump is no longer here. The donald trump show is over. I will
Stories of democrats who worked with the russians in the 2016 campaign. President then turned his attention as i mentioned to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. This is important when you consider that this is the individual recused from an ongoing probe of potential obstruction among things and donald trump saying its too bad that sessions recused and then asked an intelligent question. The reporter asked donald trump to compare Jeff Sessions to the previous administrations Attorney General eric holder under obama and donald trump said this. I dont want to get into loyalty but i will tell you that i will say this. Holder protected president obama. Totally protected him. When you look at the things that they did, and Hold Proer Tekted the president. And i have Great Respect for that. Ill be honest. I have a little more on that in a moment. Trump also asked here in this very newsy interview whether he would order the justice
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Right about that. Earlier this morning the president of the United States publicly hounded natos secretarygeneral, repeatedly disparaged germany and wondered aloud why america should be responsible for protecting europe against russia. Vladimir putin wants donald trump to break from American Allies. A few hours ago, that is exactly what he got. Wow. Welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, july 11th. With us, msnbc contributor mike ba ba ba barniccal. And David Ignatius, nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d. C. On msnbc, kasie hunt and former u. S. Ambassador to nato and former state Department Spokesman nicholas burns, professor of diplomacy and International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy school of government. Great group to start with this morning, and, wow, what a start to the trip. What a start to the trip. And lets just play the clip. Heres donald trump actually doing exactly what Vladimir Putin would want him to do. Good morning. In many countries, they owe
Lets bring in our leadoff panel for this friday night. Franco ordonez, White House Correspondent for mcclatchy newspapers, covering immigration and foreign affairs. The New York Times katie benner, pulitzer prizewinning reporter who covers the Justice Department. And yamiche alcindor, White House Correspondent for news hour on pbs. Thanks to all of you for being with us. Katie, let me start with you. We have that reporting tonight about some movement on that issue of reunifying parents with children, at least some of them. You cover the Justice Department, the legal end of this. It sounded like there was still plenty of confusion when that Executive Order was issued the other day by the president about what that was actually going to allow in terms of reunification. How clear is that now . Absolutely. So as you say, this was another selfinflicted wound by the Trump Administration not thinking through clearly enough a directive before issuing it. So we saw a lot of confusion last night.