in sadness, shock and grief. the pain and grief we all feel, a nation in grief. shock, horror and sorrow. a country music concert. a place of sacred worship. marjory stoneman douglas. we are praying for you. our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families. let us pray for healing and for peace. join all americans in praying. america comes together as one. we pull together, we join hands, we lock arms. we are all joined together as one. together, we lock arms to shoulder the grief and we are here for you. we will never ever leave their side. we are here for you. we will stand by their side forever. >> a brief history of president trump addressing mass shootings in america.

>> and mika, of course, all the hopes and the prayers and all the kind words and all the well wishes, they may be helpful sometimes, but again, with -- as we have said time and again without real action coming from this white house, without real action coming from moscow mitch who, by the way, has gun safety legislation on his desk which he's killed. we should put the tombstones we're going to show you in the wake of these killings he put his political opponents in the grave yard -- >> truly moscow mitch. >> put tombstones there. i'm not sure whether it was in russian or whether it was in english, the actual language, but you know these two people, donald trump and moscow mitch are responsible for the killing

of gun safety laws which make america less safe and the gun safety laws that you and i and 90% of americans support, we're talking about expanded background checks. more universal background checks. and you saw even yesterday "the new york post" came out, mika, this is very telling. "the new york post" came out with a front page headline -- this is rupert murdoch's "new york post," speaking again for a majority of americans who are saying, ban the weapons of war. ban them now. that's "the new york post" saying that. and well over 65, 70% of americans also agree with that and yet donald trump and moscow mitch are the two people -- only two people in washington, d.c., killing that legislation and assuring that donald trump continues -- a year from now, we

will have to add ten more of those speeches. and the death toll will continue to sky rocket, all because they refuse what you and your neighbors want them to do. >> and these solutions are basic and the problems are becoming much bigger than the solutions, so we're waiting too long to do even the basics here and honestly when you listen to the president's scripted words that his aides wrote for him, what does locking arms mean when you fan the flames of racism? what does banding together when what you say is a national security threat? all of this has to be taken into context, this president is a racist, that this president fans the flames of hatred and one little scripted speech means

absolutely nothing in all of this. with us we have politics editor for the daily beast sam stein with joe, willie and me. republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio. pulitzer prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. and cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei joins us as well. >> willie geist, let me go to you. i speak only for myself here, but the president of the united states saying those words far preferable to the president of the united states not saying those words. the president of the united states calling out white supremacy even though he has played a large role over the past three or four years, even if you look at the statistics of white supremacy exploding in america since he got into politics. but the president calling out white supremacy is better than the president not calling out

white supremacy but as we have seen in charlotte, as we have seen time and time again, as we saw after the rallies where those nazi chants were rising up through the audience in north carolina, send her back, the president apologizes and then he backs off of that and seems to double down. so it's hard to say, willie, what comes out of this latest speech that he gave yesterday. >> again, the president clearing an incredibly low bar that he condemned white supremacy. my god, i hope he did. he said the thing that he had to say, but as mika said the president made a speech. he read a speech off a teleprompter yesterday. completely disconnected from everything he's done and said over the last four years since he came down the escalator and started to attack immigrants to this country, in the lobby of trump tower in june of 2015. donald trump actually said this yesterday. quote, now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside

and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion and love. donald trump -- donald trump is lecturing america about destructive partisanship. it's a speech that if another president made it, yeah, those are the right things to say but you don't get to walk in for five, six, eight minutes and make a speech that has nothing to do with everything else you said and done over the time that's preceded it and the time that comes after. it's just words from the president in the teleprompter. >> well, you know, mika, they're words from the president. they have to be followed by actions. and what actions? well, the president talked about expanded background checks. all right. call mitch mcconnell back. moscow mitch right now is -- of course, he's setting up grave yards and putting names of his political opponents on tombstones and grave yards. and tweeting them out. right after a slaughter in el paso, and a slaughter in ohio.

maybe if moscow mitch is not too busy doing that and also killing legislation that would actually protect american democracy, maybe the president and here he is, he calls himself the grim reaper. you will see he -- >> this is what his staff did. >> what he calls the graveyard. he actually has the name of his political opponent on a tombstone. and he tweets it out thinking that it's appropriate with -- by the way, yesterday, one of donald trump and mitch mcconnell's followers got 20 years in prison for sending pipe bombs to political opponents. so mitch mcconnell thinks that's funny on that day and on the day that families are getting ready to bury their loved ones, that were going back to school shopping.

and a white supremacist attack, so maybe if moscow mitch is not too doing that, maybe donald trump can call him back to washington and we actually can have what 90% of americans want, mika. and that is expanded background checks. universal background checks that will make america a safer place. >> yeah. and often in situations like this the victims get lost in it all so let's take a moment here. the death toll from the el paso mass murder now stands at 22 as two more victims died from their injuries. one late sunday and another monday morning. the latest victim, 77-year-old juan velasquez. he and his wife were returning curtains when the rampage happened. she was injured. among the dead, 60-year-old retired staff sergent arturo

vinavedes. he served in the army and the texas army national guard and he retired in 2001. he served america. >> by the way, this man served america. a gun was turned on him by a killer inspired by right wing hate rhetoric and the killer's manifesto reads shockingly like a donald trump speech. so there you have again people serving this country proudly, gunned down because of hate that is stirred up by politicians in america. >> the youngest victim killed 15-year-old javier rodriguez. he was remembered at his vigil at his high school last evening. we are told he loved to play soccer and was a good student. we're also hearing more from the

father of andre anchondo. he was killed trying to protect their 2-month-old son. >> they're both heroes because they were doing their job as parents, protecting children. >> two white house officials say the president is expected to travel to el paso and dayton in the coming days. i believe he misunderstood dayton for toledo. we're told he's likely to meet with first responders including some customs and border protection personnel who responded to the scene in texas. will he meet with families? yesterday trump delivered a prepared statement from the white house reacting to the mass shootings that included the deadliest hate crime against latinos in modern american history.

"the new york times" reports that since january, more than one in five trump campaign ads on facebook have included the word invasion to describe immigrants as a growing threat. a growing threat. but yesterday, trump made no attempts to reconcile his condemnation of hatred with his persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric and made no mention of hispanics or latinos. the group targeted by the gunman in el paso. >> the shooter in el paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. in one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. these sinister ideologies must be defeated. we must recognize that the internet had provided a dangerous avenue to radicalize disturbed minds and perform demented acts.

mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun. we must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process. that is why i have called for red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders. >> jim vandehei, so the president of course chirping out the nra's line that it's not guns that kill people, it's mental illnesses that kill people and yet, our rate of mental illness isn't higher than other industrialized countries and yet the number of murders are so much larger and so with the president talking that way, what are you hearing about the two policy proposals he put

forward yesterday morning? the possibility of expanded background checks or an all encompassing immigration reform plan. any chance that moves any time before donald trump leaves office? >> i would say there's no chance on immigration reform, a slight chance on background checks as you have more and more republicans come out today that will talk about it. the truth is, you hit at it in the top of the segment. one of the problems is going to be the first and second amendment in trying to go after this spread now, which is a pretty wild spread of domestic terrorism. one, like even if you did -- even if you did background checks, even if you outlawed semiautomatic weapons we have so many damn guns on the street that anybody who wants to get a gun is going to be able to get a gun. you can't even under any of the proposals imagine the federal government going in and taking back weapons that law-abiding citizens already have. then you talk about social

media. and here's where domestic terrorism is really hard under our constitution to be able to combat. because of free speech, it's really hard to go and force these companies and be able to sniff out the individuals who are gathering on social media before they had nowhere else to gather. now they can do it en masse, they can do it at scale. they can find lots of people with like-minded crazy ideas to get them even more ginned up. it's very hard -- >> jim, what you're describing -- yeah, what you're describing is what isis was when it was expanding in 2013 and 2014 and the government ignored it, called it a regional threat. it wasn't until the government focused on stamping out isis they were able to do that starting really in earnest in 2015, 2016. so a lot of americans are asking why can't we do the same thing

now with this sort of hatred? >> you can and you can't. when you're dealing with isis, when you're dealing with the foreign threat because of the laws post 9/11, government has a lot more flexibility. the fbi has a lot more tools in its arsenal to be able to go after foreign threats as opposed to domestic threats. so sometimes these debates get a little too simplified. this is like a big problem. i think the thing that the media is doing a great job of is grabbing people by the collar. last year was the worst for right wing extremism in terms of violence flowing from it since 1995 and this year is already worse than last year. this is a real problem. conservatives can't deny it, republicans can't deny it. trump can't deny it. it's a huge problem and it goes against the back drop we have talked about that the country is changing. the white population is shrinking and there's no doubt it's been a concerted part of the trump campaign to be able to exploit the us versus them

divisions. when you do that, when it gets amplified on social media, awfulness happens. yes, you can say the shooting took place because of donald trump, but you can't deny that when you look at those rallies, when you look at the rhetoric, when you look at the output on social media both from the campaign and from supporters that things are getting cranked up to a level. that it is purposeful in some ways to really play in to that -- oh, there's us and there's them. and the only way you can really dial that back is through national leadership. like that is what you have. when you think of what george bush did versus what trump did, you can say the country is changing, let's have the party, let's have the country sort of adapt with it or you can exploit it. he's exploited it. we're now playing with fire. >> well, there is a -- there is though a direct line that you can attach the hateful speeches and the rallies and the language

that are used in those rallies. you can draw a straight line to much of the language in the manifestos. and when you have the manifesto coming out of el paso where the killer is specifically saying that there are too many hispanics. there's a hispanic invasion of texas, and that if it doesn't stop that democrats are going to take control of texas and will change the electoral map forever, so democrats will continue winning and republicans will lose, suddenly it becomes not only very political but very specific. you know, willie though, it's interesting that, you know, this white nationalism and hate crime the numbers have exploded since donald trump got involved in american politics. "the washington post" reported yesterday that hate crimes in areas where donald trump gave rallies in 2016 have gone up

over 200%. and yet, the federal government is still not focusing on stamping out hate crimes. a lot of people of course could look back and say, well, you know, back during the obama administration there was a real frustration that the government would not even mention the words islamic radical extremism and were slow to start going after isis. the president dismissing it as a regional threat. now, here we are. that was the threat then. this is now the threat of our time. >> yeah. >> and specifically since donald trump came into the white house and what's he doing? we don't have a law on the book to arrest people for domestic terrorism. >> don't take our word for it. take the word of the fbi director christopher wray who testified before congress that the vast majority of the terror

