tv Morning Joe MSNBC August 8, 2017 3:00am-6:00am PDT
>> that does it for us on this tuesday morning, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside louis burgdorf. "morning joe" starts right now. >> mike pence is a dedicated public servant with the vision and passage it takes to lead this country, not that he wants to. from our cities to our raerthand to keep america safe, if he wasn't to do that, which he doesn't. president mike pence would always fight for you but he's not president and has no plans to be one. plum, plum, t , -- >> welcome to "morning joe."
mike pence and his office trying to tam many down rumors of a 20/20 shadow campaign. when asked, it's a non-denial denial. mika still in the south of france working very hard on location. we have columnist and contributor mike barnicle. rick tyler, elease jordan, harold ford jr., sam stein and columnist at the washington examine er
examinered but are fascinating for a number of reasons. first of all, it's the lowest numbers ever in the cnn poll that he's ever had before. you're going to be talking about many harts of it. somebody tweeted last night six months approval ratings. trump 38. he ra sell -- really is -- not being facetious, he really is in a league of his own age 38. there's always somebody in the organizati
organization. >> i just couldn't figure out why we kept talking about his base was stronger than ever. all the tweets yesterday. >> then he goes on and talks about the rally. it seems to be following a great deal. >> that number, joe, and i don't think the trust far, haven't had many peter wrote for mr. trump there is no vacation for greek
>> just 24% of americans say yes while 73% say no. however, a majority of the country remains optimistic. 53% saying things are going well in america today. 45% say badly. so, joe, the. >> what are you thinking about if ifor. >> i'll tell you of all the numbers, not just as plnt cat -- if i was a candidate looking offer these numbers, i'd be really concerned over the fact that my base was erode and the level of support was eroding and in part my ability to connect to that base, whether it was
through wrid if you have 5 % of people approving strongly and that's down 14 percentage points since february among republicans, you've got probl s problems. and rick tyler, you've got problem, it will and drug i on that they'd be polling wait back in january to make sure they won m 2021. all of these numbers look pretty tough but i guess for you and me, guys who have either one campaigns in republican primari
primaries. joe, i'd have them on 24-hour suicide watch. these numbers are not good. then you have an active investigation, the russia probe, which people are beginning to question. everybody's positioning any eventualities that might occur in this very administration ek them. get those numbers up. >> only 27 of americans trust -- less than 1 in four people trust
what the communication said. certainly any of us here, we'd run. if you got record low approval hatings, you must when do you get -- >> it a charge. not on that, you have a republican congress, a republican senate. you are unable to get health care done, unable it really move forward on a tax bill. enwechlt, mish, ohio, the states that put you over the top, when do you you begin to do the things you promised to do? and republicans, who are trying
to manage answered and lead through and waver through what seems to be a president who every day gives new headlines, creates more and more issues for them and for republicans thinking about running and for tho matter those up for reelection next year. think harold's point about the confidence issue plaguing this without and that is really sfrfrm, the numbers are movering in the high 20s, low 30ss and we heard so much about the trump support kriting into that political base. what do these numbers say to you? >> the about polling from about
a month ago, they found trg and 4% saying frnls if any 24% is the number of yours core supporters. there are an awful lot of people in the republican party, an awful lot of voters willing to vote for donald trump because they didn't like hillary clinton. but we are now a number of guts into his presidency. quote unquote, truly
presidential elat of resident. they're the types of folks that were willing to give him a shot, they wanted to see him success seed. he mike and california, the impact obviously is is greatest on house republicans and senate republicans that go home and they go in the dkt. and instead of hearing people say, hey, you need to support our president, i mean, i've seen this before, hey, back newt up, whatever newt does. >> by '96 they're kind of like, hey, what's the newt with knew
away my health care. that's what they have to respond to. new hampshire, there as a poll just out this morning, give exclusively before now when they produced a high-pa knack. the same question showed kasich up 14 points on the vice president but more than 30% were undecided on that matchup. it probably doesn't help your days when you in. and speaking of people
living in new hampshire, in places that are drug-infested dens, let's bring up dartmouth grad sam stein. i'm just joking sam's mom, i'm just joking. these are the kind of polls we see like year three the, i mean, here we are six months in and you're already seeing john kasich wounsing the sip ibt republicans president of the wonder if it it's et of the day they just haven't succeeded in doing nothing. nothing success seeds like success and they just haven't
passed any legislation. that's definitely part of . you mentioned health care. if you look through these esh use numbers are peck 31% approve, 62% disapprove. that's an anchor around his neck. it's tough to figure out if they benefit by going forward with the republican author or if they benefit by letting it drift off the radar entirely. i keep coming back to one thing. we're discussing these hoshlg numbers for donald trump and all this is being done despite this white house not facing a crisis of its own making. everything they've dealt withes that been self-inflicted.
i was sadness cent said do no how much my medicare." >> they hated health care involvement by the government until it impacted them. i just wonder whether the republican party is really -- you look at these number it looks like they are, whether you really mis ppra a bill that we have said from day one that limb anybody yes voters. those so you had a lot of republicans that opposed
republicans on ideological grounds but you also had it for the political anxiouses wait, was to got less expensive but it got more expensive. the response is we need to get the government out between you and your doctor. most people are not listening ideologically. the worst case scenario for republicans is they don't pass anything that touches obamacare and they still get the political ain ainge. >> chip: that is the worst case
scenario and i fear that's what we're starting to lk like at the party. >> and you're exactly right. people don't look i didn't for it. at the same time, you're a republican right now. look at it ideologically. if you teak away people's benefits or if you take what so i've been given to their thirn if you're going to impact hospice care, nursing home care. you look at a conservative hero like marg et thatcher, who is one of the toughest moe still
for her after hold nine lives and revised britain's economy. there was one area margaret thatcher would not touch. that was a good health care services. >> republican might be learning that lesson right now. still ahead, we've got a lot of talk about. democrats have some high hurdles of their own. there is absolutely no margin of error to win back control of washington. i'm going to ask the panel if they and republican con coil will get in on the conversations as well. looking forward to watching
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congressional election. those numbers would be deceiving. the latest analysis from 5:38 shows that because of the way the house district courts are carved out, democrats have absolutely no margin of error to gain control. >> i just got to tell you, i haven't seen any evidence that the democratic party, democratic activists, have figured out exactly how to change the dynamics of what's been going on over the past six, eight years when they've lost over a thousand legislative seats, lost a dozen senate seats, lost over
6 0r 60, 65 u.s. house seats, lost a dozen or show governorships, have less governorships with if i'm a rank and file voters, i'm still trats i recall the tiber when the young man waltz down in georgia and we really have not changed in that moment. a couple of things that happened. unfortunately for democrats in my party, leader pelosi stood ut to be more uncop lar in some ways in that district than president trump.
>> and the organize oing plan which mike has talked about so many times on this show for democrats to rally around, unfortunately secretary clinton did not have one and then candidate, not president, with the very simple message of great america clear again. the last time republicans are in this spot, a republican like jim carter was running for president. it's going to be very hard passing ourselves and winning precious and finally, democrats have to think about the leader that she wants in washington today. is that but we have to
understand americans are looking for something new and different. if we're not convinced by what happened in 2017, we'd all awaken ourselves to the track. >> i don't know if it's an economic message alone but i happen to believe it's a big, big part of it. and the central part of the presidency has allowed majority, their energy is on the coast, their leadership is on the coast, their ideas reflect the values of the post vat.
and say, hey, i relate to that person, i relate to that candidate. that's one thing about. >> here is your campaigning m 1994. you can go out and people would say what are you going to do? we're going to vote on balances the budget, we're going to chak well far are we're going to cutle the kag and we had ten items and we had congressional items. we're going to mutt the this evening -- we're going to put chairman and chair women on targets. we're going to make the same
. and part of the reasons all of the democrats have signed on to it, it was like what the hell, nobody thinks we're going to win anyway. in '49 the democrats did have a clear, coherent message. i think what happened in the last election cycle to me sort of team. they've cut ties and that's where they're at now. what's going to bring them back into the fold. i don't see they're come approximatelying opinion being andammed s c andammeds can i am well, before we get to your mpe.
and f and then maybe we'll get something. >> anyway, about pris what's happening in places where climate change is willing praping we were talking about a place that's a hotbed of politics will all roar railroad frm april through october. probably the bill equal. >> well, my thoughts are -- there are two things.
one is to talk about what the democrats are. in. the data still shows that hillary clinton's voters made less than hill right -- that said, i spent all day with land zapers and kruks are frp it getting hot are every dangle day and this f and one of his co-workers started throwing up violently and this were so scared for his life.
are you going to be putting people's lives at risks because so many experts told me when we think about climate raj chang, we think about polar bears and melting ice. so it's a real issue for people. and they're not particularly someone who is saying, oh, i hate donald trump or i really loved hillary clinton. these are people saying we just been bilook outsood our window that climate change is happening. >> it's me, sachl sfien. when you saw the democratic platform, it was an economic, centrist view. why is it in your estimation that that issue is not used as a rallying cry more for the democrat being party when the party does need to make inroads?