arrests are what he could owe up to white supremacy. that's what the fbi is focusing on right. there's a piece in "the new york times" from the fbi special agent who is in charge of investigating 9/11 and he said it's time to call this what it is and designate it as terrorism so that the fbi can treat it that way. he says, 20 years ago we grossly underestimated the rising threat of islamist terrorism and that cost us dearly on september 11th. we can't afford to wait for the white supremacist equivalent. he cites mi-5 and do you think that changes what we saw over the weekend? >> it's possible but i think we're too late. we were trying to have this conversation at various points in the past and we never summoned the political courage to do it. so in the wake of what's happened in el paso i go back to one sort of moment in the obama

administration. the department of homeland security had produced a memo about rising right wing extremism and there was a huge backlash against what the obama administration had done, as the republicans who viewed it as an attack on them and also veterans who are suffering from ptsd. instead of the obama administration standing up for the data points in it, they backed down and issued an apology for that. i understand why they did it. it was a huge political inconvenience, but i'm not saying they contributed to el paso i think it -- shows maybe it sparks new research for the fbi but you know we could have been having this a long time ago. >> why would we expect anything

different from this president who would -- who has a full report saying that russia was involved in our elections. he refuses to acknowledge that. do you think he's going to start recognizing the fact that white supremacist terrorism exists especially when it's connected to his hateful speech? it won't happen. we are so far beyond relying on what the president may do. he can give a statement like he did which showed absolutely no heart whatsoever. and then go out there at the next rally, rile everybody up to where he does show emotion. but he's not ogoing to do anything so it does fall -- it falls to the state by state and an elected officials being held accountable. >> i totally agree with that. i don't think anyone should expect anything different from trump. everyone is waiting for the next tweet to see what happens. the fact that he would stop demonizing immigrants seems far-fetched. but in the panhandle when he talks about invasions and the crowd responds with shooting,

only in the panhandle. maybe in the future the elected republican officials in the panhandle will say, no, not only in the panhandle, it's not acceptable here either. >> well, they have been a bunch of cowards, i don't expect it to change any time soon. >> then there's the legislation of gun control we have been talking about for a long time. universal background checks, in a q poll enjoyed 97% support in the united states public, including among republicans and gun owners, very popular. also the idea that the president put out yesterday of the red flag laws which would be a temperature seizure of weapons from somebody who sends up a red flag like posting online, a kill list or a rape list as the guy in dayton did. >> yeah. that's right. but you know the problem with the red flag concept is that we don't have, you know, precrime laws in this country. we don't have a totally reliable way of telling who's going to do something like this and who isn't. and we do have the first

amendment that guarantees free speech. you know, these two atrocities over the weekend, you know, we know that the el paso shooting was political. we don't know what the deal was with the dayton shooter. but we know that they both have weapons of war. they both had high powered military style assault rifles that are designed to rip human bodies apart on the battlefield. that's what they -- that's what they had and that's just crazy. it's just crazy. it's crazy that we don't have background checks. it's crazy that we -- that we allow and really encourage the circulation of possession of weapons of war and the american

people believe with -- agree with what i just said. yet it's donald trump, it's mitch mcconnell, it's republicans in the senate and the house who just frankly have blood on their hands. they have blood on their hands today and they'll have more blood on their hands the next time this happens. they have been beholden to the nra which has been finally revealed to be the sort of corrupt cesspool that we knew it was. and some of them ideologically believe the tree of liberty is somehow being watered by the blood of patriots but it's really being watered by the blood of children. the floblood of walmart people,d couples going out for a drink on saturday night. we have to do something about the guns.

they have the guns that are just not civilian weapons. they're not covered by the second amendment and, you know, maybe some day. how many times have we said this? >> and you can add to that list of course the blood of jews going to their synagogue on a saturday night. >> absolutely. >> children, first graders, going to school. >> the blood of festival goers at a country music concert in las vegas. i mean, you know? >> it goes on. >> how many assault rifles? just crazy. >> yeah. yeah. clubs in orlando, i mean, you talk about vegas and the bump stock that's still legal. nothing ever gets done. you have a corrupt group of lobbyists in washington, d.c., that have seized control for years of the nra and are

pocketing the money of dues holders. and they are getting in the way of any meaningful reform that actually an overwhelming majority of nra members support when you start talking about background checks. and, you know, mika, i'm reminded as gene is talking about the republicans and others that won't support these bills. i'm reminded of heidi heitkamp who had 94% approval in her state for voting for background checks and heidi heitkamp voted no because she was afraid of the nra. i wonder what heidi heitkamp would do today if she had that vote back because guess what? she was in the senate and now she's out of the senate and she went against 94% of her electorate because she was afraid of three lobbyists in

washington, d.c. that worked for the d.c. arm of the nra. three very corrupt people who i don't know if they're going to go to jail or not. but i find it hard to believe that the nra people are going to -- nra members are going to allow them to stay in office. but this is what fear gets you. it gets you voted out of your office and you have to live with the votes for the rest of your life. not worth it. i was there, it's not worth it. vote your conscience and vote with 95% of americans who want expanded background checks. >> jim vandehei, thank you very much. coming up, mayor pete buttigieg joins the conversation. he has a plan to counter the gun lobby and shares that with us, straight ahead. plus, former president obama speaks out. we'll read his statement about the mass shootings, gripping the nation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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♪ welcome back to "morning joe." quick correction about a minute ago i talked about bump stocks not banned yet. they of course were banned and i knew they were. just one of those joe in the volcano brain clouds i had. kind of like when you're trying to say dayton and you say toledo instead. it happens. >> no, i don't think it's like that. >> my apologies. >> that's a totally different thing. >> it's great that bump stocks have been banned. now let's move towards expanding background checks that -- as willie said, 97% of americans support. >> president obama is speaking out following america's latest mass shootings. in a lengthy statement the former president called for stricter gun control laws and also appeared to take a rare

semiveiled swipe at president trump writing in part, we should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds the climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments. i don't think this is really veiled. leaders who demonize those who don't look like us or suggest that other people including immigrants threaten our way of life or refer to other people as sub human or imply that america belongs to just one certain type of people such language isn't new. it's been at the root of most human tragedy throughout history here in america and around the world. it is at the root of slavery and jim crow, the holocaust, the genocide in rwanda and ethnic cleansing in the balkans. it has no place in our politics and our public life. and it's time for the overwhelming majority of

americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party to say as much, clearly and unequivocally. yeah, semiveiled, that's not, thank you president obama for your honesty about our current commander in chief. >> yeah. willie, some people were saying that yesterday president obama should have said his name, taken it directly to president trump. but you would have to be living in a cave for the past four years to not know who president obama was talking about. >> yeah. it will never be enough for some people, but clearly, he was talking about president trump. i was thinking as i listened to president trump make his remarks yesterday, joe, if it were someone else you'd look at this moment and say i don't believe i'm responsible for what happened over the weekend. but in a moment of reflection, is there anything i'm doing or saying that's making it okay for other people to take action? is it -- am i creating a space

with my rhetoric that gives these white supremacists room to go out and act on the things they believe in, that makes them travel from 8chan chat rooms to a walmart in el paso. the president is not an empathetic man and in a moment like this he could step up and say, i have to knock it off because this is having real world implications. i don't believe i'm responsible he could say for this. but if i'm contributing even a little to it, i've got to stop. >> and you can tell, gene robinson, that the man has never run for re-election before and you can tell that because what he doesn't understand is, what he gets away with in the moment stays with him forever. it's not like vapor. what he says at the rallies will follow him throughout the campaign. when -- well, here's a very good

example of it. and i think this is one of the reasons why he made the statement that he made because there's a lot of video that looks just like this. watch this. >> this is an invasion. when you see these caravans starting out with 20,000 people, that's an invasion. i was badly criticized for using the word invasion. it's an invasion. but how do you stop these people? you can't. there's -- that's only in the panhandle you can get away with that statement. only in the panhandle. so it's a tough situation. >> actually i'm from the panhandle. you can't get away with that in the panhandle and you can't get away with shooting somebody on fifth avenue like donald trump thinks. but gene, that stays with him

forever as does every hateful screed that he's ever said at a rally. the send her back chants with him sitting there and soaking that in like mussolini. that's with him forever and i guess he doesn't understand it and so he needs to get as far away from that as possible. the only way to do that is to actually follow through with some meaningful legislation and to stop that nonsense which none of us think he's going to do. >> right. he could do that. but do you think he will? i don't think he will. i absolutely know -- i'm not a optimistic in terms of trump and taking any sort of real action that would turn things around. i mean, you know, in that clip he used the word invasion and here on msnbc and on other

networks in the last couple of days we have been running montages of all of the times he's used that word invasion, invasion, invasion to refer to latino immigrants. and that has had an obvious and i think profound impact because it buys in to this whole -- you know, white nationalist white national conspiracy theory of an invasion of brown people to replace the white people in america. it's -- it's directly related to that. and anybody should know that, but of course, you know, maybe donald trump really -- maybe to him history doesn't really exist. maybe the only thing that exists in his head is what's happening today. what's happening now, what gives

me in my mind a slight political advantage. i don't particularly care what's happening in donald trump's head now. what i think we should all care about is actually doing something. we repeat this ritual time and again and you just know what's going to happen. it's going to happen again and it could be a week from now, could be a month from now. there could be another oklahoma city bombing, you know? or something like that. i mean, we're going to have the equivalent of a racist right wing, white nationalist 9/11 here i think and i make that prediction -- you know, i don't think i'm going out on a limb here and -- >> you're not. >> gene, you're not -- yeah, you're not only not going out on a limb. it's what the fbi director has

said. that's what other intel agency people have said. and of course frank figliuzzi said that now -- now after four years of donald trump he is now starting to see the lights, the warning lights blinkering all over america and it reminds him of the warning lights he saw before 9/11 and other people in the counterterrorism business, mika, before 9/11 they saw it. they saw those warning lights blinking. those warning lights are blinking again. if donald trump wants people to stop talking about him just using words, which is a good start, use your words and then have actions follow then he needs to speak out against the hatred towards hispanics. he needs to let people know they are welcomed in this country. he needs to let people know that the federal government is going

to actually put on the books a terrorism law for domestic terrorism. there's not even that law on the book right now. we'll talk about that in a little bit. but there are a lot of things he could do. >> but he won't so you have to ask the question, joe, and i'll ask you, isn't it okay to deduce that at this point this is what he wants? he is inciting hatred and violence and inciting racism. if he doesn't unequivocally call it off and say, this is wrong and we stand together against this and we are doing this, this and this to help fight hate crimes -- i mean, this is a president who seems to want these things to happen. how else can this be explained? if he doesn't call it off? >> well, he's got to call it off -- >> but he's not going to. >> as you know, he's inciting hatred now and he's been inciting hatred up to yesterday

because he sees that as a good political strategy. just like as we have discussed many times and jack helped us put together a package to show the 1990s when he owned casinos in atlantic city and had boxing matches, suddenly it made sense for him to hang out with hip-hop stars. it made sense for him to hang out with civil rights leaders. it made sense for him to write big checks to nancy pelosi and write big checks to hillary clinton and write big checks to the democratic national committee and to write big checks -- >> he knows what he's doing. >> and to date african-american women not only in the '90s but into the 21st century and he -- and he only figured out that actually this bigotry role that he's followed now made sense in 2011 with birtherism. of course, i know about the

housing in the '70s. i also understand about his central park five scam and the fact he still won't back off of that. but for a large chunk of the '90s and into the 21st century, donald trump was far from being a white supremacist. donald trump was being transactional and was the friend of, again, civil rights leaders and hip-hop stars because that's what suited him at the time. will he change? only if it suits his own political purposes to change. and that's what americans must show him. that this is a dead end road that he's on. white supremacy is a dead end road. it will lead not only to terrible things for other people, but for what matters to donald trump the most. it will lead to terrible things for him politically. >> hopefully, republicans would perhaps show him --

>> where are the republicans? by the way -- >> where are you? where are they? >> did we hear from joni ernst yesterday? >> how about mitt romney? >> where's mitt romney? >> watered down statement -- >> any republicans that have called out donald trump? >> alex? >> specifically the president, no. mitt romney released a statement calling out the action of that kind of rhetoric, but never said the president's name. we're working -- we're trying to get republicans on the show. we have offered many of them to appear, but so far they have all declined. >> so no republicans will come on this show and call out the president of the united states for inspiring white supremacy. not one. >> not yet. not the ones that we have asked. >> wow. >> okay. well, we're also following today other than that sad, pathetic

display -- >> spineless. >> the trade fight with china, which sent the stock market tumbling yesterday. steve rattner is here with the charts. "morning joe" will be right back. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring.

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global markets are under pressure following a massive sell-off here in the united states as president trump's trade war with china once again intensifies. the dow shed more than 750 points yesterday after beijing allowed its currency to weaken to the lowest level against the dollar in more than ten years. u.s. stock futures have pared earlier losses and are pointing to a more positive open and over the weekend the china's central bank allowed its money to weaken past the psychologically important point of 7 to the dollar. with us now let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner and business

columnist at the "new york" magazine, josh barro. steve, i want to start with you. we want to see your charts. did you see by any chance yesterday the quarterly report, i'm sure you saw it it warns that quote, the ultimate reversal of the massive bull markets are likely to be more intense than normal and could lead to one of the greatest market reversals in history. are you hearing similar concerns among your business associates? >> well, market predicting is a dangerous game but i would certainly say this is the riskiest moment i can remember since the great financial crisis. and this could easily unwind. we had better news last night but i can take you through the last few days of history and show you kind of how we got to where we are today. >> but before you do that, can you tell us, steve, what is it about this particular moment that not only has you and many others saying we're in an

unusually risky time? >> really it's the trade war and that really goes to the -- goes right to donald trump. we had a recovery that was in its later innings but still chugging along at a reasonable rate. he passed some tax cuts that stimulated the economy a bit more for a little while. but all in all, we have low unemployment as you know, 3.6% and low inflation and the economy was doing okay. and then suddenly the trade war started and trade wars are in the end bad for everyone. they raise the price of imports, they hurt exports and it ultimately becomes a downward spiral. you have already been able to see that in the economy. that's why the fed cut interest rates last week and that's why the market thinks they have to cut them again and now with this currency war that seems to have started on top of a trade war, you can see it in these -- in this devaluation by the chinese. >> all right. do you have charts for us this morning? >> i have charts but it's a scary moment. so let's start with the stock market and go over the last few

days of the stock market and as i said, when the fed cut the interest rates back last wednesday the stock market began to crack and, first of all it's important to note that the stock market -- that the fed only cut interest rates because of the trade war. the trade war is weakening the any, the fed had to cut interest rates, the stock market cracks, kind of recovered from that. but then on thursday, the president walked out and announced he was going to apply tariffs to another $300 billion of chinese goods on september 1. the stock market tanks as you can see here. even then, the stock market kind of bottomed out but then sunday the chinese as you said in the intro weakened the currency and that was the scariest thing of all to the market. because trump previously comes out all the time and says i'm going to put tariffs on this or and that. sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. it's a negotiating tool. but once the chinese retaliated like that and then last night -- sorry, yes, yesterday afternoon

when the treasury announced that they were a trade -- currency manipulate their really sent a signal this is for real and it will be hard for people to get back into their corners. one last comment before we go to the next chart. as you noted the market is going to open slightly up today. that's because the chinese did not weaken the currency further last night and so we think that perhaps this is slowing down. now, let's take a look at what this trade war has meant so far for the united states. ironically for the united states, it has meant that our exports have gone down by more than our imports from china have gone down. so why is that? that's because the chinese can control their economy better than we can. so they essentially say we're not buying any more american soybeans, the purchases stopped. we're not buying bmws and mercedes that are made in the slow. those slowed down dramatically and meanwhile on our side, our private enterprise businesses continue to buy so far the trade war has been a loser to us and a

small fun fact. the amount of aid we are paying to farmers is greater than the amount of tariffs that we are collecting from consumers in america. so let's look at the next round of tariffs which trump talked about for september 1st. if he actually goes ahead and does this. this will really hurt consumers. so far the tariffs have targeted more intermediate goods that go to businesses and the next round goes to consumers. much of what we buy here, almost everything we buy here that is manufactured is made somewhat else in these categories. so if you look at cell phones for a second, you can see that 82% of the cell phones that we buy are made in china. this is all telecom equipment. computers is a large number. when you get to toys, let me drop down to toys here, 90% of all the toys we -- that we buy are made in china. almost 100% of the footwear that we buy is made somewhere else and the majority of that is made in china. these are things that people buy every day.

if you have an apple phone like this one, it's going to cost you 10% more on september 1st. even though it's apple it's made in china. and then lastly, let's take a look at examples of how this has already affected consumers. this shows the prices of goods that are mostly imported and you can see that the goods that are imported have -- they were declining actually in price over the last few years and that's mostly because of a strong dollar. strong dollar makes imports cheaper. but then trump started putting tariffs in place and so we separated the goods that have tariffs on them from the goods that don't have tariffs on them. and you can see right here very clearly that the goods that have tariffs on them, the prices are already going up whereas goods that don't have tariffs on them are relatively flat. it's not an exaggeration to say that if trump goes ahead with this next round of tariffs, it is very likely that the average consumer will pay more in tariffs than the benefit of the tax cut that he got a year ago. >> so josh, with all that in

mind it's starting to look like trade wars are neither good nor easy to win. >> no, i think that's right. i think to steve's point, you know for the last couple of years a lot of this is sort of background noise. the president would make the threats and impose some tariffs but most is services or things produced domestically. a lot of the imports don't come from china, a lot of things weren't subject to the tariffs. they were fairly small, but as the stuff that's subject to tariff gets to be a larger swath of the economy then you're going to start to see regional effects if china weakens the currency that has effects on japan and south korea and then that affects our trading relationships with them. this is grown enough to the fact that it has material effects on the economy. i still don't think we're at a place that it's likely that we'll see a recession in the near term. but the sort of thing that can start shaving significant amounts off gdp growth, less job creation, and it means less political pen fit to the president from the economy so the one thing he has going for him is a strong economy.

if we're looking at you know at the growth somewhere in the 1% range in 2020 that won't be a strong tail wind for the president as he seeks reelection. >> it needs to be gospel that the tariffs were attacks on the american people, tariffs were a bad idea and we haven't heard much from republicans. you hear joni ernst and those from the farm states talking about it, but by and large, lindsey graham is completely flipping on tariffs because president trump is the one imposing them. >> for a lot of farmers you are seeing specific targeted payments to make them whole for the economic damage specifically to them. but more broadly yes, the republicans have pointed out that this stuff damages the whole economy. you see senator pat toomey from pennsylvania making a lot of noise about that, but the problem is you know that the congress could take these powers away from the president. the constitution gives the power to set tariffs to congress. we have long standing laws that have given presidents the powers. they have been used more responsibly in congress, but that would involve a big fight with president trump that i think republicans in congress would not be eager to have and then you have divisions among democrats about trade policy. >> josh barro, thank you very

much and still to come, a must read this morning on what's keeping the nation from doing all it can to combat domestic terrorism. plus a growing number of democrats pressing mitch mcconnell to cancel the august recess in order to act on gun control. ohio senator sherrod brown is one of them. he is pressing his colleagues to vote on a back ground check bill. the senator will be our guest this morning. and after september 11th, mayor and 2020 candidate pete buttigieg signed up to fight the threat facing our nation. now he's calling on leaders to fight the threat of white nationalist terror. mayor pete joins the conversation ahead on "morning joe." we're back in two minutes. on "g joe. we're back in two minutes. this was me six years ago...