>> at love people consider climate chang a rallying cry. whether or not they understand that that's something they can really capitalize on, something that's kind of hard to understand. experts i talked to said a lot of the environmental groups back in the day, maybe even now, they were overwhelming lie white, overwhelmingly upper class, people talking about this as a scientific issue when there's a whole movement called environmental justice that i would say is usually people that identify themselves as democrats or progressives who say we need to look at not just white working class people but we also need to look at people of color and poor communities. what they're looking for is actual legislation.
people are going to say, look, we stand the problem is not going to be in a thousand years and issues in trying to clear the way for businesses to hire people, we also have to understand that we can't let business hurt people. >> thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> coming up, so you're saying there's a chance. mike pence's spokesman side steps reports that the vice president is eyeing the white house in 2020 after mike pence says he shocked and stunned and deeply outrageous and how could you write this story? but then his spokesman is asked, well, is he going to run in 2020? his spokesman doesn't disputes the story. the latest on the so-called shadow campaign ahead on "morning joe."
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president and the start of a first-term presidency. of course donald trump railed against the "new york times" on twitter all day. i don't think he was happy with the story, making it the subject of three of the 13 tweets that he sent out. now, the president asserted that the times had apologized for its coverage of the election last year, which they pointed out they did not. the president said they had big losses and fact is they were up 9% in the fourth quarter. and vice president mike pence did not dispute the facts of the article. instead, he objected to the context. take a look. >> he does find it very offensive. the vice president is focused on advancing the president's agenda. >> what is so offensive about
it? >> any suggestion that he might be planning a run in 2020, his entire focus is on advancing the president's agenda and taking the steps necessary to make sure we're delivering on the promise to the american people. >> hypothetically if the president were to decide not to run in 2020, are you saying vice president would not step up and try to take that role? >> i don't talk about hypotheticals. >> you do talk about hypotheticals all the time. >> the president is seeking reelection in 2020, that's our goal, that's our focus. he is not engaging in some sort of shadow operation. >> why doesn't he just walk into the president's office and tell him that, why tell the media about it? >> when you have something that appears on the front page of
"the new york times" based on speci speculation and conjecture, it's important that the vice president clear his mind. >>elise, is he the first vice president who has a press secretary who will not deny outright that he'll run in 2020. this is easy -- is your vice president going to run in 2020? no. they won't do that. why? >> republicans are responding to the confidence in the wake of the instability of this without. on one level i almost don't
blame mike pence, so many people projecting on him, looking for him to fill this void when donald trump's administration is so rocky, so unstable, people wonder day to day -- it's not even month to month, it's not even to the end of this year what this administration could be rocked by. >> and, rick, i don't fault mike pence for mike pence would probably do. there are questions as to whether donald trump will make it through the four years without being pushed out of office or without resigning. his numbers are historically low. but mike pence can't be shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that people write these stories when he is acting like a presidential candidate in waiting. >> well, he is, he's the vice president. all vice presidents are presidential candidates in waiting. in defense of the vice
president, running for reelection in 2020 looks remarkably similar to running for president in 2020. again, we don't have any of these discussions if president trump didn't create this vacuum, his void because johnson rated by low poll numbers. so now you've got ben sass and tom cotton going to iowa and you have john kasich looking like he might going to new hampshire. there's a poll in new hampshire where john kasich actually beats the president. all of these are legitimate stories. why? because the president has failed to expand beyond his base and is actually losing his base. >> and kristen, if you look at mike pence's numbers in some of these hypothetical matchups, he's obviously feeling the
strain. so if the vice president wants to be president, here we have john kasich beating mike pence 41% to 27%. we're only six months in and things are so chaotic that people are taking those kind of polls. >> if mike pence ever wants to be president of the united states, his best bet is that he sticks with donald trump and that donald trump miraculously has this fabulous eight of year presidency. i think the idea that he can break away from a failed trump administration, claim that, i think that's going to be something that won't be possible for him to achieve. i think his presidential
ambitio ambitions, should he have them. he's going to have it much tougher than any republicans that are not weighed down by the baggage of this administration, if the trump presidency is viewed as a failure come 2020 or 2024. he needs this administration to suck eed and he needs the president to think he's been 100% loyal because as we know, to donald trump harold seems to mean everything. >> it's a huge insult when the president can't just say, no, i'm not running. two, contrast it with last story. democrats are focused on climate change. we need an economic message. if we could pivot, saying we're going to make things a lot better for americans, not in california, we'll win.
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>> it is. >> you've said that many time. >> i feel like a great and very brave soldier. >> coming up, the circular logic of president trump's tweets. he slams "the new york times" while using reporting from the failing new york times to criticize senator blumenthal, but none of it is taking the senator's focus after the russia investigation. he's going to be with us to talk about that. plus tom cole joins the conversation. "morning joe" back in a moment. cancer challenges us.
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administration against one of his key rivals. i think that may be irrelevant to what happens in 2020 but is extraordinarily relevant to how other republicans are looking at donald trump and wondering how far out on a limb to we go with this guy? how much of our political careers do we invest in somebody who is a lifelong democrat until 2011, picked up birtherism, and now seems to be taking the party off a cliff? they stayed with him for a while. but you look at the numbers that we're about to show you now, and they're going to be a lot of reasons back home this week asking how much more do i want to invest in donald trump? and not worry about my own political future? welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, august 8th. happy birthday, kate. mika has the morning off. with us we have msnbc
contributor, mike barnicle. mike tyler, alise jordan, harold ford junior, politics editor for the daily beast, sam stein, and phillip rucker, and associated editor of the washington post, eugene ro eugene robinson. mike, as i was saying before, look at the numbers six months in, i don't think i've ever seen this before when you have a candidate, a president who is actually losing in one of the two key states. iowa, new hampshire. which is constantly sort of the pulse, the political pulse for any president or any presidential candidate. i don't think i've ever seen anybody losing by 12 points to one of their rivals from a previous campaign six months in, and with a sort of low numbers
that donald trump has this morning in the cnn poll, and that is 13something, i can tell you as a former member, that members of congress look at and say, hey, how long are we going to stay with this guy and when do we pull back so he doesn't take us off the cliff he's driving toward? >> yeah, and they're all both members of the house and senate. they are reflections from voters. and part of it might be based on this trajectory shown in the poll. the poll is from cnn. it shows 38% approve of the job performance. down six points from 100 days into his presidency. the poll finds that only 24% only strongly approve of the job the president is doing while nearly half, 47%, strongly disapprove, and despite the president's claims on twitter that his base is, quote, stronger than ever before, the
poll shows just 59% of republicans say they approve strongly. that's down 14 points since february. when asked if president trump is someone they are proud to have as president, 34% say they are. 63% say no. and on weather they trust -- >> repeat that. 34% say yes, strongly? that's right. the opposite number, 63% say no. on whether they trust most of what they hear in official communications from the white house, just 24% of americans say yes, and harold, hold onto your seat here, while 73% say no. however, a majority of the country remains optimistic. 53% saying things are going well in america today. 45% say badly. meanwhile as joe mentioned a new hampshire poll just out this morning given exclusively to "morning joe" shows soft numbers
for the president among republicans there. john kasich, governor of ohio finished a distant second to the president? in the state's primary in 2016. that's just last year. but now when american research group tested a hypothetical challenge from kasich against the president in a republican primary, they found the ohio governor with a 12-point lead. joe, let me ask you and then i want sam stein -- but let me ask you. you're sitting in your district or state and looking at these numbers about your president of the united states. someone stands up and starts really hammering the president in a town hall meeting at some point this week or month, what's the strength of your reflection and support for your republican president? >> i mean, i think what i would do if i were somebody who had supported donald trump in congress when i was a member of
congress in supporting him, i think i say obviously the president gets distracted. he gets distracted too easily. i wish i could take his phone, smash it. i wish i could throw it away. i wish i could keep him focussed on cutting your taxes and helping small business owners with less regulations. i wish i could keep him focussed on what we have to do to reform health care in a way that's really going to help you and your families and your small businesses and everybody you know, but he can't do that, but if he does, i'll support him. i'll support him on the issues. but i've got some serious concerns about him and his personali personality. i mean, the republicans can still support donald trump passing conservative pieces of legislation without supporting all the negative parts of him, and they need to start separating themselves in a way that will protect them next
year. >> okay. so, sam, in the house and the senate, republicans in the house and the senate, the number nationally is in the 70s about people who don't believe what comes out of the white house. is it higher among republicans in the house and the senate? >> i don't know if we can quantify it. i like joe's answer there. it's tough. you got to distance yourself from the twitter feed but not the policies, i suppose. i actually think that there's a fissure that's already happening. i don't know if joe picked it up, but in the last couple of weeks congressional republicans did two things that really signalled a break from the administration. one was passage of the russian sanctions bill over the strong objections of the administration. and they did it with huge majorities. and the second thing is sort of subtler. but trump demanded that they go back and try repeal and replace again. even after the dramatic mccain moment in the senate. and basically republicans just