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, august 6th. still with joe, will he and me we have sam stein. republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. pulitzer prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. and joining the conversation political writer for "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst nick confessore. columnist at the "usa today" and author of the book "the death of expertise", tom nichols. and contributing editor for the women's news site pustal alisa menendez is with us. the president is expected to

travel to dayton and el paso and is likely to meet with some customs and border protection personnel who responded to the scene in texas. yesterday, trump delivered a prepared statement from the white house reacting to the mass shootings that included the deadliest hate crime against latinos in modern american history. "the new york times" reports that since january more than one in five trump campaign ads on facebook have included the word invasion to describe immigrants as a growing threat. but yesterday, trump made no attempts to reconcile his condemnation of hatred with his persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric and made no mention of hispanics or latinos, the group targeted by the gunman in el paso. >> the shooter in el paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. in one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and

white supremacy. these sinister ideologies must be defeated. we must recognize that the internet has provided a dangerous avenue to radicalized, disturbed minds and perform demented acts. mental illness pulls the trigger, not the gun. we must make sure those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process. that is why i have called for red flag laws also known as extreme risk protection orders. >> and that's donald trump yesterday. willie, donald trump this morning as i'm sure you know is retweeting comments from supporters at places that many

call state run tv talking about the number of mass shootings that occurred while barack obama was president of the united states and comparing the two. of course, what donald trump and his supporter that tweeted this on state run television did not say is that during barack obama's two terms, he was trying desperately to pass measures like -- well, you know, like extended background checks that 90, 95% of americans support. he was trying to work with democrats and republicans and congress to pass other meaningful gun safety laws and every time it was mitch mcconnell who stopped him dead in his tracks, even though 90, 95% of americans wanted what president obama was pushing for, especially -- well, republicans, democrats, gun owners and members of the nra, the majority

in every one of those groups supported expanded background checks and mitch mcconnell killed them then and now it's mitch mcconnell and donald trump that are killing the legislation today. >> it appears the focus on other places is now on president obama because president obama put out a thoughtful statement yesterday without naming the president talked about calming down the rhetoric and not having these words passed out of your mouth that go after immigrants and perhaps lead to incidents and tragedies like the one we saw in el paso. this is all predictable though, tom nichols. we could see it happening. the president reads a speech off the teleprompter, he clears the world's lowest bar which is to condemn white supremacy inside the white house, he did that. then this morning as most people predicted he will turn it political once again. >> it's amazing how difficult it was for the president to read that speech. you can see that when he has to get off of his extemporaneous

talking points and give a contrition speech it's a physical effort. like he can't get his mouth around the words and make his way through the statement. first thing in the morning he's right back at it with grievance about obama, grievance about whose record was better. you know, this isn't -- i think the people who constantly make the point that well you have to encourage the president when he's right, criticize him when he's wrong, really don't take into account that he's just never sincere about these statements that sound right. but really don't reflect what he believes in any way. >> and willie, you know, for those people that are tweeting now from other networks that donald trump is the least racist president ever, i wonder if they

saw the clip from the florida speech. alex, do we have the speech from the florida, where the president laughs when people say we should shoot hispanics. can we run this for our friends that are actually saying that donald trump is the least racist president ever? >> this is an invasion. when you see these caravans starting out with 20,000 people, that's an invasion. i was badly criticized for using the word invasion. it's an invasion. but how do you stop these people? you can't. there's -- that's only in the panhandle that you can get away with that stuff. only in the panhandle. so it's a tough situation. >> so there's actually somebody on another network, willie, who is saying that it's political

season so they're going to continue the racist narrative. it's not a racist narrative, there's the president talking about the invasion, invasion, invasion, which he talked about through 2018, it led to devastating results for republicans. of course they're too stupid to figure that out, i guess, politically stupid. but, no, it's not a narrative at all. the president has been speaking like a racist. he's -- his crowds have been chanting nazi chants, send her back. i mean, this is not the political season. this is the season for donald trump's white supremacy and racism and we're all just hoping as a nation that he backs off of it. >> yeah. president trump quoted on twitter this morning the quote from that host that you cited and then followed up with his own line and i am the least racist person. nick confessore, you look at the two clips, the president in pensacola laughing off the idea of shooting people coming across the border and then the

president at the white house yesterday. is there anyone who buys the person who spoke at the white house yesterday. can you take ten minutes of your day and read a prompter speech written for you and convince people that you aren't actually the person you've been for the four years that led up to it and now from the day that comes after it it? >> look, i think it's far pastime for us to start looking at trump the in the totality of his record over time. anyone who has followed this president knows that teleprompter trump going to be there and go away and twitter trump is going to come back at any second. and that's where he says what he really feels and in that sense, you know, twitter trump is very valuable. his twitter feed is helpful to all of us. because it's what he actually thinks. this is a president who wants credit for anything and responsibility for nothing. >> yeah. i just think it's worth recognizing how deep we are into this we're in the alice in wonderland rabbit hole world. the president of the united states wakes unafter a national

tragedy, turns on cable news and airs his grievances on twitter, this is what we're expecting from the president. we're in a surreal universe this is the expected behavior. all i'll add, there's an immense amount of weakness to this. it takes a little strength to be introspective to recognize where you have failed and to seek to improve it. i mean, it does take some strength to do that. trump is utterly uncapable of doing that. he refused to acknowledge any contribution he may have made to this climate that we're in. we see it now in the manifestation of his id on the twitter feed where he's lashing out at a subtle but important criticism from his predecessor. stronger people would have said you know what, i'll seek to do better but unfortunately we don't have that in the oval. >> well, he's weak and insecure and that's all he's got. >> weak and insecure and susan

del percio, let me go to you and tom nichols. i'm a former republican. tom is a former republican. susan not exactly sure if you're a former or a current republican still. >> nope. >> but still, we were all republicans and i have just got to say that as we look at donald trump and what he's gotten away with, i'd like to ask both of you when there are fascist chants from the audience, send her back, when the president of the united states says go back to where you came from, where is joni ernst? where is mitt romney? when donald trump is laughing, when somebody says shoot hispanics, shoot immigrants after he keeps talking invasion, invasion, invasion to rile up the audience where is cory gardner whose election is up the next year in the swing state. where is susan collins, up in a swing state? where is thom tillis when the

words of hatred continue to come out of the president's mouth? usually at rallies or on twitter and they lead many people believe because the manifestos line up with what he's been saying to the death of over 20 people in el paso. >> well, you bring up a good point. you mentioned the folks in swing states and who are up for re-election. and they operate out of fear. they're afraid of trump, they're afraid of the primary. that's not an excuse. i think it's just a stark reality. as far as i think what's even worse, the folks who aren't up for mitt romney who has over 5 1/2 years left on his term who is afraid to speak up. that's what angers me and donald trump will be gone and the republican party will have to figure out what it is. i for one -- i'm a current republican, i will be there to hold those people accountable and make sure that they no longer represent the republican party. because we do need a two-party

system. there are republicans who do believe in doing the right thing. if you're an elected official and not doing it, you should be out of there. >> we do need a center right party but i don't think it's the republicans anymore. the republican party now -- >> that's correct. >> i think susan's point about fear is really important. it's a party that is completely caged by its own fear of everything. not just of its own voters but a fear that the weakness of its own ideas. the republican party i joined in my youth 35 years ago, 40 years ago, was a confident, optimistic forward looking party that believed in america, believed in immigration and in national unity. this is a party that's afraid of everything that it's afraid of its own voters, doesn't have confidence in its own ideas and it's mortgaged everything it's believed in to be a cult of personality for a very weak and insecure man. there's no center to the republican party. it has been hollowed out by this

cult of personality and by its obeyence to donald trump. >> case in point, take a look at this. two-term republican state senator who represents a district in omaha, nebraska, is saying enough is enough. on sunday, john mckohlister tweeted that the republican party is complicit to the obvious racist and immoral activity inside our party. i'm not suggesting that all are white supremacist or that the average republican is even racist. what i'm saying though is that the republican party is complicit to obvious racist and immoral activity inside our party. we have a republican president who continually stokes racist fears in his base, he calls certain countries s-hole countries and tells women of color to go back where they came

from and lies more than he tells the truth. we have republican senators and representatives who look the other way and say nothing for fear it will negatively affect their elections. no more, when the history books are written i refuse to be someone who said nothing. we all like to cite abraham lincoln's republican lineage when it is politically expedient. but now is the time to act like lincoln and take a stand. what a great statement. in response, the nebraska state republican party issued a statement telling him to leave. >> wow. >> executive director ryan hamilton said the latest false statement about republicans should come as no surprise to anyone who is paying attention and we are happy he has finally shed all pretense of being a conservative. >> stop right there. >> whoa. >> stop right there. the republican leaders that made

that statement are liars. i'm speaking directly to you. you're not a conservative. you're not close to being a conservative. chances are good -- i don't know how old are the people who wrote that statement but i was fighting for conservative causes while a lot of you were in diapers and when i was fighting for conservative causes we balanced the budget, not one year in a row, but four years in a row chbltd. we passed entitlement reform, we extended the life of medicare and strengthened nato. we pushed back against russian and the republican party of donald trump and the republican party of the very people who wrote that statement are responsible for the largest federal debt ever. the largest deficits in good economic times ever. they're responsible for the den

agrace and believing the word of vladimir putin over the fbi director. believing the word of an ex-kgb agent over the word of donald trump's own appointed cia director and director of national intelligence. you also support a senate majority leader, moscow mitch, who has killed every attempt to protect the united states from a growing threat that the u.s. military, the fbi, the cia, the dni, the department of homeland security says is emanating from russia. they're invading the united states and pose an immediate threat to american democracy. that's the word of our entire intel community and the military. it's not the words of me or anybody at msnbc. or "the new york times" or "the washington post." that's our intel community.

you know nothing about being a conservative, absolutely nothing about being conservative. this is not about ideology. this is about your blind fealty to donald trump. you have chosen to follow a con man and a scam artist who spent his life giving money to nancy pelosi and hillary clinton and rahm emanuel and the democratic national committee and now is pushing protectionist policies the republicans used to despise. and how does he -- how does he pay off others who are hurt by these protectionist policies? he comes up with an idea of a $16 billion socialist farm bill that is the biggest socialist farm bill scam in the history of the united states of america which of course goes to big corporate farmers.

not rank and file farmers and you're lecturing anybody on being conservative. you're not conservative. i know conservative. i am conservative. you are pathetic. >> that's where we are. >> and by the way, sam stein, you know more about this story. but we have seen it in washington, we have seen it across the country. you have these party leaders who are sycophants for donald trump. they don't know the meaning of conservative. they probably never read hyatte, they probably read milton friedman. they probably read russell kirk. they don't know what conservative is. >> yeah, i mean, this is -- when i saw this statement from the nebraska republican party i was shocked but also not shocked because fealty to trump is the defining ideology of modern republican party right now. and i just think, you know, we're having this larger discussion about what will happen in the wake of el paso, whether gun rights laws will change and, you know, if you're

sober minded about it the answer is not much is going to happen until trump givens some sort of signal that he's letting the people lose and/or one republican follows another republican, follows another republican and says enough is enough. so you diagnosed the problem pretty much straight forward, there are two people standing in the way of any legislative action here. one is donald trump and the other is mitch mcconnell. and until one of them is willing to break that's where we are. >> you know, i have got a question for you, mika. ben sasse, isn't he from nebraska? >> yeah. >> you know i haven't heard from him in a long time. >> he keeps hiding. i don't know what -- >> he had such a strong sense of self and sense of what is right and wrong and -- >> well -- >> very strong. i -- >> where is he? >> i wonder why he speak out here? i know george pete bush is not afraid to speak out when things are going on inside his state. where is ben sasse? does he think he can just hide for the rest of his term?