ignored it. mitch mcconnell said he was moving on. senator alexander said he's going to host bipartisan talks on health care fix. and there's a third thing. they had a dramatic unveiling of this immigration policy with steven miller at the white house lectern, and no one in the senate took it seriously. it's not on their docket. they're not going to consider it. they're going to things like transportation potentially but most importantly tax reform first. i don't know. joe, maybe i'm wrong, but it seems like there are breaks that are already happening. it might be too late, but that's what i'm picking up from reporting. the senate and congressional republicans aren't taking directives from the administration as much anymore. >> they really aren't, and you had donald trump tweeting out instructions to mitch mcconnell on how he needed to run the united states senate. we all know mitch mcconnell well enough to know he's not going to take those suggestions from a president that mitch mcconnell doesn't think even knows how to
run his white house very well. i'm wondering, we're seeing republicans breaking away, and there are people who might ask why are we looking at poll numbers for donald trump. the next election isn't until three and a half years away. well, the next vote is in the next couple of weeks. >> yeah. >> and can i tell you again, firsthand, when a president's numbers did something dramatic like they collapsed dramatically or they shot up dramatically or a candidate's numbers collapsed dramatically, when we were in session, we would pool together in the well and everybody would be talking and say can you believe this guy? and it would go around, and members of congress do pay attention to things. and these numbers have very real impacts. i just -- i have to ask gene in all the years you've covered politics, have you ever seen
either here or when you did your work in great britain for the post as bureau chief in london, have you ever seen any political leader six months in bleeding out politically the way donald trump is? and where you even have john kasich ahead of him now by 12 points in the most important primary in america? >> i have to say i have not seen that. i haven't seen it in this country. i didn't see it in great britain when i was there. i didn't see it in south america, even in a place like argentina, i never saw that sort of negative swing for a new leader that early in his or her administration. you know, look, republicans in the house and senate and around the country, really, in state houses and elsewhere have to be selling themselves. they kind of made a bad bet, right? they bet that this erratic
unprepared bombastic guy, donald trump, who captured the imagination of a lot of the republican base, would be tolerable. he would be okay, and they would be able to pass a conservative agenda with his support he'd be ready to sign it into law. and what they've gotten so far is justice kneneil gorsuch. that's the one thing they can point to and nothing else. other than that, they've got an lot of crazy tweets. a lot of erratic behavior. no sort of support or direction from the white house that is useful. that is helpful in trying to pass legislation. they've had a disaster in health care, and they're staring down the pipe of tax reform and how is that going to go? yeah, they're worried and why wouldn't they be recalculating? >> they're not going to be pointing to the cnn poll. here's more from that poll.
on the issues voters are tied on the president's issue of national security and the economy. but only 40% approve of the president's job on immigration. 55% disapprove. on foreign affairs, 35% approve. 61% disapprove. and on health care, it's two to one against the president. 31% approve. 62% disapprove. and sliding numbers on one of the president's core strengths, 39% say trump's policies help the middle class. down six points from march. phil, john kelly has carried quite a load in his military career. he's now white house chief of staff. he attracts enormous support and respect from anyone who knows him and has worked under him. how does he cope with this in this white house? what's going on there? >> well, the first thing he's doing is trying to manage the staff. he's trying to bring in some
order and get rid of the chaos that's really gripped this staff. get the factions to stop fighting with each other, create a process in terms of working with the president. but he's new to politics. he's never worked on a political campaign. he has very limited experience with legislation. and part of their challenge here is that the president's base, his support is declining and softening. he lives in an alternate reality where he thinks the base is strong and powerful and he goes to a rally in west virginia, and it's sold out with 10,000 people, but the numbers tell a different story. the support is declining. >> general kelly does have a pretty good relationship on the hill based upon his part of his career as a legislative assistant to the marine corps. he has knowledge of the hill. >> he does, and he commands respect on the hill. i think even democratic leaders on the hill view him as a serious figure which is very different than how they viewed reince priebus.
kelly comes from a different perspective for sure. >> alise jordan, we showed all the numbers in the cnn poll. we're talking about how donald trump was faring in the issues. there's really one number that stick out, and that would be the most important number of any issue, the one you've been talking act for the first six months of your administration. that would be health care, and his number is actually -- his numbers on issues, that's actually the issue where he's the lowest. only 31% of americans approve of donald trump's handling of health care. 62% disapprove. so two to one disapprove as approve. you can take all of those other issues and push them to the side. right now not only as we talk about before, not only is health care personal to everybody in a
way that all those other issues may not be, but also it's all they've talked about for six months. and he's failed miserably on the issue. >> well, and also president trump hasn't known this entire time what he wanted out of a health care policy. he was unable to sell that policy. congressional leaders wanted him to stay away from the issue, quite frankly, just because he would demonstrate his ignorance frequently. those numbers just aren't surprising. i don't know what kind of unicorn republicans expected to come out of this broken policy process where mcconnell might be a brilliant strategist j but you have to give him something to work with at the end of the day. >> he had nothing to work with, and this was something that everybody was warning the president to stay away from. don't start with health care. don't. you could have, you could play clips from our panel back in
december, january, and february saying don't start with health care. he started with health care. and then he had no idea. as alise said, he had no idea what he wanted to pass. he let everybody know, just pass something, anything. i want a health care bill to sign. he got that health care bill to sign in the house. had a big party in the rose garden and within the next month or two, he started calling it a mean bill. it has been the most erratic approach to health care which, of course, is one of the most critical issues that americans have to deal with day in and day out. and maybe that's why he only has a 31% approval rating there in a 62% disapproval rating. what does he do now? >> look at the top two numbers where it breaks even. national security and the economy. those numbers aren't that great because the economy has been good but it's on the same trajectory as obama care. obama care created the aim
amount of jobs. that's why the numbers are higher. we haven't had a terrorist attack or anything on national security. as we get into tax reform policy, you might see the numbers be affected if he handles it the same way. i've been critical of the president. i take a lot of criticism from my party for doing so, but we get to a point where 73% of the people don't trust the president. and when is the president going to recognize what he's doing doesn't work. who in the white house politically, not the chief of staff. that's not his job. somebody is responsible for his numbers. somebody has to say, mr. president, it's our job to get these numbers better. what are we going to do? who is that person? >> that person dealing with the numbers the most is kellyanne conway who is the counselor to the president. she's also a trained pollster. she's looking at the numbers and is concerned about the suppression and the base and trump's inability right now to expand his support to include people who didn't vote for him.
he lost the popular vote. the majority of this country did not vote for him. >> harold, if you were counseling the president, what would you tell him this morning this. >> worry about the debt ceiling. you got to figure out a way we're not blamed, our party because we control the house and the senate and the house. how do we do it quickly and get around it? >> is that going to be a big problem? >> that's the next big issue for them. they've got to figure out how they don't unnerve people, unnerve markets, unnerve business people, and how do they talk about it in a way that appeals to the everyday voter. the everyday voter doesn't get the debt ceiling. democrats, we're talking about climate change and saying no to the president. this is a unique moment, a great moment to come up with a message that says we're going to cut taxes for middle class americans and rebuild airports and roads and bridges and places in the country that will put people back to work. this is that moment, and i hope my party figures this out because i'm a part of that party. >> sam, any evidence the
democrats are figuring that out? we've been talking act how the democrats seem to be drifting ideologically, trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. they've obviously been pounded since 2010. have you -- have you seen any evidence that they get it? >> it's tough. this platform that they produced which was widely mocked for having a sloeg than reminded them of papa john's pizza, did actually have nuance in it that says they might have been picking up on something. so the top of the platform one of the new policy proposals was to go after monopolies and big pharma. those are new positions that are populist and riff on what donald trump was getting at during the 2016 campaign. the problem for democrats is not necessarily that.
i don't think it's that they care about climate change or are focusing on it. think the problem is one, what you referenced in the last hour, joe, which is there are gerrymander districts that make it hard for them to win the house seats and two, they're locked in a perpetual internal war among themselves between -- this is an easy way to look at it, the sanders and clinton wing. what you've seen in the past month have been fights within the party over whether to make medicare for all singer payer health care, a litmus test for candidates to support. it's not going to fly in moderate districts, and also there's been a big riff over whether the party should support candidates who don't support abortion rights. and these are big, major issues the party is grappling with. as long as they're turned against themselves, i find it difficult to find out how they can make the end roads they need
to do in the 2018 elections. >> gene, if you get wiped out in 2010, you get wiped out in 2014, and you get wiped out in 2016, and you lose 1,000 state legislative seats over eight years, you hold less governorships than any time in american history other than 1922, you lose over a dozen u.s. senate seats. you lose a dozen governorships, isn't that the point when you start looking around to everybody and say we need a win on the board? i may not agree with you on every issue, but if you can get a democrat elected in that district in kentucky, i'm on your side. when did democrats start thinking that way? because that's the only way they get back control of the house. >> yeah. who was it? sam rayburn who said there's no education than the second kick of a mule?
this mule has kicked about ten times. and there's been a lot of kicks. look, i think democrats need to think this way. number one, they've got to start winning at the state and local level. they've got to start winning these -- they can't blow off the midterms. they can't blow off these governor's races that are coming up. they got to win some of those, and they got to win them however they can win them, and there's a governor's race in virginia. they got to figure out how to talk to virginians and that's not the same way you talk to californians. but they got to talk to virginians in virginia language. and like wise in other states where that have upcoming races. and especially the congressional races and the gerrymandered districts aren't going to change between now and the midterms, so
you got to run in those districts and run the best way you can in those districts. the other thing democrats have to realize as they look at president trump and his support waning, they need to keep in mind that you can't beat somebody with nobody. you can't beat something with nothing. and so trump for all his declining support for all his craziness, he's something. he is somebody. and they have to come up with a compelling story and ultimately with compelling candidates. they got to come up with a compelling story to tell the american people if they want to beat him. >> i differ with gene. i think message in virginia is the same in california. he didn't mean to say it that way, but a message needs to say we create jobs, grow wages and make america stronger again. that's the message that will resonate. i know what you were saying. but we need a message that we can talk in virginia, talk in
tennessee, talk in new york and talk in california. >> just -- >> yeah, i was going to say, with a southern accent, that's really important. john, not to just peck on one candidate, but he didn't sound like a georgia democrat that would win a race. didn't necessarily look like it. it would be like if you had a farmer go to san francisco, somebody go to try to win. you have to get people culturally lined up with the districts where they're running. you say this to some democrats and they act shocked and stunned. no. if you got somebody -- if you're running a race in georgia, it certainly would help if it was a democrat that was lined up with
you on economic issues, but also coached little league baseball, had kids in the local school system for about 20, 25 years. had a small business. who knows? maybe even let's be radical here, maybe even taught or she taught sunday school. or who knows? maybe served in the air force? we're seeing some of those candidates start to emerge in the deep south and have a story that resonate with roots in georgia or roots in kentucky. but that's what democrats have to do. all politics is local. they've got to stop acting like they can somehow criminal all of this with puppet strings from new york or san francisco. it's not going to happen. all politics are local. washington post jean robinson, thank you so much. phillip, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe,"
how unpopular is senator tick blumenthal with the president? well, president trump attacked him more on twitter yesterday than even "the new york times." that is ghastly. the democrat responds next on "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ award winning interface. award winning design. award winning engine. the volvo xc90. the most awarded luxury suv of the century. this august visit your local volvo dealer to receive sommar savings of up to $4,500. tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates
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he cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. now he judges collusion. two hours later senator blumenthal responded. mr. president, your bullying hasn't worked before and it won't work now. no one is above the law. this issue isn't about me. it's about the special council's independence and integrity. more than eight hours after his first tweets, the president came back for more posting, quote, i think the senator should take a nice long vacation in vietnam where he lied about his service so he can at least say he was there, and the aforementioned senator joins us now. senator, two questions. one, if you could address what is clearly the president's obsession with you and over what you said yesterday, and two, you're in a couple of committees in the senate where you are aware of the danger and the threat posed by north korea and what are your thoughts about the
president's obsession and tweeting rather than sort of focusing on north korea? >> well, as to the first question there is an ongoing special counsel investigation. it is real. it is based on facts. that's where the issue is. that's where the focus ought to be. our national security and the rule of law are at serious risk. so it is not about me. i cannot explain the president's obsession with me or any of the other targets of his tweets. but clearly on north korea, we face one of the gravest threats to our national security, and there has to be a focus on enforcement of these sanctions. it worked with iran when we energized the world community, and enlisted them successfully and tightened the sanctions, particularly on financial institutions, and that's the kind of energy and focus that
has to be brought to bear as well as on the other challenges that have been mentioned very powerfully this morning. infrastructure, rebuilding our roads and bridges and ports and airports. health care, where there still has to be improvement. these kinds of issues lend themselves to bipartisan cooperation, and that has to be the task ahead. >> senator, what kind of struck me at the tweet storm yesterday is it did seem to be very personal with president trump, and with you. and there was some speculation that this could be going back decades, and something with the empire state building and your wife's family. is there any bad blood over a failed trump real estate deal? >> it's really not about me. and i have no idea what is in the president's head. but i can tell you i'm determined not to be distracted. i think they are designed to
distract, these bullying tweets. they only reinforce my determination to protect the special counsel, because he has used the same tactics in seeking to bully and intimidate the special counsel bob mueller by drawing red lines and implying conflicts of interest vaguely and unspecifically, and other kinds of tactics that we're trying to prevent through the legislation that we offered, bipartisan legislation to republicans for democrats to stop him from firing bob mueller unless he can show a court that there is good cause under established standards, and that legislation, i think, is going to have legs when we come back in september regardless of all the tweets and i'm determined not to be distracted. >> two quick questions. first, does this enjoy bipartisan support, the legislation you've sponsored? >> it does. thom tillis and lindsey graham
on our side. chris coons, and there are two specific pieces of legislation. they're slightly different in technical terms but my sense is they're going to enjoy broad bipartisan support, because as you well know, firing bob mueller would provoke a fire storm. a constitutional crisis, and our goal is to avert it by sending a message to the president that this kind of dictatorial act would be intolerable. checks and balances are what our democracy is about, and the grand jury provides some permanence and protection. it's an arm of the court. he can't fire the grand jury or the court. even if he tries egregiously. >> let's shift. democrats, the country, republicans, independents want to hear this.
what is our economic message in 2018? >> well, drive down costs of living including most specifically, health care, pharmaceutical drugs have are on people's minds. create more jobs. skill training. in connecticut there are jobs now, there are going to be jobs in the future. people lack the skills to fill the jobs. it has to be an economic message of fairness and inclusiveness and i think that rebuilding roads and bridges, ports, airports, broad band, v.a. facilities, keeping faith with our veterans has to be part of that message as well. >> joe. senator, let me ask you about north korea. obviously it is a key issue, one that you certainly focussed on. where do we stand now? we had a 15-0 vote in the united nations to sanction the north koreans. they've said they're going to
respond by striking back at the united states. what's the next six months look like on the korean peninsula, and can the united states do anything without being in partnership with china to change the realities on the ground? >> there has to be a partnership with them. or at least a determination that stopping north korea's ballistic missile has to be a priority for both nations. that involves tightening of the financial institution restrictions. obviously coal, lead, iron ore, but much more vigorous enforment against the banks that need to be told you deal with north korea. you can't deal with us, and you can't deal with china, and so i think there has to be a common cause there.
the military options are very, very unpaletable. what's lacking is a strategy from the administration. >> senator, you're going to new london later today and all the other towns on the coast. you go up the connecticut river valley. i don't know if anyone will ask you about russia or north korea today or tomorrow or whatever, but someone might get up and ask you, i've been working in a factory for the last 14 years. i'm worried about automation taking this factory job from me at the age of 43 and me never being able to get another job again. what are you going to do about retraining me? >> there are problems. i've advocated more investment. call it investment, not spending, in our vocational and technical high schools where they teach welding and electrical engineering. the basic skills that we need not only in the in one venue,
but multiple places. we build the f-35 in connecticut. national security is at risk if we don't train people to do these jobs. a much expanded training program and also the community colleges. people are also concerned about the rule of law. they are very concerned about attacks on the press. and about the potential restrictions that are involved in revising these guidelines on subpoenas to the press. they're concerned about knowing about the truth and trust in government. the economic measure is very important, but so is the rule of law. >> all right. senator richard blumenthal, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. coming up, the president comes anonymous sources are made
up by fake news writers. this morning he somehow managed to undermine his own logic. the justice department and the intelligence community with a single retweet. that's still ahead on "morning joe." discover card. hey. what can you tell me about your new social security alerts? oh! we'll alert you if we find
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it's 2017. we should have been able to secure our border by now. the reason we haven't is because we've take an one size fits all solution. building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security. >> lawmakers are at home and many are holding town hall meetings, some like will hurd who you saw contrasting his view on the wall with the view of the president. but overs faced caustic crowds. among them in california who drew boos when he told the crowd he doesn't actually buy that man-made activity is responsible for climate change. and at an oaks long session one man reportedly told him, may you die in pain over your vote to
overhaul obamacare. that got kind of ugly. freedom caucus chairman martin meadows was at the center of the health care debate, and back home in north carolina, he took question after question from a lively crowd about all angles on policy. >> when you look at some of the proposals that are out there in terms of medicare for all, the price tag is just unbelievably high. some of you were bernie sanders sanders. even with bernie's numbers, i can tell you the cost associated with that is about half of what it really will be. we're looking at trillions of dollars, not billions of dollars. it has to be a tax -- >> on the rich -- >> applause. >> if you can figure a way to tax the rich at 100% and pay for it, i'm willing to consider it.
i'm just telling you, the numbers. you can take the top 1% and you can tax them fully, and it still won't pay for it. >> regardless of what you think of the chairman of the freedom caucus and his political views, he's exactly correct. there are not enough taxes to be levied against the top 1% or the top 10% that would fund medicare for all. further more, there aren't enough taxes out there to raise to actually keep medicare going over the next 20, 25 years. we are in a deep hole of debt. and just saying hey, let's just raise taxes more, the numbers don't add up. they just don't add up. ask the cbo. ask -- you can ask any debt committee. it's a real problem. we've got congressman tom cole coming up. he's had four town hall meetings
this month set in oklahoma. he will join us next. we'll ask him what he thinks donald trump needs to do to get those numbers up and to get the republican party back on the right track. ♪ we're drowning in information. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future. how do you solve this?