>> apparently. which is -- you know, at this point, something that we're not shocked by. that's the issue i want to ask about. i guess i'll take it to gene or anybody who has some historical perspective here, because look at trump's grip on these republicans. even down to the local level. trump's grip on them muting them, making them spineless. spineless politicians who literally don't stand for anything anymore. changing who they are if they ever were leaders who believed in america. trump's grip looks to me, gene, like something very un-american. is there anything in history that matches what we're seeing today? >> not that i think of, really. i've never seen a party in thrall to one figure --

>> in history -- >> well, right. in history. u.s. history. >> there are events and times that countries are led by people who do not have a sense of american values. this does not look american to me at all. the way this is going. >> well, it doesn't look american because it's not. or at least historically and it's certainly not conservative or republican as i understand the term, as i understand the terms for my entire life. and really, there are two people here. there's donald trump and there's mitch mcconnell. and mcconnell to a certain extent has -- follows the trump agenda but he also has his own agenda preserving his majority protecting his republican senators from having to take votes that they need to take, going on record. and it's -- you know, this party

has forfeited the right to -- the right to hold office, the right to lead. it really has. it is disgraceful and the solution ultimately is to vote them out. just to vote them out. it is -- there should be more focus among democrats not just on the presidency in 2020 but on the senate as well. because you know, guess what? we get rid of donald trump and moscow mitch is still going to be there. and still going to be blocking any much needed legislation on guns and on a whole range of things and it's got -- >> and securing our democracy. >> yeah. >> that's why something bigger seems to be happening. we'll get to all the different angles here. steve rattner on the business angle. we need to get to alisa menendez

on the 20,000 foot look at all of this. and joining us now though is democratic presidential candidate mayor pete buttigieg of south bend, indiana. mayor pete, really good to have you on the show. >> good to be back. >> can you describe to us what you see happening, especially with president trump and the republican party and the inability of republicans to stand up to what they see? >> you know, i remember a time when the republican party was associated with security. with the idea of keeping us safe. it's very clear what we have right now is an intersection of two things that make us very unsafe. that undermine our security. one of them is the loose gun safety laws in this country. the other one is domestic terrorism, powered by white nationalism and white supremacist ideology. and this president is incapable

and this party refuses to do anything about it. you think about the fact that the house finally acted in a modest way but at least they acted to do something about background checks. of and senator mcconnell won't even allow a vote to happen. it calls for us to ask okay, what would it take to really have it be different this time? we always say this time is different but here we are. one more time. you know, after 9/11 we said this is going to change us. we are never going to be the same. we're going to unite, we're going to do something and how ever imperfectly our nation came together and took a lot of steps to keep us safe. are we going to do the same this time or not? a lot of it depends on the senate. congress is in recess right now. great time to find senators in their home states and what i'm urging our supporters to do on my campaign is really think about this with an action mentality. we put out a text through our organizing program and last night about 15,000 people used

that link in order to have a call into their senator's offices. as senators are going to their home states and communities across this country, somebody needs to be asking them whether they're going to continue to allow inaction to dominate washington and fail to keep us safe. >> mr. mayor, it's willie geist, good to have you on this morning. there's obviously as the country is bombarded with the horrifying images and stories out of el paso and dayton about parents, people shielding their newborn babies in walmart, there's emotion around it. there's got to be common sense gun reform, but that's not specific, that's an emotion. let's talk about your plan. if you become president, what's realistic for the american people to expect you do can do on the question of guns? >> well, first of all, we know that there are steps that the american people support, that would get through congress if they actually had the courage to do it.

obviously, universal background checks including closing the so-called hate loophole. right now, being convicted of a hate crime in most parts of this country is no obstacle to your being able to acquire a weapon. we know we we have to have stronger red flag laws and we need to act in order to do away with the research ban. the fact that the cdc is prevented by law from even researching gun violence as a public health issue begs the question what is it that they don't want the researchers to find out? and this is clearly the influence -- not so much of gun owners but of the executives of gun companies who are viewing this entire thing as a matter of money. same thing with assault weapons. look, the kind of weaponry that i handled when i was deployed overseas has no business in american neighborhoods. the fact that the dayton shooter

was able to kill that many people in about a minute shows you that it really does matter what kind of weaponry is in people's hands. this isn't just about the gun side. we have a lot more work to do when it comes to countering violent extremism at home. i think frankly that this white house and party doesn't want to act because they're embarrassed about their own relationship to this kind of extremist ideology at home. but that's no excuse for allowing it to fester and in many cases allowing it to kill. >> so mr. mayor, i'll take the other side of it and let you respond. even universal background checks wouldn't have swept up either of the two shooters in dayton and el paso. people say you can ban all the guns in the world and there are still more guns than people in the united states and somebody with hate in his heart and someone who wants to get a weapon and wants to kill people will find one. what do you say to the defeatism, there's some things we can do but it's never enough.

how do you respond to that? >> for as long as i have been alive america has fallen into the habit of accepting the unacceptable. we do it on health care, accepting we're on the only country in the developed world we don't have national health care and living with the fact because it's been this way for quite a while that we're going to have crumbling roads. we accept it on guns as though there's nothing to be done. we are the only country where this happens all the time in the way that it does. also there's nothing that can be done. of course bad things will still happen but if that were really an argument against gun laws it would be an argument against all laws. look, not every single incident can be prevented. that doesn't mean you don't bother. after 9/11 we didn't say, you know, even if we put together the -- the best counterterrorism program some highly motivated terrorists are still going to get through, so you know, we shouldn't bother. let's just not bother to do anything about terrorism. a highly motivated terrorist is still going to get their hands

on -- no, you take action. if the action moves the number of people who will be vulnerable to losing their lives down to something higher than zero, but less than it is today, then you'll be glad that you took that action. >> of course after 9/11, dick cheney and george w. bush and the bush white house adopted the 1% solution. if there was a 1% chance that something could lead to more bloodshed from islamic terrorism then they were going to do everything they could to stop it. of course, republicans now appear to be in the opposite direction. there has to be a 99% chance, even 100% is not enough to make them move. let me ask you this, mayor pete. there aren't right -- it's shocking to me, but there are not any federal laws on the book to actually prosecute people for domestic terrorism. if you're president of the united states, what does that law -- that domestic terrorism law look like? >> yes, that has to change.

we have to be empowered to act on domestic terrorism because it's becoming the bulk of the threat. consider this. over 70% of arrests related to international terrorism happened before an attack takes place. the reverse is true when it comes to domestic terrorism, over 70% happen unfortunately after there's been an attack or after there's been an act of violence. we need the means and it won't be easy to set this up because as we do it, we of course have to make sure that we are protecting our liberties. we learned a lot of things the hard way during the response after 9/11. this is often a surgery that you have to undertake with the scalpel. but look, the bottom line is we have woefully inadequate resources for combating violent extremism at home. so much good work has been done on counterradicalization, trying to reverse the radicalization that's happening overseas for example in some corners of the islamic world and yet right here at home they have actually cut

the funding for a program in the department of homeland security that addresses just these issues. when it does come to the international links and unfortunately you know white nationalism is a global phenomenon too. we need the national center to at least be empowered to invest gate the international connections. i'm proposing that we invest a billion dollars in countering violent radicalism and extremism at home and empower the department of homeland security to act on these threats. and come up with a legal framework that gets ahead of these kinds of hate crimes and these kinds of home grown terror networks. >> all right. mayor pete, thank you so much. we really appreciate it. and good luck on the trail. >> thanks, good to be with you. so all right. so alicia, let's look at this

from 30,000 feet. mayor pete brought up a couple of great points. first of all, the cdc can't even look at the impact of gun violence and it's not just the mass shootings. i think 40, 45 people were shot in chicago this past weekend. you look every weekend around the united states. people are getting injured, are killed from gunfire. and yet, the cdc can't do a report. we have cut the -- the federal government has cut research into that. also the ability to track down home grown terrorists. what do we do and at what point do the american people say enough? >> right. how do you reconcile the fact that republican elected officials aren't necessarily where republican voters are. republican electeds are much more resistance to gun control than the voters and the majority of republican voters support

background checks, a majority support red flag provision and to pull this all together it's part of the perversity around this language of invasion that the president uses to talk about the southern border. it's supposed to make us feel as though we are unsafe as though the threat is coming from outside. when really if you look at these numbers around right wing extremism the threat is coming from inside. so it is interesting to me that in the wake of el paso, you have the congressional hispanic caucus led by joaquin castro putting out three requests. one, that the president stop using this language of invasion. that seems like a very low bar to clear. then on top of that, talking about coming back, doing some type of gun control legislation and third, taking seriously offering funding to this question of right wing extremist terrorism and really a basket of issues and you can't take one without the other. >> they all have -- they all

have to be used together and also the facts -- the facts are stubborn things and the fact that illegal crossings were at a 50-year low when barack obama left office. but donald trump according to a lot of experts actually by talking about invasion, invasion, invasion and talking about his wall, actually precipitated a crisis that allowed smugglers to go to potential immigrants and say, we need to rush up there now because donald trump is talking about walls and he's talking about an invasion. we need to get there as quickly as possible. so again, under barack obama and his leadership, those illegal crossings were at a 50-year low and they only spiked under donald trump. i don't know if you saw this, but andrew ross sorkin has a letter to the chief check conservative of walmart.