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yeah, even there. see how much you can save when you choose by the gig or unlimited. call, or go to xfinitymobile.com. xfinity mobile. it's a new kind of network designed to save you money. let's bring in right now congressman tom cole of oklahoma. congressman, always great to have you with us here. we've been talking all morning about the president's poll numbers and low poll numbers. you and i both know nothing succeeds like success. so that being the case, legislatively, what does a republican party need to do when everybody gets back into town to show some forward momentum that might help the president and the party? >> well, it's got a big agenda in september. it needs to pass the budget that's come out of committee with unanimous republican vote. it needs to finish the eight
remaining appropriations bills out of committee. four of them were across the floor in the final week. the other eight need to negotiate a successful bipartisan deal on the debt ceiling and most of all, they need to focus on tax reform going >> if you get your business done, passing the budget, passing appropriation bills, passing the debt ceiling, raising the debt ceiling. the basics that you really need to do just to get your business done in a way that harry reed and the democrats didn't do in the senate for so many years. then you move on to tax reform. let's talk about that for a second. what parts of tax reform would help your constituents that you
could take back to your constituents in october, november and say this is what i've done for you? this is what republicans have done for you. this is how we've made a difference in a way that hillary clinton and the democratic congress would not have made a difference? >> well, several things. first of all, lowering the -- or reducing the number of brackets from seven to, let's say, three. lowering the top rate. lowering the corporate business tax. putting on a territorial tax system where, frankly, we don't double tax american profits earned overseas so there's an incentive to fwul bring them back here. finally, simplifying the code so that most people really could fill out their tax form on a big postcard, something like that. those would be the sorts of things that would really matter to my constituents. >> good morning, congressman cole. >> rick. >> yeah, rim. good morning, congressman. debbie stabenow -- i want to go
back to health care for a minute. debbie stabenow has introduced a bill that was aus ensibly to take the highest risk pool in the private market and put it into the medicare market making it the lowest risk pool in the medicare market as a way to get pressures off premiums. could you support something like that? >> well, i haven't seen the senator's bill, to be fair, but part of me is skeptical about anything that expands medicare right now, simply because the system is going broke. we although to fick the one we have. i mean, everybody in america pays medicare taxes once you go to work. only people over 65 actually get the benefit, and we still are not properly financing it. >> her bill -- >> it would be tough for me to know without knowing what tax she's talking about. >> it would be optional and it would require people who want to opt in to pay premiums, saving them thousands of dollars a year over private insurance ma
market. >> saving them money is important and a good goal to have, but if you are putting more people on the titanic, you just sipg the ship faster. i would want to see what she's doing to improve the solve enssf the system. right now, according to the actuaries, that's just not the case. i mean, we're running risk in all three of these big systems. social security, medicare, and medicaid are all slowly going bankrupt. i would like to see a lot more focus on making them stable before we talk about expanding them. >> congressman sam stein here. one thing you will have to do as a member of the house is whether or not to raise the debt ceiling come november. will the house of representatives pass a clean debt ceiling hike? >> probably not clean. most republicans want to do something to lower the trajectory of the debt. i mean, a clean debt ceiling hike is like having a credit
card and saying i've reached my limit. i just am going to change the limit higher without changing any of my spending habits. that's a tough sell to republicans. democrats seem to be fine with that, but i think most of my colleagues aren't. we'll see what they -- >> the administration itself, the trump administration, has asked -- >> of course, they do. what administration doesn't ask for that? >> so you will -- >> everybody asks for that. >> you are fine to defy the trump administration's request for a clean debt hike? >> i would listen to any argument the president made, but, no, be i much prefer to do something, and we've done that in the past, by the way, where we actually do something to lower the debt and deficit long-term. it's not -- doesn't have to be dollar for dollar, but you have to show some progress here. this idea we can go on spending and just simply raise the debt ceiling every time. sooner or later the credit markets are going to make that impossible to do. let's reassure them and show that we're serious about lowering the deficits and eventually the long-term debt. >> congressman, alice jordan
here. president trump wasn't exactly happy about the sanctions bill that you helped play a role getting passed, sanctioning russia, north korea, iran. he said that congress has done more to poison relations with russia than in any other time in recent memory. what do you have to say about that? >> well, obviously i disagree with the president. look, the culprit here is putin and russian activity around the world. they're destabilizing democracies. attempted to do that to our own. they're literally physically invading other countries. you know, obviously crima, part of the ukraine, active in georgia. they have been destabilizing forces in syria. the russians have brought this on themselves. i think congress is ripe to say, look, we have a role in this too. when you meddle in the elections of our country, you meddle in our electrics as well. i think that's where the blame
belongs, and i'm glad that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle saw it that way and acted accordingly. >> all right, congressman. a big here here on russia. also on the debt ceiling. i mean, how many times can you keep raising the debt ceiling? we're up to $20 trillion right now. at some point you have to get a trade-off for it, or else you're putting it all on the next generation. you're right, medicare is going bankrupt. medicaid is going bankrupt. social security in time will go bankrupt. we've got to get serious about this $20 trillion debt. >> we did bring the deficit down. it's now down to less than $600 billion, but that's an extraordinary amount of money. we've still made -- we've made progress on the deficit front. i just don't want to lose the progress that we've made, quite frankly, and i think there's a risk that we'll do that going forward between tax cuts and the need for more spending on defense. you know, you got to get tough
on some of these other areas. >> you're right. all the trend lines moving forward over the next few decades are bad, and it's younger americans who will pay the most. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. greatly appreciate it. still ahead, president trump claims his base is only getting stronger, but a lot of polls are suggesting that's not true. including exclusive numbers from "morning joe" in the first in the nation primary state. plus, the trump administration's vow to crack down on intelligence leaks, but that's kind of hard when the commander in chief himself is the one passing on leaked classified information to 35 million twitter followers. we'll be talking about that just ahead on "morning joe." we're back in a moment.
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mike pence is a dedicated public servant with a vision and passion it takes to lead this country, not that he wants to. from our cities to our corn fields, from the heartland to the coast, mike pence has no interest in overseeing any of those places. mike pence has the kind of foreign policy experience to keep america safe if he wanted to do that, which he doesn't. president mike pence would always fight for you, but he is not president and has no plans to be one. mike pence 2020, the year he won't be running for president. welcome to "morning joe." that kind of says it all.
a lot of things to talk about as far as the vice president. mike pence and his office still trying to tafrp down rumors of a 2020 shadow campaign even though when his press secretary is asked if he is not running in 2020, it's just a nondenial denial. we'll get that ahead. good morning. it's tuesday, august 8th. mika still in the south of france working very hard on location. with us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnacle. former communications director for ted cruz's 2016 presidential campaign, now an msnbc political contributor rick tyler, contributor to time making zpleen and the former aid aide to the bush white house and state departments, alice jordan. professor at the university have michigan school of public policy, former democratic congressman harold ford jr. politics editor for "the daily beast" sam stein, and columnist at "the washington examiner"
christian solstice anderson. there's a lot to talk about today. the cnn polls, though, that came out are fascinating for a number of reasons. first of all, it's the lowest numbers ever in the cnn polls that he has ever had before. you're going to be talking about many parts of it. somebody tweeted last night six-month approval ratings. kennedy 75, eisenhower, 73, bush, 69, nixon, 65, reagan, 60, carter 60, obama 56, bush 55, clinton, 44. trump, 38. he really is -- not being facitious. he is in a league of his own for a variety of reasons. it's interesting. during the campaign he and his team would always get the major polls a day ahead of time. there's always somebody in the organization that says, hey, we've got these polls. this is where you're standing
right now. he would play it for a day. well, i just couldn't figure out why he kept talking about his base was stronger than ever. hey, all the tweets yesterday. my base, stronger than ever. it's great. he kept going back to his base. obviously, he just must have known this poll. here it is. the trump base is far bigger and stronger than ever despite fake news polling. look at rallies. he goes on to talk about the rallies. he obviously knew this poll was coming out because, mike, if i'm looking at all of these numbers -- they're all really bad numbers for him -- the one that concerns me the most is the level of support and intensity among his base. it seems to be falling a great deal. >> that number, joe, and the trust number, so far i don't think we've had any tweets from new jersey where the president is ensconced in his vacation. we will live by one of the best lines in any newspaper today written by peter baker in "the "new york times"" in which he
writes, "for mr. trump there is no vacation from grievance and frustration." we'll find out about those numbers a little later this morning, no doubt, from the summer white house. trust in the white house is declining. president trump fell even further in those polls during his second 100 days in office. a new poll from cnn shows 38% approve of trump's job performance at the 200 day mark. that's down six points from where he was around 100 days into his presidency. the poll finds that only 24% strongly approve the of the job the president is doing, while nearly half, 47%, strongly disapprove. that is down 14 points since february. when asked if president trump is someone they are proud to have as president, 34% say they are.