dear mr. mcmillan t massacre at your store over the weekend were a tragedy and so were the shooting deaths days earlier of two walmart employees at a walmart store in mississippi. so too was the mass shooting in dayton, ohio. and the multitude of others in recent years. it is clear that this country is suffering from an epidemic that law enforcement and politicians are unable or unwilling to manage. and in the depths of the crisis lies an opportunity for you to help end this violence. you singularly have a greater chance to use your role as chief executive of the country's largest retailer and largest seller of guns with greater sway over the entire ecosystem that controls gun sales in the united states than any other individual in corporate america. steve rattner, yesterday, we were asking what ceos were still

funding donald trump's campaign and funding the white supremacy that he was spewing out on the campaign trail because that white supremacy is attached to those ceos, those coos and those companies that contribute to donald trump's white supremacy campaign. that whether it's the nazi chants, the fascist chants of send her back or whether it's people shouting shoot them and donald trump laughing and applauding -- everybody applauding. and we're going to have somebody on later this week from colombia sportswear who actually answered that challenge and spoke out about some of the more offensive chants. but i mean, i'm just curious, where do ceos, where do companies that have pacs, where -- i mean, how exactly do they contribute to a president who is now directly linked to

white nationalism and white nationalist chants? >> well, look, i think obviously that is not what you want to see happen. i don't know how much comes out of the companies themselves. i don't know honestly how much the ceos would actually contribute to trump. i think that he certainly has many supporters in the business community for his business policies and they like his tax cuts, they like his deregulation and they support him for that. but the ceo's i know, most are not white supremacists, they don't want to support white supremacists and it will be interesting to see what they do as a result of this. i think andrew sorkin raises an interesting idea that walmart does have this exceptional position in the ecosystem to actually push back on the gun problem. and the chairman of walmart is a reasonable guy and it will be interesting to see if they start to step up and do something to help instead of being on the

sidelines like so many of the republican politicians you were talking about before. >> and tom nichols, i guess it could be another part of this puzzle is ceos who could make up for -- for what republicans aren't saying but for many it might be tough because they're benefitting potentially from trump's policies. it would call for them to have a moral standing on all of this and to step up and speak out. >> and that's the problem. currently the republican party and everyone here has identified the president and the senate majority leader as the problem. the republican party stands for power and money at this point. and in senator mcconnell's case the prerogatives of the senate. ceos would have to step forward and to address this violence by again changing the culture which

is something the republicans are not willing to do. because they're not willing to speak out. because people like romney and ernst and ben sasse who is missing somewhere at this point won't step forward. so it is possible that ceos could take a role in this and change the culture and to say, you know, we could do with guns -- we'll -- i shouldn't say that. i don't mean to be as defeatist as mayor pete points out, but, you know, america has a second amendment but we don't -- we can make the gun culture less attractive, less romantic. do something with it that we did with things like smoking or drinking and to say, you know, that there is such a thing as too much of the glorification of this kind of culture because the young men -- it's always men. the young men in this are shopping for ideologies and they're attracted to the romance of guns and violence. and that -- that intersection has become a really powerful and

dangerous thing in this country and no one is speaking up about it. because they're paralyzed by fear. i'll just add one more thing. the republicans really have become the party that fears facts and science, that they don't want to let the kind of studies go forward because they're not confident in their own position. they know that they're -- their own electeds are far away from where their own people are on this. so we really have to break that logjam somehow. but as long as there's the united front from the white house to the corporate world i don't think that's going to happen. >> alicia menendez, we have heard it for a generation after the shootings and there's a frustration that nothing tends to come from them. i have heard just anecdotically in the last few days they thought sandy hook was the moment, when first graders were slaughtered in the classrooms that the country would come to terms with the massive problem in front of it. do you believe that something is different this time?

do you see any hope that things change maybe at the very least in the way we approach white nationalism as a domestic terrorism problem? >> right, a good question. you can feel the frustration. it is palpable. i mean, if anything, what happened in el paso -- there have been alarm bells going off about this for months. there are people trying to warn us and yet, we have not heeded that alarm. i think it remains an open question, i mean, el paso revealed to us how deeply unprepared we are as a country to tackle this threat. whether or not we are ready to take action on it, i think unfortunately remains an open question. >> alicia menendez, steve rattner, tom nichols, thank you all. coming unfederal sentencing guidelines calling for life plus ten years in prison for the trump supporter behind the pipe bomb plot against prominent democrats and journalists.

so why was he sentenced to just 20 years behind bars? we'll try to answer that question next on "morning joe." .

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cesar sayoc the florida man who pleaded guilty in march to mailing more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent critics of president trump days before last year's midterm elections has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. a federal judge yesterday concluded sayoc intentionally designed the bombs so that they would not detonate. according to "the washington post," prosecutors had sought life in prison. while sayoc's defense lawyers pushed for a ten year sentence. saying he was using large quantities of steroids when he became delusional in his support for trump. sayoc told the judge quote, i'm so sorry for what i did, now that i'm a sober man i know that i was a sick man. i should have listened to my mother the love of my life. joining us now, msnbc legal

analyst danny cevallos and david aronberg. >> so danny, there's so many things i don't understand about this. here's guy, a domestic terrorist, who actually in the heat of a campaign targeted democrats, targeted political figures. targeted media figures. and the prosecutors asked for life -- a life sentence. and the judge backed off. something that certainly i find it hard to believe he would have done if this had been an islamic terrorist. >> we know from the outset that sayoc was going to get at least ten years. that's because that's the mandatory minimum for one of the crimes he pleaded guilty to. between that ten years which the attorneys asked for, really ten years and a month, and the sentencing guidelines suggestion of life plus 120 months there was a lot of wiggle room for the judge. and what the defense pointed out, number one, there's no way he could have intended these to be real bombs. they were so ridiculously not real bombs. they had no components, maybe

cosmetically they appeared to be bombs, and in addition, he was suffering from mental illness, which i know isn't going to garner a lot of sympathy. but what should be considered is the fact that somewhat similarly situated defendants received lesser sentences even in the double digits which is far below what he received and the judge in this case concluded that he did not intend to make real bombs. >> so david aronberg, this leads to the larger question about -- well, you have the coast guard -- a member of the coast guard who put a hit list together, was inspired by other white nationalist murderers and that included not only media personalities, some of whom you know, but also a lot of democrats that were running for president against donald trump. and yet, they had a hard time keeping him in jail because there is no federal domestic

terrorism statute. how could that be, first of all, and secondly, is there one in the state of florida? >> there is not, joe. is not. the case you mention, the coast guard white nationalist found with a cache of weapons and was almost released pretrial because there is no code in the book for terrorism. had he given aid to isis or al qaeda, he would probably not have seen the light of day. that is something congress needs to fix. your previous point why he only got 20 years. the judge who is a respected juryist has been an out spoken critic of these mass incarceration. that provides some context here. i agree with the prosecutors

here that even though the bombs didn't go off and didn't have a chance of exploding. he would have filled the pipes with sand. that's not what he did here. he filled them with explosive powder, glass and pool chemicals to burn the skin of his targets and anyone nearby. >> this is an important question whether the law enforcement tools are sufficient for domestic terrorism. if you passed the law in one reason, it can be used in a variety of ways down the line. talk about what tools there might have and what holes there might be in bringing justice to these people. >> the sample that cesar sayoc pleaded guilty to many crimes. if federal prosecution, do we

need additional statutes like domestic terrorism laws? keep in mind, we have certain tools available to the government, to law enforcement to investigate foreign nationals because they don't have the same protensions that american citizens have. if you create legislation that targets doe me targets dos mess tick terrorism the same as international terrorism, you have to take into account the protections we would never give foreign nationals. we would much rather invade the privacy of foreign nationals if it means with he can protect american citizens. >> an interesting part of the story is that the defense attorneys for sayoc effectively blame the rhetoric of donald trump saying, quote, in this

darkness, mr. sayoc found light in donald j. trump. >> the judge found that sayoc was a devotee of donald trump. prosecutors pushed back on that saying he was radicalized way back in 2012 when he posted racist e-mails against barack obama and hillary clinton. the defense lawyers pointed at the fact that he lived in a van plastered with trump stickers and they say prosecutors didn't want to touch this because they work in trump's executive branch. that is something worth discussing. something that did not radical lies cesar sayoc is video games. >> that is true.

danny and dave, thank you both very much. still ahead, we'll talk to democratic senator sherrod brown of ohio after the mass shooting in his home state. his message, the senate majority leaders, let us do our jobs. we'll discuss that ahead on "morning joe."

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awarded "top pick" by cnet. demo at an xfinity store, call or go online today. xfinity home. simple. easy. awesome. >> we are joined together today in sadness, shock and grief. the pain and grief we all feel. a nation in grief. >> shock, horror and soar row. a country music concert. a place of worship. marjorie stoneman douglas high school. a walmart store.

let us pray for healing and for peace. join all americans in praying america comes together as one. we pull together. we join hands, we lock arms. we are all joined together as one. together, we lock arms to shoulder the grief. and we are here for you. we will never, ever leave their side. we are here for you and we will stand by their side forever. >> a brief history of brpreside trump addressing mass shootings in america. >> all the hopes and the prayers and kind words and well wishes, they may be helpful sometimes. as we've said time and again, without real action coming from this white house, without real action coming from moscow mitch

who by the way has gun safety on his desk, which he's killed. he should really put the tomb stones which we are going to show you. he put his political opponents in a grave star. i'm not sure if it was in russian or english the language. these two people, donald trump and moscow mitch are responsible for the killing of gun safety laws which make america less safe. they are gun safety laws you and i and 90% of america support. we are talking about expanded background checks, more universal background checks. you saw yesterday, the "new york post" came out with a front page

headline. rupert murder rupert murdock's post saying ban the weapons of war. that's the "new york post" saying that. well over 65-70% of americans agree with that. yet donald trump and moscow mitch are the only two people in washington, d.c. killing that legislation and assuring that donald trump continues -- a year from now, we will have to add ten more of those speeches. death tolls will continue to skyrocket. all because they refuse what you and your neighbors want them to do. >> these solutions are basic. the problems are becoming much bigger than the solutions.

we are waiting too long to do even the basics here. honestly, when you listen to the president's scripted words his aids wrote for him. what does locking arms mean when you fan the flames of racism. what does ban together mean when you put yourself out there with your own words as a national security threat. oug all of this has to be taken into context. this president is a racist and fans the flames of hatred. one little scripted speech means absolutely nothing in all of this. with us, editor from the daily beast, msnbc analyst a and prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst, cofounder and ceo of axios joins us as well.

>> willie geist, let me go to you. i speak for myself here but the president of the united states saying those words, far preferable to the president of the united states not saying those words. the president calling out white supremacy even though he has played a large roll-over the last three or four years, even looking at the stat tisices of white supremacy exploding. the president calling out white supremacy as opposed to not. as we are seen in charlotte and in those rallies where those nazi chants were rising up, send her back. the president apologizes and then backs off and seems to double down, so it is really hard to say, willie, what comes

out of this latest speech he gave yesterday. >> again, the president clearing an incredible low bar condemning white supremacy. as mika said, the president gave a speech, read a speech off a tell prompter collecty disconnected to everything he's set in the last four year since he came down the stairs. donald trump said this yesterday, quote, now is the time to set destructive pa partisanship aside. it is a speech if another president made it, you'd say yeah, those are the right things to say. you don't get to walk in for six, six, eight minutes and make a speech that has nothing to do with the things you've done and

said during the time preceding it. they are just words from the president and the teleprompter. >> they are words and they have to be followed by actions. what actions? well, the president talked about expanded background checks. call moscow mitch back. he's of course setting up graveyards and putting names of his political opponents on tomb stones and tweeting them outright after a slaughter in el paso and ohio. maybe if moscow mitch is not too busy doing that and also killing legislation that would affect american democracy -- here he is. he calls himself the grim reaper. you will see, he has what he calls a graveyard. he has the name of his political opponent on a tomb stone and

tweets it out thinking that it is appropriate with -- by the way, one of their followers got 20 years in prison for sending pipe bombs to political opponents. to mitch mcconnell thinks that is funny and on the day families are getting ared to burry their loved ones that were going back to school shopping and a white sprem s supremacist attacks. maybe donald trump can call him back to washington and get what 90% of americans want. that is expanded background checks that will make america a safer place. >> still ahead, we'll remember the victims of the mass shootings and the lives they

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xfinity mobile is a different kind of wireless network designed to save you money. save up to $400 a year on your wireless bill. plus get $250 back when you buy an eligible phone. click, call or visit a store today. the death toll from the el paso mass murder now stands at 22. two more victims died from their injuries. one late sunday and another monday morning. the latest victim, 77-year-old juan velazquez. and 60-year-old retired staff sergent. he served six years in the army and another 17 in the texas army national guard.

he retired in 2001. >> by the way, this man served america. a gun was turned on him by a killer inspired by right wing hate rhetoric. the killer's manifesto reads shockingly like a donald trump speech. there you have again, people serving this country, proudly, gunned down because of hate that is stirred up by politicians in america. >> the youngest victim killed. 15 yooe 15-year-old javier rodriguez. we are told he loved to play soccer and was a good student. we are also hearing more from the father of andre anchondo who died protecting his wife jordan. police say he was killed trying

to protect their two-month-old son. >> they are both heroes because they were doing their job as parents protecting children. >> two white house officials say the president is expected to travel to el paso and dayton in the coming days. i believe he misunderstood dayton for toledo. we are told he's likely to meet with first responders including border personnel in texas. will he meet with families? yesterday, trump delivered a prepared statement reacting to the shootings that included the deadliest hate crime towards latinos. it is reported one in five trump

adds on facebook have included the word invasion. trump made no reconcile of his condemnation of hatred and made no mention of hispanics or latinos, the group targeted by the gunman in el paso. >> the shooter in el paso posted a manifesto on line consumed by racist hate. in one voice, our nation with you condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. we must recognition that the intergnat is contributing to radicalize. mental illness pulls the trigger, not the gun.

we must make sure those judged to pose a great risk to public safety do not have firearms and if they do they can be taken by rapid process. i have called for red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders. >> so, the president, of course, chirping out the nra's line that it is not guns that kill people, it is mental illnesses that kill people yet our rate of mental illness is not higher than other industrialized countries and the number of murders are so much larger. with the president talking that way, what are you hearing about the two policy proposals put forward about the possibility of

expanded background check or all encompassing immigration reform plan? any chance that moves any time? >> i would say no chance on immigration reform. slight chance on background checks. you'll have more republicans come out today to talk about it. you hit at it at the top of the segment. one of the problems is going to be the first and second amendment going after this spread now of domestic terrorism. even if you did background checks and outlawed semiautomatic weapons. we still have so many damn guns on the street anybody who wants to get a gun can get a gun. you can't imagine those officials going back and taking back weapons people already have. then you talk about social media.

this is really hard to combat. because of free speech, it is really hard to force these companies or sniff out individuals gathering on social media. before, they had no place to gather. they can do it in mass and at scale and find like-minded people. >> what you are describing -- what you are describing is, of course, what isis was when isis was expanding in 2013 and 2014. the united states ignored isis. it wasn't until the government focused on stamping out isis that they were finally able to do that starting really in 2015, 2016. so a lot of americans asking, why can't we do the same thing now with this hatred?

>> you can and you can't. the government has a lot more flexibility and the fbi has more tools to be able to go after foreign threats as opposed to domestic threats. sometimes these debates get a little oversimplified. the media is doing a good job of grabbing people by the collar. last year was the worst for white nationalism and this year is already worse than last year. this is a real problem. you can't deny it. it is a huge problem. it goes against the back drop we've talked about where the country is changing. the white population is shrinking. no doubt, it has been a concerted part of the trump campaign to exploit the us versus them divisions. when you do in a, awfulness

happens. yes, you can say the shooting took place because of donald trump but you also can't deny when you look at the rallies and the campaign from supporters that things are getting cranked up to a level and is purposeful to really play into there is us and there's them. the only way you can really dial that back is through national leadership. you think about what george bush did versus trump. you can either say, the country is changing, let's adapt with it or exploit it. he's exploited it and we are now playing with fire. >> there is a direct line you can attach, the hateful speeches and the rallies and the language used in those rallies. you could draw a straight line to much of the language in these

manifesto. you have the manifesto coming out of el paso where the killer is specifically saying that there are too many hispanics. there is a hispanic invasion in texas and if it doesn't stop, democrats are going to take control of taxes and change the electoral map forever. suddenly, it becomes not only very political but very specific. willie, you know, it is interesting that this white nationalism and hate crime, the numbers have exploded since donald trump got involved in american politics. it was reported yesterday that hate crimes in areas where donald trump gave rallies in 2016 have gone up over 2,000 percent. the federal government is still not focusing on stamping out

hate crimes. a lot of people factor back in the obama administration, there was a frustration that the government would not even mention islamic rad ral extremeism and were slow to not go after isis. now here we are. that was the threat then. this is now the threat of our time. specifically since donald trump came into the white house. what's he doing? we still don't have a law on the book, which we'll talk about later, to arrest people for domestic terrorism. >> don't take our word foreto. you the last majority of terror threats and plots have been what you could owe up to white

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>> president obama is speaking out following america's latest mass shootings in a lengthy statement, the former president called for stricter gun control laws and appears to take a rare, semiveiled swipe at president trump writing in part, we should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds the climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments. leaders who demonize those who don't look like us or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life or refer to other people as sub human or imply america belongs to one certain type of people, such language isn't new,

it has been at the root of most human tragedy in america and around the world. it is at the root of slavery and jim crow, holocaust, genocide in rwanda, and ethnic cleansing in the balkins. it is time for the overwhelming majority of americans of good will, of every race and political party to say as much clearly an unequivocally. thank you president obama for your honesty about our current commander and chief. >> some people were saying that president obama should have come out and said his name and taken it directly to donald trump. you would have to be living in a cave for the past four years to not know who president obama was talking about. >> it will never be enough for

some people but clearly he was talking about president trump. i was thinking as i heard president trump making remarks. if it were someone else looking at these moments saying i don't believe i'm responsible but in a moment of reflection, is there anything i'm doing or saying making it okay for other people to take action. am i giving space with my rhetoric giving place for these white nationalists that makes them travel from 8chan chat rooms to a walmart in el paso. unfortunate because in a moment like this, he could step up and say, i got to knock it off. i don't believe i'm responsible but if i'm contributing even a little to it, i've got to stop.

>> you can tell, gene robinson, that the man has never run for reelection before. you can tell that because what he doesn't understand is, what he gets away with for the moment stays with him forever. it is like vapor. what he says in these rallies will follow him throughout the campaign. here is a very good example of it. one of the reasons why he made the statement he made, watch this. >> this is an invasion. when you see these caravans starting with 20,000 people, that's an invasion. i was badly criticized for using the word invasion. it is an invasion. how do you stop these people -- you can't. that's only in the panhandle you can get away with that stuff.

[ cheers and applause ] only in the panhandle. so it is a tough situation. >> actually, from the panhandle, you can't get away with that, you can't get away with shooting somebody on fifth avenue like donald trump thinks. but gene, that stays with him forever as does every hateful screed ever said. the sent her back chants with him sitting there soaking that in. i guess he doesn't understand it. he needs to get as far away from that as possible. the only way he can do that is actually follow through with meaningful legislation and to stop the nonsense none of us

think he's going to do. >> i have absolutely no optimism in terms of donald trump realizing what he's going to be doing and taking any sort of real action that would turn things around. in that clip, he used the word invasion. here on msnbc and other networks, we've been running mond montages when he uses that phrase invasion when referring to latino immigrants. it buys into this whole white nationalist, racist conspiracy theory about an invasion of brown people to replace the white people in america.

it's directly related to that and anybody should know that but of course, maybe, donald trump really does -- maybe to him history really doesn't exist. maybe the only thing that exists in his head is what's happening today, what's happening now. >> coming up on "morning joe," senator sherrod brown decided against running for president so he would cork work on massing meaningful legislation on capitol hill. will that ever include greater gun control? we'll ask next on "morning joe." my experience with usaa

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those who perished in toledo. >> that was president trump naming the wrong city. a mistake as this photo shows was not in the teleprompter. the mayor had this to say. >> i've heard he's coming wednesday. i've not gotten a call. you know, he might be going to toledo. i don't know. >> police are still searching for the motive in the shooting in dayton, ohio. the suspect's sister is among the victims. no indication that race was a motive in this case. former classmates of the gunman

are questioning how he could have been allowed to buy the military style weapon used in the attack. they say he was suspended during his junior year of high school after a hit list was found in a bathroom. following an earlier suspension after he came school with a list of female students he wanted to sexually assault. police reveal he was armed with magazines if full would have carried 250 rounds. they have recovered at least 41 shell casings fired by the shooter. >> joining us now, senator sherrod brown of ohio. thank you for being on the show. you are hoping get to work and come back from the recess and get some gun legislation done?