my trust numbers were dropping so much. if you had 59% of people approving strongly, and that's down 14 percentage points since february, among republicans, you've got problems, and rick tyler, you've got problems especially if you look at the map. you start in iowa where he didn't do that well. you go to new hampshire, which he called a drug adled state, and drug infested den. this is -- i only bring this up because this is what the trump white house was thinking about before the first day they got sworn in. they were talking about the states that they had been polling way back in january to make sure they won in 2020. all of these numbers look pretty tough, but, again, i guess for you and me, guys who have either run in or run campaigns in republican primaries, it's those
primary numbers that i think would concern me the most, and i would guess would concern you the most as well. >> joe, if i were a political consultant looking at a candidate with these kind of numbers, i would have them on 24-hour suicide watch. these numbers are not good. they don't look recoverable. by the way, the administration and the vice president could complain about the "new york times" story, but we wouldn't have this story if the president's poll numbers were in the mid 50s, high 50s, auto or low 60s. instead, they're in the 30s. everybody is speculating. then you have an active investigation of the russia probe of which people are beginning to question. everybody is positioning for any eventualities that might occur within this unpredictable situation. >> harold, it is so hard to get those numbers up. if you are in a position of your own doing, where only 24% of americans trust what you are saying in the white house, think about that.
less than one in four people trust what the president and the white house says. if you want to go on a communications offensive, because that's certainly any of us, harold. you have run. if you have record low approval ratings, you would say, man, i got to get out there and get my message out there. this must be a problem with my message. i got to get it out there. then they go, well, boss, the problem is that less than one in four people are going to believe anything you say when you get out there and start talking. where do you go from there, harold? what does the president do to get those numbers up? >> it's a challenge. not only that. you have a republican congress, a republican senate. you are unable to get health care done. you were unable to really move forward on a tax bill. you have not done infrastructure bill that you promised to do. it creates real concerns among supporters. chica you have to wonder when do you begin to do the things you promised to do?
republicans, including mitch mcconnell and paul ryan, who are trying to manage and lead through and waiver through what seems to be a president every day who gives new headlines, headlines they didn't expect, it creates more and more issues for them and creates more and more issues for republicans thinking about running. for that matter, those who were up for re-election next year. >> i think harold's point about the incompetent issue that's plaguing this white house and how that is really eroding these numbers for president trump, and i would just be curious what kristen as a pollster thinks of some of the numbers in this poll, particularly the numbers that are hovering in the high 20s, in the low 30s, and that really seemed -- we have heard so much about the wall of trump support and how he is never going to cut into that critical base. you know, he is going to -- mid 30s. he is going to keep it. what do these numbers say to you? >> well, this 24% number that strongly approves of him, the
24% that say they would trust him -- they say they trust things coming out of the white house. i've seen that number 24% before in some of abc-washington post polling from about a month ago. they found 24% believe that trump behaviors in a manner that's presidential. they find about 24% say that they think they like trump's tweeting, and he should keep doing it. this is a number that i have now seen pop up over and over and over again. it seems like if you are looking for a floor of trump support, 24% is about where that looks like it is, but it's really hard to govern or do much of anything if 24% is the number that -- of your core supporters. there are an awful lot of people in the republican party, an awful lot of voters that were willing to vote for donald trump because they didn't like hillary clinton, and they were willing to give trump a chance because they thought, look, you have a new president. let's give him an opportunity to govern. we are now a number of months into his president si, and even though the economic numbers look good, there's no sign that trump
is evolving into any kind of "truly presidential president." i think that has led a lot of these republican voters who are kind of on the bubble -- they're the types of folks that were willing to give him a shot. they wanted to see him succeed. it doesn't seem that he is succeeding as much as he promised. he is under delivering and having over promised. you're seeing some of the voters bleed away. >> still ahead on "morning joe" new hampshire is known as a granite state. or if you are president, a drug infested den. well, this morning we have an exclusive new poll with some numbers from that key battleground state where the president is now trailing one of his potential republican rivals only six months into his presidency, but, first, here's bill karins. he has a check on the forecast. bill, what's it looking like? >> good morning to you, joe. we're still trying to figure out if it was a tornado or not that went through salsburiy, maryland. it looks like it from a lot of our surveillance cameras, and look at some of the damage that was left behind that. a lot of huge trees. some cars were picked up, tossed, and moved on to the top
of other cars. we're also dealing with flash flooding issues. yesterday was san antoniantonio. he got lucky he didn't tip over, and he is also lucky the fire department could put the ladder down. everyone was safe. last night we had a lot of heavy rain around houston. still a flash flood warning. the rain is starting to let up. that's the deal today. isolated flash flooding. could happen in mississippi, central alabama, central georgia. this map indicates potential for two to three unchz of rain. there's some nice weather out there today. middle of the country looks great from dallas, oklahoma city. buflt weather minneapolis and chicago. after that rain yesterday in the mid-atlantic, we'll try to get you some sunshine at least by the end of the day. seattle, 88 degrees today, and now we're going to break the record. we are going to go 52 days in a row without even a drop of rainfall in seattle. you think seattle. you think cloudy, gloomy weather. 52 days in a row of this. sunny, blue skies, and there's no sign of rain the rest of this week either. finally, we do have a tropical storm that's near the gulf of mexico.
it's over northern portions of the yucatan peninsula and mexico right now. this is going to miss the united states and head south. near vera cruz. only waves heading up on the gulf coast for us here in the lower 48. new york city was one of the spots yesterday that had an ugly, gloomy weather with a lot of clouds and rain. you can see the low clouds still covering the top of the empire state building. sunshine later today. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.
>> take us through the new new hampshire poll numbers. >> yeah, joe. a new new hampshire poll just out this morning given exclusively to "morning joe" shows soft numbers for the president among republicans there. john kasich finished a distant second to the president in the state's primary in 2016. that's not that long ago, ladies and gentlemen. now when american research group tested a hypothetical challenge from kasich against the
president in a republican primary they found the ohio governor with a 12-point lead. the same question showed kasich up 14 points on the vice president, though more than 30% were undecided on that match-up. of course, it probably doesn't help your case when you refer to the state as a drug-infested den, which the president did in a private phone conversation last week or apparently at some point in the last four or five months with the president of mexico, joe. >> speaking of people living in new hampshire in places that are drug-infested dens, let's bring up dartmouth grad sam stein. i kid, of course, sam. i'm just joking, sam's mom. i'm just joking. sam. >> yes, joe. >> these are the kind of polls that we see, like, year three into a presidency, right? they'll pick the strongest democrat to run against clinton, or they'll pick the strongest
republican to -- here we are six months -- well, here we are six months in, and you are seeing john kasich trouncing the sitting republican president of the primary, and you're seeing trump's numbers go down -- the president's numbers go down also, and i just wonder if it's at the end of the day the fact they just haven't succeeded in doing anything. nothing succeeds like success, and they just haven't passed any legislation. >> that's definitely part of it. i think ridiculing a state for its opioid crisis doesn't endear you much to that state. mike mentioned health care. if you look through the issue numbers in the cnn poll, health care just stands out. the numbers for his handling on health care, 31% approve. 62% disapprove. that's an anchor around his neck, and i think it's an aungor around the republican party's
neck, and it's tough to figure out if they benefit by going forward with the republican authored bill or if they benefit by just letting it drift off the radar entirely. . i keep coming back to this one thing, which is that we're discussing these horrible numbers for donald trump. we're thee rising about hy hypothetical matchups. all of this is being done despite this white house not facing a crisis of its own making. everything that they've dealt with has been self-ainflicted, and most presidencies don't go that long without an external crisis they have to manage. the obama administration had the tea party protest and then the bp oil spill, ebola. each summer there was another crisis. each crisis affected the president's approval ratings. trump hachkt had that yet, and we're still talking about is had numbers at this point. >> still talking about those low numbers. kristen, let's talk about polling because health care, again -- health care was the
third rail for hillary clinton and bill clinton in 1993. it was the third rail, of course, for barack obama from 2010 and the democrats forward. one of my favorite polling numbers from, i think, it was 2009, 2010 was of just self-described tea partiers. the tea party, 60% were shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that the government was going to get involved in their health care. 74% said do not touch my medicaid -- or medicare. they were -- they hated health care involvement by the government until it impacted them. you look at these numbers. it looks like they are. whether they're really misplaying health care, trying trying to shove through a bill that has a 14% approval rating and a bill that, as we have said
from day one, will negatively impact a lot of trump voters. >> when it comes to health care, it's one of those issues that reminds me that voters for the most part are not first and foremost ideologues. that a lot of these debates we have about big versus little government, that these are the sorts of things that for a voter -- what they care about most is my health care getting more expensive or less expensive? can i go to my doctor or not? you had a lot of republicans that opposed obama care on idealogical grounds, but you also had it as a political anchor for the democrats for quite a while because there were a number of people that said, wait, you said i could keep my doctor, and i can't. you said my health care was going to get less expensive, but it got more expensive. the problem for republicans is they've now tried to sell their plan in largely idealogical terms. even as the message gets out there that on things like keeping your doctor, keeping your health care, keeping your coverage, what will the costs look like, that message has been that will get worse? the response has been, well, but
we need to get rid of government control in health care. we need to get the government out from between you and your doctor. i think more most people they're not looking at it idealogically. with that idealogical messaging, you won't have as much support wrrn the worse scenario for republicans is they don't pass anything that items obama care, and yet, they still get the political anchor around their necks. they still go to town halls and get yelled at about it. then they wind up with taking the political hit, but not actually getting the policy in the end. that is the worst case scenario. i fear that that's what we're starting to look at as a party. >> coming up on "morning joe" president trump is down 12 points among whites without college degrees. it's a demographic that democrats would love to win back, but so far they haven't shown much of a message. that conversation coming up next on "morning joe." a pilot like you shouldn't be flying buses.
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the latest analysis from 538 shows that fwauz of the way the house drks aistricts are carved they have no error to gain control. finding that even democrats were to win every single 2018 house and senate race for seats and places that hillary clinton or donald trump won by less than 3%, they still could fall short of the house majority and lose five senate seats. harold, i just got to tell you, i haven't seen any evidence that the democratic party, democratic activists, have figured out exactly how to change the dynamics of what has been going on over the past six, eight years when they've lost over 1,000 legislative seats, lost a dozen senate seats, lost over 60, 65 u.s. house seats, lost a dozen or so governorships, have less governorships than any point in u.s. history.
i think 1922 they had the same low number. i haven't seen a plan. i have heard their slogan, but if i'm a rank-and-file voter, i'm still asking myself, wait, what are democrats doing now that they haven't done over the past eight years? what are your thoughts? what should the democratic party be doing right now to break through the noise? >> so i recall the morning we were hearing when a young man lost out in georgia, and we had really not changed. there were a couple of things that happened, and one thing that stood was, number one, unfortunately, for democrats of my party, leader pelosi stood out to be more unpopular in some ways in that district than president trump. i don't know how we deal with that, but we have to deal with that. two, there was no central organizing economic plan, which mike has talked about many, many times on this show, for democrats to rally around. unfortunately, secretary clinton did not have one, and we were able to allow then candidate
trump, now president trump, to get away with the very simple message of make america great again. we have to have a message that appeals to the middle class americans. the last time democrats were in this spot, a fellow named bill clinton was running for president, and he figured out a way to appeal to middle class voters, middle class americans. until we understand that again and rally around it, it's going to be very hard to find ourselves winning nationally and winning races in a national setting. meaning, winning congressional seats and senate seats. finally, democrats have to think about the leadership they have in washington today. is that the leadership that americans will look to as i come back to the original point. is that the leadership model that americans will look to to elect democrats to the majority? i'm not convinced that is yet. i hope to be wrong, proven wrong, but we have to understand that americans are looking for something new and different. the last three election cycles have shown us that. if we're not convinced by what happened in 2016, we ought to
awaken ourselves to the fact that donald trump, who most americans and for that matter most people in the mainstream media thought could not win. here's a guy who won and won states that democrats ordinarily win. i don't know if it's an economic message alone, but i happen to believe that it's a big, big part of it. >> coming up on "morning joe" here's one way to counter stories the president doesn't like. create a pseudo news network that reports its own agenda, and one of its voices got a big job at the rnc.
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prosecute are never easy, but cases will be made and leakers will be held accountable. >> rogue sources. leakers will be accounted. i mean, that's great. i love that. i mean, that's exactly what the attorney general should be saying, and that was the attorney general jeff sessions on friday talking about stopping the leaking of classified information and it's what the president has been talking about, right? well, the problem is the president of the united states may have just retweeted a story that relied -- we know it relied on anonymous sources, but it looks like could have been classified information as well. let's go right now to bridgewater, new jersey. nbc news national correspondent peter alexander. peter, tell us about this retweet from the president this morning that actually relies on, of course, anonymous sources and may actually real estate lie on leaked classified information? what's it look like? >> yeah, joe. you're exactly right. we know that the president most
mornings gets his presidential daily briefing, but appears at his first briefing most days. in fact, comes from his friends at fox and friends. here's what he retweeted courtesy of fox and friends early this morning. we'll show that to you. it was a story that said u.s. spy satellites detect north korean moving anti-ship cruise missiles to patrol boats. the reason that's important in simple terms is this, in effect, is the commander in chief disseminating leaked classified information about u.s. spy satellite capabilities based on anonymous sources. in effect, it's exactly what jeff sessions was expressing concern about in an effort to try to back up the president's complaints on this topic, and here on this day, day five of his vacation, we heard from the president, in in effect, on that very issue. as it goes with his vacation so far, as our friend at the "new york times", peter baker, i think said well. he said for the president there is no vacation from grievance and frustration. he has been taking to twitter in
bulk already this trip. we've heard about him early this morning talking about some of his plans for the day. our first chance of what he is describing as a working vacation to actually see him doing some of that working. he is going to be meeting with the health and human services secretary, tom price today, at about 3:00 p.m. on the topic of the opioid crisis. he also tweeted that he is working hard for new jersey. this from yesterday saying that the white house, of course, is going through a long renovation. he said he is going to new york next week for some more meetings. beyond that, as we talk about some of the frustrations, here is one that he was fuming about. specifically on dick blooment bloomenthal. going after him with a series of tweets. not what this white house is trying to focus on right now. >> peter alexander, thank you so much. that's -- man, that's a fascinating report. let's bring it right now to senior writer for "the weekly standard" michael warren. michael, how extraordinary would it be if this is, in fact, the case that you have the commander in chief of the united states
leaking classified information? basically our satellite spy capability to the world. what we can do, what we're seeing against our biggest enemy in the form of a retweet from fox and friends. >> well, i mean, he is the president, and he has, i suppose, the right to declassify anything that is classified in that position as president, but it is pretty remarkable, and i think it shows just sort of how these tendencies that the president has to tweet, to say things, to act without sort of thinking of the long-term consequences, what this could mean for all of our assets that are out there in the field. it's a problem, and it's a problem that i think ultimately even somebody like general john kelly coming in to bring in that military discipline to the white house, to the west wing, it's one he simply can't control. it doesn't even seem like he is trying to control it.
i think ultimately it's one of those things that really is never going to change. the problem is what affect does this have on our assets out there who are trying to protect the country? >> well, i always said we have to keep these tweets in context. if are you tweeting about meryl streep, well, that just shows a lack of dignity, and it's kbargsikbargs i embarrassing to the office of the presidency of the united states. if you are leaking classified material, whether the president has the power to declassify or not, in such a happen hazard way with a fox and friends retweet, then that's something obviously that not only john kelly has to be concerned about, but something that general mcmaster and general mattis have to be concerned about as well. >> joe, if i had one wish for this president, it would be that not just that he stop tweeting, because i know that's completely unreal it'sic, but just that he doesn't tweet anything about
north korea. he really just -- every time he has one of these eruptions about north korea, nothing good comes from it, and right now i don't think you can really underscore how serious the situation is with north korea and how quickly this could escalate to war with north korea. i find the president's casual tweeting just to be so irresponsible, and so maybe if general kelly can't stop all tweets, maybe he could say just north korea. just don't tweet about north korea. >> it is the most -- mike, it is the most extraordinary challenge facing this white house, this administration, and this country right now. you know, this segment was set up sort of as a half serious segment about the president attacking leaks, attack being classified leaks and then doing it himself.
nothing funny about him leaking our spy satellite capabilities in north korea. that's exactly what he has done this morning. that's why the cbs poll at 61% of americans uneasy with donald trump being able to handle the north korea crisis ably. >> yeah. joe, especially given the context of what's going in the white house right now. we don't know where this leak came from, where fox news, fox and friends, got this ek loo. we do know how it works operationally.