any response? >> not yet. i spoke to the mayor who tells me she got dozens of calls and texts from other mayors around the country, most of whom have had something like this happen in their city. it is so widespread. i called senator schumer and mcconnell to bring us back into session today or monday or any time this week. called senator schumer to talk to him. he's doing that to urge senator mcconnell. we could pass this in an afternoon. the president could sign it the same day. the house has already passed it. that's a first step and an important step. we should reinstitute the ban on assault weapons. that cut down on the number for a decade but the gun lobby stopped congress from renewing

it. >> you know, senator, things have changed quite a bit since new town. frustration is great. you look at public opinion from then forward. 90-95% of americans support background checks. the number of americans support an assault on military-style weapons shot up into the 60s and 1970' and 70s. the front of the "new york post" saying ban military style weapons now. is that an idea whose time has finally come? >> the idea has finally come but i look at the maillions of dollars the nra puts in to help

to spend to punish their enemies. i want to go back to something mika said at the beginning about the number of 41 empty shell casings and up to 250 bpotentia bullets that the shooter had with him. we know from the first shot to the last shot until the shooter was killed was only about 30 seconds. it was five police officers and a sargent that rushed in. yesterday, when connie and i were in dayton, i was talking to some rescue squads and first responders. it's like a war zone. the kinds of choices, the triage you'd see in a war zone. you step over one body, somebody

that looked probably dead to try to save somebody else that person's sister is begging them please take care of my brother and they have to choose which people to try to save. that's because of these magazines when they can do these assault weapon-style machine guns call them whatever you want, where you can find dozens of rounds in the space of a minute or two. that's why many police officers say to me, those civilians cannot have those kinds of weapons. they are weapons of war. >> thank you for being with us this morning. i cited a poll that showed 97% of americans approve of background checks. you can't get 97% of people to

agree on anything. i understand the two shooters passed background checks and legally bought their firearms. what is the idea when you bring that to mitch mcconnell? how does he argue against 97%? >> he just doesn't. he just says his members don't want to do it or we'll argue about it later, we'll get it to the judges. he doesn't give answers to the colleagues or the press. he's protecting the majority. he knows the gun lobby has put, will put millions into protecting his majority. i know how they spent millions against people they don't like. i'm okay with that. i can win in a state like ohio with that.

i know a lot of people don't see it that way. that's why shows like this matter, those polls matter. pushing them to bring us back this week to and do something. >> there does appear to be agreements on the legislation or reform. this idea of red flag laws where if there is somebody like the dayton shooter puts a kill list up and a rape list up in high school, there are people who could petition a court to say you need to go and temporarily seize their guns. is that something you would support? >> yes, i would support. just like at airports if you are on a watch list, you can't go get on a plane but you can buy an assault weapons. we should close all those

loopholes. when i hear my colleagues in the house or the governor's office in ohio where they've done virtually nothing. it is so predictable. first my thoughts and prayers are with the victims. all of us feel that, of course. they say now is not the time in the middle of the tragedy and then they talk about mental health. when you look at what happened in texas. white supremacy is not a mental illness, it is a choice. to put this on mentally ill people always, as they always do, most people who are mentally ill don't hurt others. they are likely to hurt themselves. at the same time, the same crowd says this is about mental illness and want to cut funding for treatment of mental illness. i was in a treatment center in cincinnati a couple of years

ago, the people were being treated for opiod addiction. one man said, my daughter is alive today because of medicaid. thousands of people in my state have medicaid now because of the affordable care act. people want to talk it is all about mental illness and not guns. they are just wrong. >> they are talking in circles. they never want to talk about the crisis in front of them. we have other panalists that want to ask you and it in to talk about gun safety. i wanted to just ask one quick side question and get your in sight because a lot of people have been talking about mitch mccon a mcconnell and calling him moscow mitch and not understanding why

this man is ignoring the warnings of republican appointed fbi director, republican appointed cia director, republican appointed confirmed department of homeland security director who have said time and again to congress that american democracy is at risk. their words, not mine. american democracy is at risk from vladimir putin. in 2016 and trying again in 2020. and yet muitch mcconnell can yo give us insight as to why this is happening. many americans don't understand where mitch mcconnell is killing

every bill aimed at protecting american democracy. >> i was on the floor when mcconnell stood up. i just walked in and he was speaking to an empty chamber. defending himself from people calling him moscow mitch. it was remarkable. he talked about how tough he was on the soviet union. he was so defensive. there is an old saying, when you throw a dog at a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one you hit. he is clearly defensive on this. he never gets rattled. he is defending this president. he believes -- i don't know what he believes. i know the president believes he needs the russians for reelection. he will benefit from them coming

in. i think mitch mcconnell more than anything. my colleague south of me over the ohio river needs donald trump to protect his moajority. if trump loses, he loses his majority. no question the russians are in again and will turn up the volume on what they are doing in this election of 2020. no question about that coming from any intelligence people in this country. most are republicans appointed by a republican president. putin and the russians are back. never really left. they will do more. they want us in congress to do something and mitch mcconnell refuses. >> turning back to gun safety for a second.

obviously, there are people in the senate that want to pass new laws. as you pointed out, there is a log jam, there is money and things that prevent people who about this issue, is it possible the time is to look past the senate, past congress, to direct action by consumers, boycotts, and at businesses as my colleague pointed out in "the times" today, walmart is a huge seller of arms and there are ways to put pressure on businesses. >> well, yeah. absolutely there is. and i think more and more corporations realize they're on the wrong side of history, realize they're going to take a hit to their bottom line if they continue to play ball with, essentially with the nra and the gun lobby because they contribute to it. i'm hopeful particularly with social media with all of the terrible things that have come out of social media on white

supremacy and hate crimes and racist rhetoric, from the president to the people that are so emboldened by this president. we know the klan and these groups like this president, like what he does and says. that should be enough to know. but with all of that, we can push back and people can push back. you're saying that on a show watched as widely as this. and then pushed out in the hours and days after the show is really important to build a movement because that will put more pressure on politicians in washington to do it, too. >> senator sherrod brown, thank you very, very much for being on the show. good luck. then this. police in gilroy, california will hold a joint news conference later today with the fbi to discuss developments since a gunman opened fire at a food festival last -- >> i wonder, mika, do americans

even remember that, that at one of the largest food festivals in america just last week? >> there is a shooting every other day, every day. >> americans were slaughtered. >> mass shootings have become a way of life. >> and then two more rapidly followed. these are happening so quickly that the nra, the three lobbyists in washington d.c. that have been found to be so corrupt that they're stealing money from, according to these reports, that we've read in "the new yorker" it appears they're stealing money from their own members, they're ignoring their own members, who the majority want background checks expanded. but this is happening so quickly. is donald trump going to keep listening to these corrupt leaders of the nra or is he going to listen to actual members of the nra and #t97% of americans and give us expanded background checks? the tragedies keep happening one after another after another and

they are not going to stop until action is taken. >> as politico noted yesterday, speech included no mention by donald trump of that mass shooting, which happened in the same week and illustrates how quickly these horrific incidents are apparently forgotten or minimized because of the sheer number of them. the 19-year-old assailant who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound killed three people -- a 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl, and a 25-year-old man. officials say the suspect posted white supremacist propaganda on instagram shortly before the attack. investigators do not believe he was targeting a specific group. a motive has not yet been established. >> and, yet, another white supremacist, with too many guns, goes out and shoots up communities. >> up next we'll go live to el paso.

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joining us now the watch dog reporter for "the el paso times" and thanks so much for taking time with us this morning. we appreciate it. we heard from congresswoman veronica escobar who represents the district there in el paso. we heard from native and presidential candidate beto o'rourke that the president of the united states is not welcome there. what is the feeling on the ground as the president prepares to travel there this week? >> sure. well, last night a couple of the people in the community got together, planning on not very welcoming to trump coming into town. a lot of it has to do with the outrage and the frustration some of the people in the community have toward the president's

rhetoric when it comes to immigration and certainly to the way he has handled the situation. >> we should say, the mayor of el paso says he will perform his professional duty and welcome the president and be there with him. >> i want to follow up a little bit with aaron here. what happens? he is going to show up it seems like. clearly there is antipathy among political leaders there about him showing up. so there's a lot of tension there. as you talk to people, what are we lookingat? the possibility of political protests? are we going to look at a collegial welcoming of the president? how would you predict this plays out? >> well, sure. i mean, you can very much expect to see protests from the people in the community, who are just outraged, who will be calling for some kind of gun control legislation from congress. they'll be calling the president to support something like that. but, also, what a lot of the community is just upset with is

when the president tweeted out yesterday we need some kind of gun control measures and tied it in with immigration. that didn't set well with community members. these are two separate subjects that need their own, unique attention and that's a little bit about the people's frustrations that you're going to sense. >> aaron, you're in el paso, a border town, talking about the community. the community often interacts with the other town across the border, jaurez. what is the reaction there in look ath tho looking -- the towns, how they're look ath everything, the president wrongly bringing up immigration and gun safety, but what is going on in the community level? >> sure. well, certainly one of the big differences in this incident is that el paso and jaurez, mexico, are very tight knit communities. these may be two countries but they have a very unique identity

and they feel that they're intertwined. you know, just from the reporting you'll see that several mexican nationals were kill at this walmart. and that's because there is such high traffic from chihuahua and a lot of people who come from jaurez to shop here in el paso, a lot of people in el paso have family. they have friends who live in jaurez. so this tragedy is really impacting the community on both sides of the border, simply because of how close knit these communities are. and you're going to see vigils in jaurez, mexico for the people who they've lost and for the people we've lost here and vice versa. >> clearly, why the mass murderer traveled so far to come to that community. watch dog reporter for the el paso times, aaron montes, thanks so much. joe, final thoughts this morning? well, i'm just curious about what you and mika think. for me, there are so many parts of this story. but the disconnect between

republicans in congress and the american people they're supposed to serve is massive. they ignore 95%, 96%, 97% of americans who want background checks. they ignore the majority of americans who said in a recent poll the president is a racist. they're still defending him. >> i mean, you can't look at this president in one single moment. you have to look at the pattern and then figure out what side do you stand on, the side for democracy and the united states of america or something else? republicans, please consider that. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. thanks so much, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. here's what's happening now. in any minute, the governor of ohio is set to give an update about the investigation in dayton in the wake of the shooting that killed nine people there. this comes as we are getting new details about the shooting that took place in el paso just hours before and how the gunman even endedn