>> many people -- this is not a leak or new information, but many people personally feel that steve bannon is responsible in part for the attack on general mcmaster. what do you hear? >> yeah. i think the question of this fox and friends tweet and the leak is separate from what you are talking about, but i am hearing that. there is almost widespread view within the west wing that there is -- well, we can see it in the public that there is this push against general mcmaster, breitbart news, other sympathetic news outlets, and there's a view within the west wing that steve bannon or perhaps maybe sebastian gorka are somehow involved in getting information from the white house to those outside sources and that is something that is obviously very concerning.
>> you would have thought it put that issue to bed. i think i should also add that a lot of this dispute has so much to do with what's going on in the internal debate about afghanistan and sort of a real almost proxy fight for this larger civil war within the national security apparatus and the white house. >> yeah. you know, michael, i want to talk to you and rick really quickly about just labels. the "new york times" had said in if the headline that conservatives were turning on general mcmaster. these aren't actually the conservatives that are turning on general mcmaster. these are the nationalists, these are the alt right types. these are the bannons.
>> it is this is it is true. in many ways this is even sort of pettier than that. it's sort of a personnel dispute. it's about people that mcmaster has fired or moved off the national security council staff that were sort of in the sort of internal politics of the west wing that were aligned with steve bannon and in some ways michael flynn, the previous national security advisor. that has sort of transmogrofied into mcmaster is anti-conservative. they're really throwing the kitchen sink. he is anti-israel. he is sort of being controlled by george soros or whatever. it really is the kitchen sink. it's not idealogical. >> two things, joe. one, i would like to know who it is in the white house that thinks they're smarter than mcmaster, has more trust than mcmaster. the other thing is it's very dangerous to be undermining the head of the pentagon right now
while korea is there, and i have to believe, joe, if the president is disseminating this story from fox news, he wanted it out there, right? why wouldn't i believe that he is the source of the leak? >> right. i don't know who else could be the source of the leak other than the president of the united states. who knows? there aren't a lot of people that had that information, and it certainly wouldn't have been general mcmaster who was a patriot and -- >> i remember he gave classified information to the russians in the oval offices. >> gosh, just to jump in, do you really think there's that much logic to it? i think it's just sheer impulseivity and that's what we see over and over and over and how much judgment matters in this critical time, and he is just casually tweeting. >> tweeting it out about north korea. the biggest trouble spot on the gloelk. "the weekly standard's" michael warren, greatly appreciate it.
you can actually read michael's reporting in "the weekly standard" on steve bannon actually going after having a war on an american hero who has fought and defended this country for decades now. the rnc is touting now what it's calling unprecedented economic growth in the early days of the trump administration. the rnc sent out this tweet sunday following friday's strong monthly jobs report. the tweet celebrates one million new jobs created in the president's first six months saying that this has never happened before. the washington post points out, beginning in mid 2013 there was not a single six-month period in which president obama didn't oversee at least one million jobs created. andrew ross sorkin is reporting that even though the trump administration has touted slashes of regulations, its giant earnings reports that are really fug teling the markets.
he notes that few top publicly traded companies cite deregulation as ab accelerant for their growth. let's bring in cnbc's dominik chu to give us more on this. if i'm -- if i'm not mistaken, the rnc is now trumpeting the trump line, which is false. you could call it a lie. we'll be polite and say it is inaccurate. saying what happened the first six months of 2017 was unprecedented for a six-month time period, when, in fact, it happened the first and second part of 2013, the first and second part of 2014, the first and second part of 2015, and the first and the second part of 2016. is that correct? >> i mean, so that is fair to say. there was a lot of momentum for corporate america heading into this first half of the year, and it's continued into it. i mean, yes, deregulation and some of the ideas of health care and tax reform may fall into some of those drivers, but like
we said, i mean, corporate earnings are definitely a big part of that whole optimism in the market right now. the vast majority of big companies in america are actually done reporting their earnings for this past quarter. if everything actually comes to fruition as fruition as expected by analysts, we're going to see 12% earnings growth. that's pretty darn good. we'll also see sales growing by 5% as well so that's definitely part of the story here. >> yeah, definitely part of the story. but, again, they overshoot their mark. they can just talk about how low unemployment is, they could talk about corporate earnings growing. they could talk about record stock markets. it's when they get out there and say this has never happened before when this is all that's been happening over the last four year, dominic. that's when they get in trouble, right? >> and that's the reason why, pause there are those who will point ow that since 2009, since the depths of the financial crisis, this is an economy that has been in recovery mode. there are a lot of reasons for it. i mean, there's this idea that
governments are actually doing stuff on our end to help kind of promote that, you know, economic growth. there's also jobs being created. that's going to be far and away the biggest, most important thing in corporate america today, this idea that jobs are going to be growing and continue to do so. if that is the case, and we do see that trajectory continue, maybe donald trump as president can claim some of that responsibility for it. but in actuality, since the financial crisis, we have been healing as a nation and that economy and the numbers that we have are actually bearing that out. that's always going to be an important point here to get across. >> yeah. this is just a continuance of trend lines that have been going on since 2013. it may be why you look at the cnn poll that shows that donald trump's numbers are at an all-time low, but a majority of americans think the country is doing okay. cnbc's tom nick cdominic chu, t very much.
senator dean heller took direct pressure from president trump during the health care fight. is it a coincidence that this morning he just drew a primary challenger? and one who announced on fox news. we'll talk about the candidate in nevada with the famous last name straight ahead. the new guy? what new guy? i hired some help. he really knows his wine. this is the new guy? hello, my name is watson. you know wine, huh? i know that you should check vineyard block 12. block 12? my analysis of satellite imagery shows it would benefit from decreased irrigation. i was wondering about that. easy boy. nice doggy. what do you think? not bad.
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okay. >> nevada senator dean heller right there, a republican, has been under fire recently for flip-flopping his stances on obamacare and failing to get repeal and replace done. danny tarkanian, republican candidate for the u.s. senate. i think i stole your thunder. you're officially announcing right now. so go ahead. >> that took place in july, it was a joke that some saw as more of a threat than a punch line and sure enough you just saw early this morning on fox news the anchor announced that heller is getting a primary challenge from the right, danny tarkanian. he's the son of famous basketball coach jerry tarkanian, a frequent candidate. joining us is professor of digital culture at ucla, taking a look at how the president gets his message out. a lot of people are familiar with it, twiter, facebook. you have all sorts of things happening, the fox news
announcement about the candidate, sinclair broadcasting suppose lid putting together another t conservative metric. so my question to you is will anything in the p media world, the information world that americans receive their information from would ever be the same? >> i would actually say no, because every presidency and every election, major election in this country is partly a story about media, right? and the trump media strategy is fundamentally about media, it's about the takeover of social media, through messaging, the distrust of mainstream and journalistic media, and now the local television takeover, right, which is what we see sinclair occurring around with the fcc kind of backtracking on the loophole. so we have to think about what kind of media we want in this country as we think about what type of future we want, right? and it's partly one of trump's greatest successes is actually one of his perhaps only successes has been as a media entertainer, as showman, right? so that's why i think media is
so central and so dear to his life. and as we see the base e peeling away, you know, with the latest numbers that you were reporting, that we see this changing. >> joe? >> and ramesh, we talked about this yesterday. this has been the goal of presidential candidates for some time where they decided to go around national news outlets and only talk to local stations, figuring they'd get easier answers, bigger audiences in key areas. also barack obama back in 2008, a lot of people were grousing about the fact in the media that he didn't do as many interviews as typical candidates because he got his message out on social media. this is the future with or without donald trump, isn't it. >> it is the future. narrow cast media is a big part of our future, but what is very different here is that we've never seen a president attack the mainstream media in the way that trump has attacked the
mainstream media, which means he has only one alternative to maintain his base by appealing to these sorts of narrow kind of media sources like local tv sources or your facebook wall. right? help's trying to take over community media in lieu of working with you, the mainstream media. >> ramesh, how successful do you think pyongyang's style happy talk tv is going to be? >> we see the first trump clip percolating to 22 million to 26 million people, so that's a decent number. trump boasts he can reach 110 million people, which is essentially husband base. i think it's a very poorly produced piece of media. i think ut insultings a lot of our intelligence. but at the same time, the question is the perception of the base. what does the base think? is this going to peel away the base or reamplify their connection to the president? and the sinclair thing is important because it's expanding to local television stations in parts of the country that it wasn't able to before, including a number of swing states.
>> ramesh thank you, we'll have you pack in about 20 minutes. joe, final thoughts. >> this new hampshire poll that shows donald trump losing to john kasich by 12 points, six months in, that's -- again, we're not handicapping what happens in to 2020, but it shows lawmakers he's weak in 2017. >> i think that poll, that specific statistic, is much more damning than any of trump's approval ratings and the low approval ratings. i think republicans are watching new hampshire. >> i agree. >> that does it for "morning joe." stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning we have a lot to hit starting with the president's working vacation, railing against the media, against a senator and claim nothing one's paying attention to his successes. this morning, someone's defending their boss.